The Washington State Public Port Act failed twice before passing in 1911. Its approval gave voters the creation of port districts with the power to improve harbors and to acquire, construct and operate waterways, docks and wharves. Until then, waterfronts were a muddle of piers and wharves owned by private citizens. That year, Seattle and Gray’s Harbor created the state’s first and second ports. The third, the Port of Vancouver, followed in 1912. A former Confederate cavalryman, Southern attorney and judge, J.A. Mundy, warned Vancouver that its path was clear. It could either “loiter in the shadow of Portland’s skyscrapers” or choose “independent cityhood.” Like many civic leaders, Mundy ardently asked voters to approve the proposal for a Port of Vancouver in the upcoming April election. When the vote was in, election officials counted 632 for and 180 against a port district. The north bank of the Columbia River for centuries served as a place for Native Americans to trade goods. From Hudson’s Bay Company days until the port proposal passed, the same area served as an entry and exit point for lumber and trade materials. In the late 1800s, individuals constructed docks along the waterfront as businesses. (At one time, Esther Short owned a wharf.) Private citizens owned Vancouver’s waterfront and profited well from handling its cargo, primarily lumber. Businessmen pooled their money in 1903 to dredge the Columbia River from the Willamette River’s mouth to the Vancouver waterfront, making a channel 14 feet deep and as wide as 200 feet. It was dredged again in 1905. Then, in 1908, the Pittock and Leadbetter mill closed, and waterfront lumber shipments declined.

At the same time, local transport was changing. By 1908, J.J. Hill had completed the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway along the Columbia River’s north bank. SP&S trains rolled across the new railroad bridge, making Vancouver a place where rail and sail met. The Panama Canal — built by the engineer who designed the Vancouver-Portland railroad bridge, G.W. Goethals — promised a shorter east-west transport route. The 1911 Act passed because, suddenly, the government understood how ports affected local economies. When the port proposal passed, voters elected port commissioners George Lamba, William Dubois and George McCoy. The port owned no land or resources, so its start was tenuous. Portlander Guy Standifer created the Standifer Wooden Shipyard and constructed merchant ships west of the railroad bridge for World War I. He won a government contract to build metal ships, which led Vancouver voters to approve a $185,000 bond to purchase 52 acres and lease it back to Standifer. After the war, voters approved another $130,000 bond to buy Standifer’s wooden shipyard. The Port of Vancouver, however, didn’t load an oceangoing ship until 1922, when the S.S. Paraiso fittingly took on 600,000 board-feet of lumber. Mundy’s comments proved out in different ways. The port district didn’t keep Portland from overshadowing Vancouver. But it has benefited the city far beyond anyone’s 1912 imagination. Today, the Port of Vancouver is the third largest in the state. It has property along 4 miles of riverfront, and its taxing district covers a 111-square-mile area. In 2023, more than 6.13 million metric tons of commodities — including grain, potash and copper concentrate — passed through its terminals.