Rotary Falls for Downtown
Posted by Lloyd Purdy on 14 July
Oregon City Service Club Partners in Public Art Project and Summer Event Downtown.
Not many people know that Oregon City has two significant waterfalls. Everyone knows about Willamette Falls but there is also a smaller historically significant water fall right downtown.
The Rotary Club of Oregon City is taking on the challenge of enhancing Singer Falls, first with a $40,000 public art project to help the club celebrate its 75th anniversary next year and eventually with other improvements as a way to give back to the community.
The Rotary Club of Oregon City will begin its fundraising effort (with an initial goal of $40,000) for a public art project at the base of Singer Falls with a wine tasting event during Oregon City’s First City Celebration on July 31. On Saturday the 31st, the wine tasting venue will be set up at the base of Singer Falls on Eighth Street between Main Street and Railroad Avenue.
Marcia Wimmer, 2009-2010 Rotary Club of Oregon City President, said the club began thinking about a special project to celebrate their 75th anniversary a year ago. “There is so much going on downtown right now we decided we wanted some kind of project there that we could share with the community,” she said.
In addition to a public art project, Rotary hopes to eventually raise funds to plant native vegetation in the area around the Singer Falls, a project Wimmer hopes will get the public and other service clubs involved.
“Downtown Oregon City has ‘great bones’ and unique features like Singer Falls,” said Lloyd Purdy, Downtown Manager. “Partnering with organizations like the Rotary Club of Oregon City is a powerful way to celebrate our strengths and make positive change.”
The little urban waterfall downtown sends Singer Creek underground and into the Willamette River. Singer Falls was built as a Works Progress Administration project in 1936. Before the falls, the creek flowed freely down the hillside. It is named for William Singer, an early settler who used the falls to power his cotton mill in the 1880s and 1890s.
The Works Progress Administration was organized by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a way to create jobs following the depression. Mt. Hood’s Timberline Lodge also was a WPA project. In addition to Singer Creek Falls project in Oregon City, the WPA also replaced old wooden steps that led up to the little park with concrete ones, locally known as the grand stairway.
Photo by Linda McCarthy and Mike Wonser
“With a motto of Service Above Self , the Rotary Club of Oregon City is committed to continue serving our community for years to come,” says Wimmer. “We want to do more than just install a ‘pretty piece of artwork’ at the base of Singer Falls. Building on our past 75 years of service, we want residents to take notice and get involved in shaping the identity of Oregon City.”
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