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This old park should not be confused with the “new” Canemah Park (Canemah Bluff Nature Park) at the southern end of town.
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An old pleasure park, dating back to the early steamboat days. It fell out of favor as river traffic to the town declined, but was revived when the Oregon City streetcar line was extended to Canemah in 1902. It still exists as the largely-forgotten “Old Canemah Park” today, though the dance pavilion, baseball field (with small grandstand) and other amenities have long disappeared. I am yet to find any primary evidence that there was a Ferris Wheel at the park, as is sometimes said. There used to be stairs carved into the hillside leading up to the park from the streetcar stop far below, but blasting for the widening of the Pacific Highway through Canemah in 1937 destroyed any trace of them and also reduced the size of the park substantially.
The dance pavilion at Canemah Park, c. 1904.
At its peak in 1903, some 50,000 people visited the park during its summer season, of which 40,000 arrived by streetcar. From 1905, competition from other amusements like the Lewis & Clark Exposition and The Oaks cut into Canemah Park’s business and it began to fade away into obscurity again.
Around 1921–1922, the park was briefly renamed the “Hawley Auto Park,” and marketed itself to traveling motorists instead of picnic parties from Portland: an indication of the changing ways that people were getting around. The park passed into PGE’s ownership in 1930 and remained basically unused until it was sold to the City of Oregon City for $1 in 1985 and converted into today’s nature park.