Vortex I
| Vortex I: A Biodegradable Festival of Life |
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|---|---|
| Genre | Various |
| Dates | August 28 – September 3, 1970 |
| Location(s) | Milo McIver State Park near Estacada, Oregon |
| Years active | 1970 |
| Founded by | The Portland Counterculture Community with help from Oregon governor Tom McCall |
| Website | |
| (none) | |
Vortex I: A Biodegradable Festival of Life, more commonly known as just Vortex I, was a week-long rock festival sponsored by the Portland counterculture community with help from the U.S. state of Oregon, and held in 1970 in Clackamas County near Portland. Held in order to demonstrate the positive side of the anti-War Movement and to prevent violent protests during a planned Richard Nixon appearance in the state, it remains the only state-sponsored rock festival in United States history.
In 1970, then-President Richard Nixon scheduled an appearance at an American Legion convention in Portland, Oregon, in order to promote the continuation of the Vietnam War. A coalition of Portland-based anti-Vietnam War groups, called the People's Army Jamboree, planned a series of demonstrations and other anti-war activities, to be held at the same time as the convention. Law enforcement at all levels, expecting massive numbers of protesters on both sides, were concerned about large-scale violence—an FBI report estimated a potential crowd of 25,000 Legionnaires and 50,000 anti-war protestors, and suggested that the result could be worse than the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
A loose association of Portland counterculture groups banded together to devise a strategy that would highlight the best parts of the newly-evolving peace community. Koinonia House, a peace-activist Christian group hosted a public meeting and from there the idea of a "Biodegradable Festival of Life" called Vortex 1 came into being. Mike Carr, Lee Meier, Kristen Hansen and Nik Hougen were the first to go meet with Ed Westerdahl to discuss this concept, People from the following meetings including Bobby Wehe, Kaushal Yellin, and Glen Swift who went to meet Governor Tom McCall while others began to scout parklands nearby Portland that could accommodate such an event. In order to keep the peace, Oregon governor Tom McCall acted on a suggestion by staffer Ed Westerdahl who had been meeting with the Vortex volunteers. He made an agreement with representatives of local anti-war factions to permit a rock festival to be held in a state park at the same time as Nixon's scheduled visit, and to turn a blind eye toward behavior that had been widespread at the , like nudity and use of marijuana. McCall has been heard to remark that by making this agreement—less than three months before the upcoming November vote, in which he was running for re-election—he had "committed political suicide."
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