13th Avenue

The most prominent thoroughfare in the heart of campus, 13th Avenue sees thousands of students walking or biking to class each day. But it wasn’t always a safe and sure route to get to class or work. Once lined with boardwalks and home to an electric streetcar, the section of 13th between Kincaid and University streets was an open throughway to the public up until 1970. It saw high traffic from commuting cars and commercial vehicles. In the words of one student in a public hearing regarding the street: “The University [of Oregon] is the only major University in the country where a student can be run over by a log truck” [1]. Though many more students dating back to the 1950s took issue with the lack of pedestrian and biker safety along the corridor, the UO and the City of Eugene failed to improve the street. 

As the Anti-Vietnam War movement inflicted at UO in 1970, the campus felt one of its most active eras of protest on the ground. And although not directly related to the war, one of the little known (and perhaps largest) wins secured by students that year was the eventual closure of 13th to vehicles [2]. 

In April, following the arrest of 61 student protestors for sitting-in Johnson Hall (covered in previous entry), around one thousand students moved to the EMU as they began to organize a student strike. Although the strike ultimately had minimal success, its increased activity led to approximately 500 people erecting barricades out of brick and mortar planters across 13th in protest of the lack of safety improvements [3]. The names “The People’s Street” and “Liberty Lane” were given to the stretch of road as the students declared it their own. The planters, filled with soil, trees and shrubs, were placed at the same intersections the street is now closed at on the evening of April 26th, 1970 [4]. They stayed up through the 29th, when the students agreed to voluntarily remove them on the condition that city officials would hold a meeting about permanently closing the section of the street to traffic [5]. The city stuck to its word (after continued pressure from students, who even threatened to rebuild the planters at one point) and the street was officially closed later that fall.  

Accounts of the occupation evoke a far gone era of campus protests in the 70s – an almost ridiculous combination of confrontation and jubilation. Several irate drivers abandoned their vehicles to argue with students, some pulled out sledgehammers to try and remove the barricades themselves [4], and at least one attempted to drive right on through it. But as traffic died down each evening students took the chance to enjoy themselves thoroughly. According to the Daily Emerald, “By nightfall [of the 26th] there were people’s chalk drawings on the street, people’s fires at both ends, people’s popcorn, people’s marshmallows, and people’s beer.” [6]

Today, most on campus have no idea that ordinary people took direct action and closed the street themselves. In 2022, the University moved to further conceal this history by renaming the very same section of the street once occupied by students after Chuck Lillis [7]. Lillis, who died in 2024, was a private equity firm magnate, substantial UO donor, founding member of the Board of Trustees, and the namesake of the Lillis Business complex. He came under scrutiny in April of 2020 when he physically assaulted a student (lowering his shoulder into them) on the way into a Board of Trustees Meeting at the Ford Alumni Center [8]. The student and other members of the ROAR Center were peacefully blocking one of four open entrances in protest of the meeting occurring with little regard for safety (as it was in-person just weeks after the initial pandemic lockdown), and lack of resolve from the Trustees to address the unfolding health emergency.  

It is reasonable to imagine that the original occupying students, who took the street in the name of “the people,” would have chosen anyone other than Lillis as its permanent namesake – who is truly the embodiment of the UO’s privatization and consolidation of corporate interests.

Questions as You Visit 

How would campus feel with thru-traffic and parking allowed on 13th?

How might the design of the street be enhanced to further prioritize people?

REFERENCES

  1. https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/2004260239/1970-04-28/ed-1/seq-1/ 4/28/1970 
  2.  Barnum, Gary. A History of Anti-War Activity at the University of Oregon 1964-70. June 1977. 
  3. Hoogerhuis, Mara. Why Here, Why Now? The Story of Student Protest on the UO Campus, April 1970. 4.14.04. 
  4. Oregon Daily Emerald, April 27th, 1970
  5. Oregon Daily Emerald, April 30th, 1970 https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/2004260239/1970-04-30/ed-1/seq-1/ 
  6. Oregon Daily Emerald, April 29th, 1970 https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/2004260239/1970-04-29/ed-1/seq-6/ 
  7. Oregon News: Portion of East 13th renamed to honor Chuck and Gwen Lillis. 11.14.22
  8. MindbombMedia: Chairman Chuck Lillis Assaults Protesters Before Trustees Meeting. 4.29.20