A rare surviving “trolley park; ”an amusement park established by a streetcar company for the express purpose of increasing ridership on their car lines on Sundays and holidays. The Oaks first opened on Memorial Day—Tuesday, May 30, 1905—just before the Lewis & Clark Exposition began at Guild Lake in northwest Portland. For that glorious summer, the amusement park and the fair competed with each other, both drawing massive crowds. When the Lewis & Clark Exposition closed, Oaks Park bought up many of its fixtures to beautify their grounds, including distinctive “tear drop” lights to illuminate the park at night.
The streetcar company had leased the grounds to the Oaks Amusement Company for the first two seasons, but they declined to renew their lease for the 1907 season. As a result, the traction company operated the park themselves in 1907 and 1908.
However, in August 1909, the Portland Railway, Light & Power Company released “all interest in the beautiful big recreation grounds other than to continue to operate its trains to the gates for the transportation of pleasure-seekers.” While they retained ownership of the land, the amusement park itself was leased to John F. Corday, a well-known theatrical manager, who formed the United Amusement Company to exploit the property. Upon Cordray’s death in 1925, his interests in the company were acquired by the park superintendent, Edward H. Bollinger, who had been involved with the park for almost its entire existence.
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Note: It is sometimes said that Mr. Cordray purchased the park from PRL&P in 1925 because of new laws that prevented public utilities from owning amusement parks. However, the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA) was not enacted until 1935, so this seems unlikely. I have not found any articles that support this theory so far.
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Some time between 1940 and 1943, Edward and his son Robert purchased the land the park sat on from the Portland Electric Power Company (the successor to both the OWP and PRL&P companies). Robert took over ownership and management of the park after the death of his father in 1949. In January 1985, the non-profit Oaks Park Association was formed to manage the park and continues to guide its development to this day.
The park and electric traction continued their symbiotic relationship right up until the final cessation of interurban services in January 1958. Once it was clear that service was not going to be restored, the United Amusement Company and Robert Bollinger sued the Portland Traction Company for $1,175,000 for loss of business and depreciation in the value of the property. However, precedent from Morgan v. Portland Traction Co. had ruled that private entities could not extract civil penalties for transit disruptions that fell under the jurisdiction of the public utilities commission and the case was dismissed before reaching a jury trial.