The people who inhabited the Guild's Lake area shaped the history of Northwest Portland. The first residents of the area were the native Chinookan tribes, drawn to the resources provided by the wetland ecosystem. The Donation Land Act of 1850 drew people to Oregon with promises of large tracts of free land and legally established the property rights of some of Portland's most notable first citizens, including Peter Guild and Danford Balch. In the years following the Lewis and Clark Exposition, Northwest Portland became home to migrant workers and low-income families who needed to live close to heavy industry for employment. After the United States entered World War II, the area became the temporary home of wartime shipbuilding workers. Following the war, and the displacement caused by the Vanport flood of 1948, African-Americans found Guild's Lake to be one of the few places in the city in which they could live. However, that was also temporary. By 1952, the Housing Authority of Portland won a battle to remove the housing development, and the residents were forced to move. Today, the area is mostly industrialized with fewer residents than in the past.