Willamette Falls brings an opportunity for healing
By Andrew Mason
If you ask the average person in Oregon to name the location of Willamette Falls, you’ll probably receive a blank stare. In fact, many residents of Oregon City—a city of 37,000 located 13 miles south of Portland—live just a few miles from the second-largest waterfall by volume in North America and don’t even know it exists. Plunging over four-story-high basalt cliffs, Willamette Falls is hidden between two massive industrial sites and has been closed to the public for 150 years, largely remaining a mystery to most residents of the region.
There’s an effort to change that. The community is working to bring the wonder of Willamette Falls into view and create a world-class experience for visitors from near and far. But for that to happen, it means going back much further than 150 years. The site’s relatively recent industrial history is only part of the story.
The Project: Willamette Falls Riverwalk
In 2011, a collaboration among the Portland area’s regional government, Metro, Oregon City, Clackamas County, and the state of Oregon launched a partnership to develop a plan for the site’s future—the Willamette Falls Legacy Project. With significant community input, the vision for a major public/private investment, the Willamette Falls Riverwalk, was born. The riverwalk aims to create a series of pathways and plazas along the river, giving visitors an up-close experience of Willamette Falls, while catalyzing economic redevelopment of the surrounding area, restoring critical wildlife habitats, and honoring its deep historic and cultural interpretations.
In 2015, the non-profit group Willamette Falls Trust was formed to engage the community at a more personal level, raising private funds to support the vision of the riverwalk and fostering relationships with individuals with deep personal connections to the Falls. From the outset, Willamette Falls Trust and the Legacy Project Partners were convinced that the success of this project would require significant engagement with the many cultural, environmental, and economic connections to the Falls. This unique partnership seeks to bring to light these important stories and the natural wonder that has been shuttered away for more than 100 years.