Westmoreland Park

Westmoreland Park began as a part of a residential subdivision that was subtracted from the Ladd Estate's Crystal Spring Stock Farm in 1909. In 1924, the property was used as golf links, likely in conjunction with what is today known as Eastmoreland Golf Course. Prior to the 1920s, dating back as far as 1852, the property was used as farmland. By the 1930s, the site east of the subdivision had been converted from a wetland to serve time as a dairy, brickyard, and airstrip known as Broomfield Field (named after a Reed College Graduate by the name of Hugh Broomfield who lost his life over German Lines in WWI while on a recon mission.) However, as development increased, residents requested that these empty fields be turned into a city park.

In 1935, the City Planning Commission recommended development of recreational amenities for the nearby residents and "the improved appearance and traffic safety of McLoughlin Boulevard as a major traffic freeway entrance to the city." In January 1936, the City of Portland purchased the 45-acre parcel called Fairways Addition from Oregon Iron & Steel Co., a business owned by the Ladd Estate Co. After purchasing the land, the City of Portland immediately commissioned Francis Benedict Jacobberger to create a Study Sketch and Preliminary Layout for the West Moreland Recreation Park. F. B. Jacobberger was the son of Joseph Jacobberger, a principal of the architecture firm Jacobberger & Smith, founded in 1912. From 1921, the younger Jacobberger worked as a draftsman in his father’s office; when the elder Jacobberger died in 1930, Francis Jacobberger continued the firm in his own name.

As initially conceived, the park included (from roughly north to south) a park office and restroom building, outdoor handball courts, a roller-skating rink, basketball courts, twelve tennis courts, two children’s play areas, two picnic parks, a model yacht lagoon, bowling greens, a horseshoe pitching area, a fly-casting pond with nearby dry-casting area and fly-caster’s club house, four baseball diamonds, two football fields, a lacrosse field, a soccer field, various portable bleachers, and dressing rooms. Water from Crystal Springs, which entered the park at the north end, was to feed both the model yacht lagoon and the casting pond before flowing through to the south end of the park. Both the lagoon and pond were also intended for use as ice-skating rinks in the colder winter months.

A partnership between the City of Portland and the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) helped escalate the park’s construction. Viewed as an important opportunity to employ laborers during the rough economic times following the Great Depression, park construction focused on manual labor in order to employ the greatest number of people. The fly-casting pond, specifically, was hand excavated, and was one of the first features completed at the park. By August 1936, the pond was home to the 28th Annual International Casting competition.