Fort Vancouver offers an impressive insight into frontier history, with much to interest older children.
As far as we know, this location is temporarily closed but has plans to reopen in the future.
Given how impressive this site is, I was somewhat surprised that it wasn’t busier and that more people don’t talk about it and I had managed to live in Portland for eight years without seeing it before. Perhaps it’s one of those places that local children are dragged around on school trips, thus denuding it of any further interest, much like being made to read Shakespeare at fourteen. Overall the historic virtues of the site – which are considerable – were lost on my five-year-old, but I think there’s much to interest older children.
First posted: May 23, 2012; last updated: May 18, 2020.
If you find any factual innaccuracies in this post, please email me via richard at thingstodoinportland dot org so I can fix it for everyone. Thanks in advance!
612 E. Reserve Street, Vancouver, WA 98661 [Google map].