The first known observance of Memorial Day was in Charleston, South Carolina
in 1865. Freed enslaved African Americans, known as “freedmen”, celebrated
at the Washington Race Course, today the location of Hampton Park, and each
year thereafter. Observance of the event grew in the North and soon became
nationwide beginning in 1868.

JUNE 1, 1948

The public housing project Vanport, originally called Kaiserville, received its official
name in November 1942, taken from the two cities on either side of the Columbia
River—Vancouver and Portland. The first tenants arrived on December 12, 1942. It
was constructed to house wartime workers at the Kaiser Shipyards in Portland and Vancouver. Vanport was Oregon’s second largest city at the time with 40,000 people
and the largest housing project in the nation. The city was destroyed at 4:05 P.M. on Sunday May 30,1948, when a 200-foot section of a dike holding back the Columbia
River collapsed during a flood, killing 15 people.

Vanport before the flood, 1947

Construction of the Lincoln Memorial began in march of 1914. Work progressed
steadily according to schedule and, despite many changes to plans, the Memorial
was finished on schedule.

In attendance at the dedication Ceremony were (left to right) Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Howard Taft, President Warren G. Harding, and 79 year old Robert
Todd Lincoln,Lincoln’s only remaining son.

 
President Warren G. Harding (upper left) speaking at the dedication