With Portland Public Schools about to let out for the summer on Thursday, more residents and their children are likely to soon visit Westmoreland Park in Southeast Portland.

Long a favorite recreation destination, for decades Westmoreland has boasted lighted baseball fields, lighted softball fields, a soccer pitch, a fly-casting pond and a playground.

There are also basketball courts, shaded picnic areas under the park's many trees, tennis courts and an area for those fond of the games of lawn bowling, croquet and petanque. They even have their own shared clubhouse.

Over the last few years, the park went through a major renovation. The playground was updated, the creek that runs through the park - Crystal Springs - was rerouted and the concrete edges to the creek have been removed.

In addition, the city worked with the Corps of Engineers to restore native vegetation and improve fish habitat.

There are also now boardwalks that stretch out over the restored area so people can see the native vegetation and the animals without impacting it directly.

And the ducks that have been part of the park's charm for decades? They're still there.

It's an interesting evolution for a park that, over the years, was variously home to a farm, a dairy, a brickyard, an airport, and a golf course before becoming a Portland city park.

About the time Portland was incorporated in the early 1850s, the area was a farm and remained in that use until the early 20th Century, when residential subdivisions such as Eastmoreland and Westmoreland began to grow up around it.

About the time World War I ended in 1918, aviators began using the area - which was nearly treeless at the time and pretty flat - as a landing field. Eventually, that use became official when in October of 1919, the city of Portland decided to name its first "aviation field" as Broomfield Aviation Field in honor of Hugh Broomfield, a Reed College student who was the only Oregonian killed in aerial combat during World War I.

In January of 1921, The Oregonian published a full-page story headlined "Portland is aviation center of Northwest," which made a point of Broomfield Field playing an important role.

But that status was short-lived. Just seven months later, in August of 1921, The Oregonian reported that Commissioner Pier was recommending the terminal be abandoned because, as the story headline said, "LANDING FIELD NOT USED."

The city had opened the field because of "popular demand" and had leased it for $1,544.17 a year from the Ladd estate.

But, the story said, "it is not advisable to renew the lease, which expires September 1, as not more than half a dozen machines, in addition to the forest service patrol planes, have used the field this year."

Instead, The Oregonian suggested the area might be better used as a "beginner's field for the municipal golf course (nearby Eastmoreland), which has been urged since the game's increasing popularity in Portland."

That's indeed what happened and over the next few years, the area was called on some maps "Westmoreland Golf Links."

Over time, however, area residents began to feel it would be better used as a park, and plans for a park begin rolling in about 1935.

The construction of the park hiccupped along because of funding problems, but the casting pond was finished in time for the 28th annual International Casting Competition in August of 1936 and the rest of the project resumed in 1939.

Scakvone Field, now Scakvone Stadium, was built in 1942 for adult league baseball and the lawn bowling area was added in 1945.

Over the years, more amenities were added and the park steadily grew in popularity, leaving the former memorial to Hugh Broomfield a distant memory.

In October of 1927, The Sunday Oregonian carried a story By Fred G. Taylor. It pointed out that the Portland Post of the American Legion had urged the city to name its airport - then on Swan Island - in honor of Broomfield.

Taylor pointed out that the honor had once been bestowed on the late Reed College combat pilot, but that his namesake had been lost when the field had been "abandoned to the golf courses there and there now is no memorial to him and his service."

"Officials of the post pointed out that because Oregon had but one such aviator who was the winner of a distinguished flying cross and because he was the only aviator killed in action, Portland's airport should be named for him."

But despite Taylor's plea, the Swan Island Airport remained named as such until it was closed in the 1940s, shortly after Portland moved its main airport to an area along the Columbia River, near where the current Portland International Airport is situated.

There's an entry about Broomfield on the "Oregon At War" website, and it notes a memorial marker was placed in his honor at what is now Sellwood Baptist Church in 1920.

But the only thing left of what was once Broomfield Aviation Field is on an interpretive sign near the lawn bowling area at Westmoreland Park, not far from where Curtiss Jennys and other early airplanes took off and landed for a few short years.

-- John Killen

503-221-8538; @johnkillen

Sources: The Oregonian, Portland Parks Bureau, Oregon Encyclopedia, Oregon State Archives