ORIGINAL: wdolson
The shipyard in the Portland hex was actually in Vancouver. Hanry Kaiser was a steel magnate who wanted to build ships for the war effort. He built one shipyard in the SF Bay Area and another in Vancouver.
A lot of the employees at the Vancouver shipyard lived in a new town built across the Columbia River called Vanport. It was cheaply built for expediency, but Kaiser did believe in taking care of his people. He pioneered giving his employees health insurance as an incentive to get employees. Kaiser Permenente evolved from there.
Vanport was near where the airport is now. It was destroyed not long after the war when an unusually large spring runoff caused a large flood on the Columbia and the town drowned. There were a number of dikes built on the Columbia after that to prevent such floods from creating that level of damage in the future.
I live not far from the Vancouver shipyard site. The site now has a bunch of condos and some restaurants. We sometimes eat at one of the restaurants. They have pictures taken at the shipyard during the war around the restaurant.
Bill
Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II
One of the shipyards was in Vancouver. Another two were in Oregon, one in Swan Island and one in St Johns. They built mostly merchants and tankers a few attack transports. I think it was this one that got the record for quickest ship from keel to launch.
Actually, just looked it up, and the Swan Island specialized in T2 tankers. Built 153 of them! The St Johns yard built 1244 (!!!) ships, mostly standard EC2 freight haulers and T1 types. [&o]
http://www.shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/4emergencylarge/wwtwo/kswanisland.htm
This is a pretty comprehensive look at the St Johns shipyard from an old article.
http://www.armed-guard.com/recbr1.html
Here is a great pdf on emergency ships in the war.
http://www.ww2ships.com/acrobat/us-os-001-f-r00.pdf
Here is a good pic of the St Johns shipyard in mid-war.
My grandfather worked at the Kaiser yard in Vancouver. Wish he was still around and I could ask him more about it. I'll have to see if my dad has any of his pics from that time.