Vortex 1

Salem, Oregon: Adolphson's Printing Company, 1970. 10 7/8" x 7 5/8". Stapled card wrappers. pp. [52]. Very good: moderate wear and light dust soiling to wrappers; rear wrapper with a few patches of surface loss; clean and bright throughout.

This is a photo book documenting Vortex I: A Biodegradable Festival of Life which was a rock festival held at Milo McIver State Park near Estacada, Oregon in late summer 1970. 1970. With Nixon scheduling an appearance at the National American Legion convention in Portland, local counterculture groups came together to shine a light on their peace movement. That led to the idea of the festival, and they pitched it to the Oregon's state government as a way to funnel some of the possibly 50,000 antiwar protestors away from Nixon's appearance and facing off against a mass of up to 25,000 legionnaires. According to Wikipedia,

In order to keep the peace, [Governor] 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 Woodstock Festival, like nudity and use of marijuana."

The festival ran from from August 28th to September 3rd. With the exception of an explanatory page of text, this book is devoted exclusively to images of the festival. We see the stage being built as well as performances from it, naked women walking their dogs and hippies as far as the eye can see. Others show a drumming group, people camping, and many attendees dazed and confused.

Since the festival was free, there was no accurate account of attendance, with estimates ranging from 30,000 to 100,000 attendees. One certainty is that it created an 18 mile long traffic jam, and was filled with public nudity and recreational drug use that was ignored by authorities. Another is that the strategy worked: while it helped that Nixon's appearance was cancelled, the American Legion convention ran with no major incidents.

OCLC locates 10 copies, all in Oregon.

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