Also known as the “Portland Baseball Park” or “Recreation Park”, although this last name never really caught on. The ballpark was on a block bounded by NW Vaughn Street to the south, NW 24th Avenue to the east, and NW 25th Avenue to the west. The park was served directly by the Twenty-Third streetcar line until 1950, and the North & South Portland line on nearby Thurman and Upshur streets until 1937.
A plan view of Vaughn Street Park, showing its final seating configuration. The park’s small dimensions made it very hitter-friendly.
In a rare example of cooperation between two competing streetcar companies, the park was originally jointly financed by F. I. Fuller of the Portland Railway Company and C. F. Swigert of the City & Suburban Railway Company, both hoping to profit from professional baseball at the ticket office and via fares from their streetcar lines. The land belonged to Fuller’s Portland Railway Company and ownership of it passed down to successor streetcar companies over the years.
The first game at the park was scheduled for April 28, 1901 but inclement weather seems to have postponed that until May 22, when Portland’s “Webfooters” took on the Spokane Blues. They emerged victorious 8–6 in a rain-shortened match “on a field more suitable for a frolic of healthy ducks than for playing gilt-edged baseball.”
By 1909, the stadium was in poor shape, having originally been thrown together hastily on a shoestring budget. Portland baseball teams had failed spectacularly in the past, so no one was willing to spend more money than absolutely necessary for what was perceived as an uncertain venture. The Portland Railway, Light & Power Company also only offered the promoters—the McCredies (owner, Judge William Wallace McCredie and player/manager Walter McCredie, his nephew)—single year leases, keeping the site available in case they needed to build a new carbarn on it.
As a result, the McCredies reasonably refused to spend their own money on improving facilities, and began looking for new grounds. After rejecting a site on the southwest corner of Jefferson and Chapman streets [now SW Jefferson and 18th], they purchased land at the foot of Seymour Street in Fulton in October 1910 and made it known that they would be moving their operations there for the 1912 season when their lease at Vaughn Street expired at the end of 1911.
The Portland Railway, Light & Power Company seemed to realize that they were about to lose a valuable income source and offered the McCredies a ten-year lease with a further five-year option to remain at Vaughn Street in August 1911. Work on upgrading the facilities began almost immediately, with much of the expense borne by the traction company.
The Portland Electric Power Company sold the grounds to the president of the Portland Beavers, Thomas Turner, in February 1927. He had been leasing the grounds since he had bought the team in October 1924 (with financial assistance from John T. Shibe of the Philadelphia Athletics), but was looking to relocate to a new site where he could build a larger and more modern stadium. Coincidentally, he had purchased land for this new facility at SW Jefferson and 18th—the exact same location that the McCredies had first considered back in 1909! In a way, this was almost inevitable, as it was one of the few remaining sites on the West Side large enough to accommodate a ball park. This site was sold off once the future of the Vaughn Street park was secured.
The last games at the stadium were on September 11, 1955 when the Portland Beavers took on Oakland in a double-header.