The highlight of the Portland Rose Festival, held in early June each year, is a Grand Floral Parade with all the trimmings making a circuit through Downtown Portland.
Of course, 2020 was different, but so was 1948. On Memorial Day that year, Vanport flooded. It was a community of 18,500 people that was hastily constructed on low lying ground to house war industry workers and their families. The dikes failed, all of the buildings were lost and 15 people died. Mayor George Riley was among those who urged cancellation of the 1948 Grand Floral Parade because of ongoing flooding and rescue work. Rose Festival Association leaders feared financial losses and City Council reached a compromise that moved the parade to the east side on short notice. In the pouring rain, on June 12, the floats and bands and decorated horses started in Lents, proceeded down Foster Road and 50th to Hawthorne with the disband area at SE 14th. There was a Vanport float in the parade even though Vanport was gone. (Photo courtesy the Gholston Collection)