By PSU student Erin Atkins
I write to urge that an architect also be employed [in the design of the incinerator building] . . . the architects are suffering extremely from the depression, and the tendency to eliminate their services, [I] feel should be consistently fought. Ellis Lawrence, Landfill supporter, to the Portland mayor, November, 1931
During the Great Depression, farm and grazing land surrounded what later became the St. Johns Landfill. The initial response to a landfill and incinerator in the St. John’s neighborhood was mixed. Some homeowners claimed the unsightly, smelly, loud landfill would decrease property values.
It is a great damage to our property and renders some less valuable, making it essentially and especially unattractive to any intending buyers. From St. Johns Homeowners protest petition to the Mayor George L. Baker and City Council
Others claimed the landfill and incinerator would create jobs, and that many people desperately needed work. The proposed landfill became the topic of heated discussion during the early 1930s. After much deliberation the Department of Public Utilities wrote to the City Council authorizing landfill and incinerator construction on February 16, 1931. The City of Portland constructed the incinerator building in 1932. The St. Johns Landfill opened officially in 1936. Residents soon complained of foul and pungent odors wafting through the area. Despite official promises that the landfill would be used only for ash disposal from the incinerator, it became the repository of all the city’s garbage, including industrial and toxic waste, for the next fifty years.
