Before Autzen Stadium. Before Alton Baker Park. Before Coburg Road and before the Ferry Street Bridge there was Lane County’s first Black community — Ferry Street Village.
August 24 marks 75 years since the Ferry Street Village was demolished by Lane County government. A joint memorial project with the Black Cultural Initiative to enshrine Ferry Street Village in history is planned by the county and Black Cultural Initiative. On July 22, the county apologized for some of its wrongs.
In the 1940s, five Black families — the Reynolds, the Mims, the Nettles, the Washington and the Johnson families — built homes at what is now northwest Alton Baker Park, since building within Eugene city limits was illegal for any person of color per local legislation.
“The history of these families has been mostly erased,” Talicia Brown-Crowell, founder and executive director of the Black Cultural Initiative, said at the press conference. “Outside of government and academia, most people in Lane County do not know their stories, or their contribution to local history.”
On July 22, representatives from the NAACP, Black Cultural Initiative, Lane County, Eugene city government, Oregon State Legislature, United States Senate and the University of Oregon gathered in front of the historic Mims house — one of the first homes purchased by a Black family within city limits in 1948 — to host a press conference in remembrance of the five families’ contribution to local history.
Two family members who lived in the village were in attendance — Pauline Davidson and Willy Mims.
Kathy Cooks, Davidson’s daughter, says that back then Eugene was so overwhelmingly white that her mom would seldom see another Black person who didn’t live in Ferry Street Village — except when the porters on the train came to town.
Traveling Black families always had a place to stay. Purchased by C.B. and Annie Mims in 1948, the now historic landmark would host dozens of Black travelers who could not find a place to stay in town — including Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald, according to the NAACP. The home is one of the few bits of Black history in Lane County from that era left standing.
Back then, any person of color could not purchase land in Eugene due to deed restrictions, intimidation and “sundown town” racism where nonwhites were excluded through violence, intimidation and discriminatory local laws. Enshrined in the Oregon Constitution’s Bill of Rights in 1857 — per Section 35 — Oregon excluded all Black people from entering the state, while also banning slavery.
This is just the beginning of a long road of reconciliation, Andiel Brown says. The managing director for NAACP Lane County Branch 1119 repeated a Benjamin Franklin quote saying, “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
“That is very much our circumstance here,” he says. “Oregon as a whole, as a state, was a sundown state.”
Most of the descendants of the Ferry Street Village left Oregon. “This was not just one person. This is the generation of family members who were displaced, who decided this is a hotbed of inequality — I can’t live here,” Brown says.
According to an ongoing investigation by the Black Cultural Initiative, the five families attempted to take advantage of federal homestead laws — which allowed them to claim the land as their own without cost after homesteading for three years.
“The timeline was getting close to take advantage of the Homesteaders Act,” says Ron Stockman, who was adopted at the age of four by the Washingtons after his mother passed away. “And that’s why they said you got to get them out of there. Because we can’t afford them to even try to claim that land,” he says.
Documents from Lane County show that in 1948, it issued a six-month notice to vacate the property to make way for construction of the Ferry Street Bridge.
On July 16, 1949, the Lane County Commission ordered the area be vacated, requiring that several of the homes be razed. Stockman says some of the families, the Johnsons and the Reynolds, were displaced from their homes by local governance at least four times.
On August 24, a bulldozer demolished over a dozen homes and the neighborhood church. Although many residents were prepared, most who escaped only had a few minutes to grab personal belongings.
According to county documents, most of the residents were displaced to sites along the city’s marshland border — out to what is now West 11th Avenue — where there was no running water, electricity or sanitary services.
Today, no physical evidence stands where Ferry Street Village once was. Now it’s the northwest portion of Alton Baker Park, a portion of Country Club Road, and several commercial properties located across the street from the park.
During the July 22 press conference, the Lane County Board of County Commissioners offered a formal apology for actions it took 75 years ago. “We recognize that deep injustice was inflicted upon these families, and there are long lasting impacts on them and on their descendants,” County Commission Chair Laurie Trieger said.
“We, at Lane County, in fact do commit to ensuring that the history of the Ferry Street Village not be forgotten,” she said.
Lane County government previously put $35,000 towards a partnership with the Black Cultural Initiative to design and erect a monument to honor the once thriving Black community.
“It’s so sad to think that people don’t even know that this happened,” says Rosita Johnson, grandchild of Charlie Johnson, one of the founders of Ferry Street Village. “And I think even just the monument and this, this was a huge step in reconciliation.”
According to Brown, there is now a chance to build Black equity in Oregon after demolishing that chance 75 years ago. “So for us to acknowledge and speak to that history, and those who represent the entity of Oregon to speak to that, then we can start making changes that are as strong and visceral as the ‘No, you cannot.’ Now saying ‘yes, you can,’” he says.
Brown says he wants to see policies to make it easier for Black families to call this state home. “Here is 75 years of displacement. Seventy-five years of a lack of the ability to create generational wealth, the opportunity of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” he says. “And only now it’s starting to be acknowledged.”
On August 24, the NAACP will host a march across the Ferry Street Bridge to commemorate the history of the Ferry Street Village.
To donate, find volunteer opportunities and upcoming events — like the upcoming March Across the Ferry Street Bridge on August 24 — go to NAACPLaneCounty.org or visit NAACP Unit 1119’s Facebook page.