To complicate things, the paper reported that President Richard Nixon, a special object of war protestors' loathing, would address the convention. The origins of the festival-now shrouded in fading memory and photographs-can be found in the Oregonian's announcement in late May that Portland, still healing from protests against the Vietnam War on Portland's South Park Blocks, would host the American Legion convention in September. Because of the large number of aircraft circling above the park, Portland's Federal Aviation Administration office warned that overhead airspace was unsafe. To provide parking space, the state had leased several fields in the vicinity of McIver State Park. Television, radio, and the print media reported rural county roads clogged with vehicles, many of them sporting bright, psychedelic colors. Many of those who attended the festival were curious people from surrounding communities who came to witness the expected-young people smoking marijuana, many of them naked and frolicking in the Clackamas River to keep cool. At the close of the concert's second day, some 35,000 young people were jostling for space in the hot afternoon sun. The festival was strategically planned to attract young anti-Vietnam war protestors who otherwise might descend on Portland to disrupt the American Legion's annual convention, which would begin on Sunday, August 30.Įven before Vortex I began, 2,000 people had entered the park and by the time the festival officially opened on Friday, August 28, the population of McIver State Park had reached 5,000. The park provided all the advantages that Westerdahl sought-a rural setting, proximity to Portland, and easy driving distance from Interstate 5. Ed Westerdahl, chief of staff to Governor Tom McCall, had selected the 847-acre site, some thirty miles southeast of Portland. During the war-hot summer of 1970, thousands of young people began streaming toward Clackamas County's Milo McIver State Park to attend Vortex I, a state-sponsored rock-music festival.
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