By Rich Burk

The site where PGE Park sits has been the focal point of many of Portland's athletic and community events for well over 100 years. From soccer to baseball, from presidential speeches to war bond drives, from Elvis thrusting to, believe it or not, ski jumping, this plot of land has seen it all.

It all began here in 1893. That year, the two-year-old Multnomah Amateur Athletic Club ("Amateur" would later be dropped from the club's title) leased this plot of pastureland in an area then known as Tanner Creek Gulch. (Fifty years before, the site had been home to a tannery.) Naturally, they called it Multnomah Field.

"Multnomah Field featured a natural amphitheater perfect for athletic use," wrote the authors of Legacy of the Twenty-Six, the Multnomah Athletic Club's 100th anniversary book, published in 1991. "A small grandstand was constructed in the northwest corner close to the end of the field. In the southwest corner stood the training house, where athletes dressed and showered, or had pregame rubdowns with a concoction of goose grease, witch hazel and alcohol."

From the beginning, Multnomah Field was home to every popular outdoor athletic event of the day: baseball, football, track and field, bicycle racing, cricket, and many others. In 1895, the site even hosted a major league baseball exhibition game. In October of that year, a group of barnstorming big-leaguers blasted an amateur team which included MAAC members, 22-4.

One of Multnomah Field's bigger events of that early era took place on New Year's Day of 1894, when the football team from the Multnomah Amateur Athletic Club squared off against the team from Stanford University. The MAAC team was coached by Yale legend Pudge Heffelfinger, but they lost anyway, 16-0.

The grandstand bordering the west side of the field originally seated about 3,000 people; by the end of the first decade of the 20th century, a new steel grandstand had been erected, affording seating for more than 10,000 fans. The north side of the field, where the "U" in PGE Park now sits, was bounded by the huge wooden Exposition Building, touted as the largest wooden structure west of the Mississippi.

Professional baseball was first played on this site in 1905. The famed Lewis & Clark Fair that summer forced the Portland Giants (it wasn't until the following season that they would be known as the Beavers) to move a number of their games to Multnomah Field from their ballpark at the corner of 24th and Vaughn Street in Northwest Portland. Let's have more games at Multnomah Field, wrote Oregonian sports editor Will G. MacRae, in light of the bad condition of the regular field due to use by the fair.

In 1909, President William H. Taft visited Multnomah Field. Twenty thousand school children were in attendance, and nearly 4,000 of them formed a living American flag. Taft said, "It was the most beautiful and inspiring spectacle I have ever witnessed."

If he'd wanted a spectacle, Taft should have been there nine months later. Early in the morning of July 14, 1910, the Exposition Building caught fire. By the time the flames were fully doused, seven city blocks had been destroyed, including the MAAC clubhouse and Multnomah Field's new grandstand. The fire had been hot enough to melt the supporting steel girders.

By the following summer the grandstand had been replaced, but it still wasn't suitable for Portland's growing populace. (The 1900 federal census had placed Portland's population at about 90,000. By 1920, that figure had grown to about 250,000.) At the end of the 1910s, the Rose City's lack of a major venue was glaring.

"[It's]" time to point out that Portland. . . has no big athletic and community stadium built or under way, Oregonian sports editor L.H. Gregory wrote in 1921.

That was still true two years later when President Warren G. Harding came to Portland. A crowd estimated to be between 25,000 and 30,000 packed themselves into every nook and cranny of Multnomah Field; some even climbed trees and telephone poles to be able to see the President.

There was pressure within the community for the Multnomah Amateur Athletic Club to assume the responsibility for providing Portland with a true outdoor arena. Both the University of Oregon and Oregon Agricultural College (later known as Oregon State University) hosted football games at Multnomah Field, and both schools had pointed out the need for a bigger facility. John A. Laing, the president of MAAC, said the club should have the immediate responsibility for developing its field to put Portland on the map for football, the Rose Festival and the other full-sized activities for our growing metropolis.

His membership agreed, and in 1925 the club approved plans for the new 28,000-seat Multnomah Stadium. The projected price tag: $500,000. To raise money, "plaques" which today would be called "seat licenses" were sold for $100. A plaque paid for the buyer's seats at the venue for five years, and gave the buyer the first opportunity to purchase those same seats for five more years. Within two months, $300,000 in plaques had been sold and construction began.

Architect A.E. Doyle's original plans for the stadium called for a complete horseshoe shape. A grandstand on the east side of the stadium was to have paralleled the present grandstand on the west side. However, the club didn't own all the property along 18th Avenue, so plans for the east grandstand were scrapped.

Multnomah Stadium was completed in the fall of 1926. Construction costs were on target: $502,000. On October 9 of that year, the stadium was formally dedicated as the University of Washington's football team beat the University of Oregon, 23-9. More than 24,000 fans were in attendance, and most were awe-struck by the stadium's grandeur. Said a writer of the day, "Strength was the factor most in evidence."

In spite of the stadium's size and beauty, it was denied the major tenant it sought. College football was played in the stadium occasionally, but that didn't go very far in covering the facility's operating costs. Rumors circulated in 1927 that the Beavers were a possible tenant. In June of that year, the Oregon Journal went as far as to write that Pacific Coast League baseball will be played in Multnomah Stadium next year…" 

It wasn't, and by 1932, Multnomah Stadium still had no major, consistent source of income.

Early in 1933, a solution was found. Oregon lawmakers that year approved pari-mutuel betting, opening the door for dog racing at Multnomah Stadium. The Multnomah Kennel Club was the stadium's lone major tenant, and biggest source of revenue, from 1933-55. And then, in 1956, baseball arrived.

Ten years later, the Multnomah Athletic Club sold the stadium to the city of Portland for $2.1 million.

In 1969, the stadium became the first outdoor baseball facility to install artificial turf. That winter was unusually wet even by Oregon standards, and the new Tartan Turf surface could not be installed on time. The '69 opener had to be delayed by two weeks, and even then, the playing surface wasn't completely ready. Most of right field didn't yet have the artificial turf, but the game between Eugene and Portland took place as scheduled. Portland lost when right fielder John Scruggs misplayed a ball off the exposed rubber turf foundation.

Two decades ago, the park underwent its last renovation, on a far smaller scale than the one undertaken in 2001. Among other things, a new roof was built, and the football press box was moved from atop the roof to below it.

In PGE Park's first three-quarters of a century, it hosted nearly every event imaginable. Jack Dempsey fights; college football; World Cup soccer; NASL soccer (Pele played his last game here); Major League Baseball and NFL exhibitions; concerts by artists such as Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Tom Petty, Van Halen; a V-J day prayer and Thanksgiving party; the comedy of Bob Hope; a Billy Graham week-long revival; the Rose Festival; and so much more. And yes, in the 1950s, even ski jumping, when a makeshift jump was constructed, towering high above the outfield.

First, this site was simply called Multnomah Field. Later, it became Multnomah Stadium, and then Civic Stadium. And now following its $38.5 million renovation its awe-striking grandeur returned in 2001, in the form of PGE Park.

It has served Portland well for more than 75 years. May that hold true for 75 more.