Shipbuilding History

Portland OR

Most recent update: April 1, 2020.

The Swan Island Shipyard in Portland was originally an emergency yard, built with 8 ways in the fifth wave of shipbuilding expansion, with $23mm from MARCOM. The yard was one of the four specifically designed to build T-2 tankers. It was built on land belonging to the Port of Portland, which bought the yard after the war and operated it as a common-user ship repair facility until 1999, when it sold it to its principal tenant, Cascade General, Inc., who continued to market it as a repair yard until 2005, when they formed a joint venture with Oregon Iron Works called US Barge and began building barges, changing the name, first to US Fab and then to Vigor Fab. Since then, they have added the former Todd Seattle (now Vigor Seattle), Alaska Ship & Dry Dock and Seward Ship's Dry Dock (together now Vigor Alaska), Kvichak Marine (now Vigor Ballard), Oregon Iron Works (now Vigor Clackamas and Vigor Vancouver), Marine Industries Northwest (now Vigor Tacoma), and Washington Marine Repair (now Vigor Port Angeles). Visit the company here and see the Portland shipyard from the air on Google here.

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