Founded in 1891, “The MAC” has become Oregon’s and one of the nation’s most storied athletic clubs, and has shaped the course of the state’s sports world for more than a century. The club was incorporated on February 28, 1891 through the efforts of 26 amateur sports athletes and enthusiasts, led by photographer Arthur B. McAlpin. They spun off from a group of 150 men who had contentiously met earlier in the week to form just such a club.
The Multnomah Amateur Athletic Club charged an initiation fee of $10. In a month, the club had grown to 200 members and the initiation fee had grown to $25.
In April, the club leased the third-floor of a building in downtown Portland and proceeded to purchase equipment from the Chicago-based Spalding Company, and then hired a gymnastics instructor. The club also featured a room with three billiards tables.
The MAAC delved into team competition in summer with the formation of a baseball team and formed a football team in fall. It also sponsored athletes for individual competitions and created events that attracted competitors from throughout the West, including Vancouver, B.C. From its first game against the Tacoma Athletic Club, the MAAC’s football team developed a national reputation for success, posting a record of 58 wins, 17 losses and 13 ties through 1905. It regularly played college programs, including a loss to Stanford in 1894.
Members of the MAAC competed in events from the athletic spectrum, from shooting to swimming to cycling to bowling from its opening. The club also developed its social side, sponsoring smokers, cultural exhibitions and events such as “Ladies Nights,” throughout its first decade. The club sent the first of its members to an Olympic Games in 1906.
The club constructed its first clubhouse at Southwest 10th and Yamhill in 1900 on land it purchased the previous year. At the time, the club promoted regular bathing, which it promoted as decreasing ailments, and charged members for towels.
The club removed “amateur” from its name in 1936. Since its beginnings, dozens of club members have competed in Olympics Games. It has built and rebuilt several clubhouses, including two destroyed by fire, and constructed the concrete grandstand for Multnomah Stadium in 1926. The grandstand is still in use as part of Jeld-Wen Field. The club even survived a movement that would have made it a social club in the early 1960s. It required members, starting in 1965, to be talented athletes, and expanded its clubhouse through the sale of Multnomah Stadium to the City of Portland for $2.1 million in 1966.
Membership has surpassed 20,000 and the current clubhouse of 550,000 square feet has allowed it to be called the largest indoor athletic club in the world. It was inducted to the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1984.
Amazingly, the club’s emblem, “Winged M,” has remained virtually unchanged since its creation shortly after the club opened.
