Blue Lake Park advertisement, circa 1940s. Peter Bellant collection.

Real photo postcard of Blue Lake looking east toward Mt. Hood circa 1947. Christian photo.

To those of us who grew up in the shadow of Mt. Hood, we fondly recall picnicking and swimming excursions to Blue Lake Park which is located seven miles east of Portland, north of Gresham and Fairview. On hot summer days, thousands of people swarmed the lake to swim away the afternoons and dance away the nights.

On July 3, 1925, Blue Lake Park opened as a private park and it was managed by the Welsh family. It included attractions such as the Blue Lake Chateau Dance Hall, the Merry Mix-Up Swing Ride, a Concession stand and the Chateau Swim Pavilion. People began building summer cottages on the west and south sides of Blue Lake.

Nick and Maidie Welsh moved their family north from Eugene to the lake in 1928, when they joined relatives and other investors including Portland and Gresham businessmen wanting to create the Blue Lake Country Club. Nick Welsh planned to be the canoe and paddleboat concessionaire on the side while continuing his full-time work selling insurance. The Welsh family owned Blue Lake Park from the Depression through the 1950s.

Photo showing the Blue Lake Swim Chalet from the 1920s. It later burned in 1945.

While the Welshes oversaw the park operations, with plenty of help from family and friends, they operated amusement rides, including a Carousel, an Octopus, a Merry Mix-Up Swing and a Roll-O-Plane. Visitors could dance in the hall, dine at the restaurant, play bingo, spread out their picnic blankets, play baseball under the lights, operate paddle boats on the lake and swim. For a while it was a popular place for roller skating.

Advertisement from the New Year’s Eve Ball at the Blue Lake Chateau for December 31, 1936.

Photo showing the Blue Lake Changing Rooms and Boat Dock in the 1920s.

The area was home to seasonal villages of the Chinook tribe of American Indians for centuries. The Nichaqwli people, a Chinookan band, were primarily buried in the Interlachen ridge area around 1830. Smallpox around 1780 and malaria in the 1830s are thought to have contributed to the tribe's decline. In April 1806, William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition stopped at Blue Lake and met with the Nichaqwli people.

Photo showing the Blue Lake Diving Platform in the 1920s.

Photo showing the Blue Lake Changing Rooms in the 1920s.

The land was surveyed in 1855 and settled by European Americans. John and Rachel Crosby claimed ownership of 642.5 acres in 1865. Development of the park began in the mid-1920s.

Photo showing the Blue Lake Swim Slide in the 1920s.

Photo showing the Blue Lake Chateau Dance Pavilion and Merry Mix-Up Swings in the 1960s. The original Blue Lake Chateau burned in 1928 and the building above was built to replace it.

When the Depression struck, plans for the country club soon fell apart. The Welshes weren't wealthy, but they managed to buy the original 35 acres. The park that Nick Welsh developed on the north shore of the lake was popular through the World War II era, but attendance plummeted just before the 1948 season, when the infamous Vanport Flood struck the region. In addition to the flood fallout, liability insurance premiums increased rapidly, becoming a burden on a park that had to make nearly its entire profits during a short summer season.

The park began to flourish again in the 1950s, but Nick Welsh dreamed up a new plan to sell his property to be developed, most likely as houses. The public outcry was intense. People wrote letters to every newspaper editor around, demanding the land be preserved for public use. Officials convinced the Welshes to sell 60 acres for a park, for $240,000, far less money than the family would've earned through private development. The county demolished the dance hall, sold the rides and opened it as Blue Lake Regional Park in 1963. The former county park came under Metro jurisdiction through an intergovernmental agreement with Multnomah County in 1994 and Metro assumed ownership in 1996.

Today, Blue Lake Park is a 185-acre park at the north end of Fairview, between Sandy Boulevard and Marine Drive, that attracts about 350,000 visitors each year, with most of them coming during the summer. The park is for day use only, and most visitors come from the Portland metropolitan area, plus southwest Washington and other parts of Oregon. Today's Blue Lake Nature Park still has plenty of picnicking, summertime swimming, boating and other fun things, but it's no longer the amusement park that it once was.

Photo showing the Blue Lake Teeter Totter in the 1920s.

Photo showing the Blue Lake Carousel dated August 11, 1947.

Photo of the Merry Mix-Up Swings at Blue Lake in 1959.

Photo of the Concession Stand at Blue Lake Park.

Life Saving Class at Blue Lake August 7, 1939 in front of the Chateau Swim Pavilion.

Photo of swimmers, boaters and the boat house, circa 1940s.

In 1961, President John Kennedy was featured on the program cover for the annual Democratic Picnic which was held at Blue Lake for a number of years.

Advertisement for Blue Lake Park in 1926.

This ad appeared in the Portland News-Telegram on July 24, 1936.

Photo of the Swimming Pool at Blue Lake circa 1960.

Sources:
Metro Website
The Oregonian
Wikipedia

Amusement Parks

Last updated 12-6-24

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