Mill Race (Eugene)

Linked by a ditch approximately five blocks long, from Ferry St. to Kincaid St., the millrace was completed in 1851, followed closely by the addition of a sawmill on its banks in 1852, and a flour mill by 1856.

The railroad came to Eugene in 1871, resulting in a building boom in housing and hotels, as well as new industries joining the banks of the lower millrace including furniture makers, a tannery, and a woolen mill.

[1] The case escalated and finally landed in the Supreme Court of Oregon, which though siding with the defendants, set definitive limits to Shaw's original easement in regard to further widening and development.

The site was historically located along a millrace developed in c1850 by Hilyard Shaw, and given additional impetus when the Oregon & California Railroad reached Eugene in 1871.

The elevator was significant as the last remaining structure of the city's pioneer millrace industrial complex, which catapulted Eugene to commercial prominence and its designation as the county seat.

It wasn't long before the millrace's recreational opportunities caught on, and in 1890, Edward McClanahan opened a boathouse at Ferry Street, renting skiffs to University of Oregon students and community members.

As boating increased in popularity, and the mode of transportation evolved from flat-bottomed skiffs to canoes, additional boathouses opened in 1906 and 1911.

In addition, lights were installed above the bleachers and millrace, and spotlights highlighted the floats as they passed, adding “… unusual charm and beauty to the fete.”[1] The canoe fete at its height was featured in news reels and radio broadcasts, and was even endorsed by the likes of Bing Crosby, who in 1935 wrote a letter to the fete committee offering a prize to the builders of the winning float and extending his regards for the event.

Not even women were safe from a millrace dunking, with a 1949 Eugene Daily Emerald article requesting tradition violators to meet for their punishment, with "women wearing appropriate dunking clothes.”[6] After another series of flooding resulted in damage to the intake channel, the millrace ran dry and the fete was switched to a float parade on wheels in 1945.

[7] Continual disagreements over water flow, maintenance costs, and preservation approaches have gone on for years, however, hampering progress on any permanent revitalization efforts.

[8] Though the future of the millrace remains in question, it was formally documented during the Oregon Department of Transportation's Willamette River Bridge replacement project.