The Cotton Club was a nightclub

Nightclub

A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...

 located in North Portland, Oregon. Located at 2125 N. Vancouver Avenue (and N. Tillamook Street), the club gained regional (and a bit of national) fame in the 1960s as the "only nightclub on the West Coast

West Coast of the United States

West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...

 with wall-to-wall soul

Soul music

Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...

." Celebrities such as Cab Calloway

Cab Calloway

Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....

, Sammy Davis, Jr.

Sammy Davis, Jr.

Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr. was an American entertainer and was also known for his impersonations of actors and other celebrities....

, Cass Elliot

Cass Elliot

Cass Elliot , born Ellen Naomi Cohen and also known as Mama Cass, was an American singer and member of The Mamas & the Papas. After the group broke up, she released five solo albums. Elliot was found dead in her room in London, England, from an apparent heart attack after two weeks of sold-out...

, the Kingston Trio, Joe Louis

Joe Louis

Joseph Louis Barrow , better known as Joe Louis, was the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949. He is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time...

, and Archie Moore

Archie Moore

Archie Moore, born Archibald Lee Wright , was light heavyweight world boxing champion who had one of the longest professional careers in the history of that sport....

 would visit the nightclub when they were in town.

Paul Knauls moved to Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

 in 1963

1963 in music

-Events:*January 1 – The Beatles start a 5-day tour in Scotland to support the release of their new single, "Love Me Do".*January 4 – At Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy, Dalida receives a Juke Box Global Oscar for the year's most-played artist on juke boxes....

 in order to purchase the club. It was located in a neighborhood where African-American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

s settled after Vanport

Vanport, Oregon

Vanport City was a hastily constructed city of public housing located in Multnomah County, Oregon, United States, between the contemporary Portland city boundary and the Columbia River. It is currently the site of Delta Park and the Portland International Raceway.It was constructed in 1943 to house...

 was destroyed by flooding in 1948 and Interstate 5

Interstate 5

Interstate 5 is the main Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific Ocean coastline from Canada to Mexico . It serves some of the largest cities on the U.S...

 and the Memorial Coliseum uprooted a number of black-owned business. By the 1960s, it was part of a thriving area that include the Blue Ribbon Barbecue, Lew’s Men’s Shop, and the House of Fortune Cafe.

External links and sources

• Boise Voices Oral History Project Stories of the Cotton Club as told by Paul Knauls
• Albina stop has a storied history, an April 2004 article from the Portland Tribune
  Portland Tribune
  The Portland Tribune is a free weekly newspaper published each Thursday in Portland, Oregon, United States.The Tribune is part of the Pamplin Media Group, which publishes a number of community newspapers in the Portland metropolitan area, and also owns and operates the talk radio station KPAM, and...
  
  
• Mel Brown has delighted audiences from the Rose City to Motown and back again, a 2004 article about Mel Brown
  Mel Brown (drummer)
  Mel Brown is an American jazz drummer, and one of the most prominent jazz musicians in Portland, Oregon, United States since the 1970s.- References :...
  
  , who got his start at the Cotton Club
• N.E.'s hometown barber, a March 2001 article from the Portland Business Journal
• Paul Knauls biography, from a website for a business he and his wife own, via the Internet Archive
  Internet Archive
  The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
  
  
• Angler Draws Strength from the Willamette, a December 19, 2000 article from The Oregonian
  The Oregonian
  The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...
  
  , via a personal website