The Long Life of the 1896 Battleship USS Oregon

With its incredible World War II production record, any visitor to Portland could be forgiven for thinking the city’s waterfront would be dotted with memorials to the seven World War II shipyards. Sadly, they would find that there is absolutely nothing to mark to the region’s huge contribution to the war effort. In fact, the only memorial is dedicated to a pre-dreadnought battleship, the USS Oregon, built by Union Iron Works of San Francisco 1891-96. The story of its short but glorious career in the US Navy and long retirement is still worth re-telling.

This famous old battleship was 351’ long with huge four thirteen-inch guns and is sometimes more correctly described as “battle cruiser.” It was one of the last 19^th century warships built in the USA when the Assistant Secretary of the Navy was Teddy Roosevelt. The USS Oregon became a national icon in the spring of 1898 when it steamed over 13,700 miles from San Francisco to Florida via the Straits of Magellan after the U.S.S. Maine disaster in Havana, Cuba. The journey took 68 days including four stops to re-stock the coal bunkers.

It joined the U.S. Atlantic Fleet off the east coast of Cuba in time to participate in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba against the Spanish fleet. After this victory, the mighty Oregon was celebrated as “the first to see the enemy, the first to fire a shot, and the last to fire a shot,” and earned the nickname “Bulldog of the Navy.” The ship’s long voyages between the west and east coast were later cited as one of the justifications for the USA to build the Panama Canal.

This closed the most dramatic period in the ship’s life. After receiving a hero’s welcome in New York City, the USS Oregon returned to duty in the Pacific. Coincidentally, Teddy Roosevelt had resigned from the Department of the Navy to lead the Rough riders cavalry regiment during the Spanish-American war that followed the naval engagement. He also returned as a war hero, and went on to win the presidency in 1904.

Prior to World War I, the Oregon was involved in what could be called “gunboat diplomacy” during the US interventions in the Philippines and China. But technology was advancing rapidly and by 1915, it was militarily obsolete and was reduced to serving as an exhibit at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, during which it steamed to Panama and led a parade of American ships to open the canal. Interestingly, the young Franklin D. Roosevelt (a distant cousin of Teddy Roosevelt) was Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1913 to 1920 and played a part in preserving the USS Oregon.

The ship visited Portland for the Rose Festival in 1916, and played a minor role after World War I as an escort for American troop ships to Vladivostok during the Allied intervention in the civil war that followed the Russian Revolution. The old Oregon ended its naval career as the flagship for President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 when he reviewed the Pacific Fleet. Under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 that finalized the terms of the German surrender, the USS Oregon was decommissioned along with many other veteran warships.

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (son of Teddy R.)) was Asst. Sect. of the Navy from early 1921 to late 1924 when the Oregon– the most famous navy ship of its era–barely escaped the ignominious fate of becoming a target for gunnery practice or the scrap yard. It was instead designated as a floating memorial by the young Assistant Secretary who was influenced by public sentiment in the state of Oregon in favor of its preservation. In 1923, the state governor petitioned the government for custody of the battleship and the transfer was approved in the summer of 1925. Crowds lined the shore when it arrived in the Rose City and was moored on the Willamette River under the Broadway Bridge.

It became a very popular floating museum and veterans’ memorial in the city center and served as a community center for the offices and meeting rooms of patriotic and charitable organizations. However, when President Franklin D.Roosevelt visited Portland in 1935, he could only gaze upon the ship from a distance because he was unable to safely walk the long and insecure gangplank, due to his physical limitations. This motivated the Portland city council to authorize the construction of a permanent berth on four acres of parkland upstream of the Hawthorne Bridge on the west shore–now a favorite venue for summer music festivals.

In 1938 construction began on what was hoped would be the ship’s permanent home alongside a sea wall and memorial park with easy access to the ship. (During the move, Larry Barber made sure he was on the Morrison Bridge in the best position to photograph two steam tugs re-positioning the old battleship.) For the next couple of years, it continued to foster patriotism and pride in the navy. Admission was free for military personnel, veterans, and school children on field trips. Others paid 25 cents each to assist in maintenance costs.

From 1927 to 1941, through the Depression, it was Oregon’s best known connection with the armed forces until Pearl Harbor. But when the Kaiser organization opened the Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation downstream from the St Johns Bridge in 1940, and began turning out Liberty ships at an increasing rate, the old battleship began to lose its charisma. When the US declared war on Japan, patriotic Portlanders found many ways to participate in the war effort besides working in the manufacturing plants. They bought war bonds and opened their homes to help house the thousands of new workers arriving from all over the country.

By late 1942, the new War Production Board stated that the steel shortage had reached a “critical level,” and civilians were encouraged to search for unused steel in any form, including old sheds, handrails, kitchenware etc. Eventually, this patriotic fervor turned on the USS Oregon, which was now seen a potential source of many thousands of tons of scrap steel. It was declared surplus to the city’s needs and the declaration was approved by various officials up the chain of command all the way to the White House, where Roosevelt was finally persuaded to sign the death sentence for the grand old warship after 45 years of service.

On October 26, 1942, he wrote: “It is with great reluctance that I authorize the Navy Department to turn the USS Oregon over to the War Production Board for reduction to scrap metal.” On the first anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 4, 1942, a parade honoring the ship marched through the streets of downtown Portland. Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson, a member of the Naval Affairs Committee, delivered the keynote speech, as city, state and military officials attended. The front page of The Oregonian was dedicated to the ship and the place it had held in the city’s life.

The USS Oregon’s fate was now sealed. Dismantling work began early in November, starting with the main mast that was lifted off by a derrick barge and remarkably, saved for a future display. For many years, the ship’s trustees had accumulated a huge collection of nautical items and displays, including the well-known silver service that cost $25,000 and was paid for by pennies donated by local schoolchildren. There was no suitable building available to re-assemble the museum, and not much enthusiasm, so most of these mementos and the ship’s fine furnishings eventually disappeared without a trace.

The citizens who had cared for the ship went back to work in the city’s booming war industries, but the stakeholders continued to argue over the ship’s disposal. Apparently, two Portland businessmen purchased it for $35,000 and hired a tug to tow it downstream to Kalama, Washington in January 1943. The superstructure and gun turrets were dismantled there, and the owners were hoping to sell the hulk on as a barge. But In September 1943, the War Shipping Administration forced the work to halt.

The federal Court of Claims reinstated the bare hull into military service and it was towed to the US Navy Shipyard in Bremerton on Puget Sound where the superstructure and gun turrets were dismantled. It was quickly re-built as a munitions barge, and was loaded with explosives and towed across the Pacific to Guam late in 1944. The cargo was intended for the invasion of Japan, which was canceled after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The former battleship now sat neglected and rusting on the island until 1954, when a committee in Washington DC consented to its final voyage. Ironically, It was scrapped by our former wartime foes in Kawasaki, Japan–sixty years after its festive launch, However, its reputation endures, and it will likely remain the most recognizable vessel to ever dock in Portland, far ahead of the next candidate—the SS Star of Oregon–the first of the 322 Liberty ships launched in Portland.

Postscript: The Oregon’s mast was erected next to the Harbor Drive expressway in October 1956, but by 1970 the environmental movement was growing and had identified the expressway as the last vestige of the ill-fated attempt to turn Portland into a city where the car was king, with freeways criss-crossing the city. In 1975, this stretch of road was one of the first in the nation to be permanently closed, bulldozed, and converted into the waterfront park named after Governor Tom McCall.