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Kenton | |
---|---|
Neighborhood | |
![]() Location in Portland | |
Coordinates: 45°35′24″N122°41′42″W / 45.59006°N 122.69508°W PDF map | |
Country | United States |
State | Oregon |
City | Portland |
Government | |
• Association | Kenton Neighborhood Association |
• Coalition | North Portland Neighborhood Services |
Area | |
• Total | 3.42 sq mi (8.87 km2) |
Population | |
• Total | 7,272 |
• Density | 2,100/sq mi (820/km2) |
Housing | |
• No. of households | 2,707 |
• Occupancy rate | 94% occupied |
• Owner-occupied | 1,792 households (66%) |
• Renting | 915 households (34%) |
• Avg. household size | 2.56 persons |
Kenton is a neighborhood in the north section of Portland, Oregon, United States. The neighborhood was originally a company town founded in 1911 for the Swift Meat Packing Company.
Kenton's northern border is formed by North Portland Harbor, the channel of the Columbia River that separates the area from Hayden Island. Kenton's eastern boundary is Interstate 5 and the neighborhood's southern edge is defined by North Lombard Street. The western border (traveling from north to south, respectively) follows North Portland Road, North Columbia Boulevard, and North Chautauqua Boulevard. The Columbia Slough passes through Kenton.
Neighborhoods bordering Kenton are: Hayden Island to the north; Bridgeton, Sunderland, and Piedmont to the east; Arbor Lodge to the south; University Park to the southwest; and Portsmouth and St. Johns to the west.
Kenton is home to the Portland International Raceway and the Portland Metropolitan Expo Center. The historic site of Vanport, a public housing project built to provide homes for World War II shipbuilders, later destroyed by a 1948 flood, is also located within the current boundaries of the Kenton neighborhood.
Before the 1900s, Kenton was a farming community similar to other townships in the area like University Park and St. Johns until it became a company town built by the Swift Meat Packing Company. By 1910, US$120,000 worth of buildings had been erected in the neighborhood with many fashioned out of concrete and brick. Two three-story brick hotels were built in Kenton in 1910. Plants from companies like the National Wood Pipe Company, Davis Safe and Lock Company, Union Meat Company and Portland Union Stockyards called Kenton home. A concrete apartment building was built by C. H. Carey costing US$22,000. [2] In 1909, Portland, Oregon Mayor Joseph Simon took an automobile trip to Kenton where he announced general improvements for the community like road pavement, street lamps and a fire station. [3] The streets were still dirt in 1910, leading the Kenton Push Club to lobby the Portland City Council to pass a bond to pave the roads. [4] After a long fight with the city council, the roads were paved in 1911. [5] By 1913, US$300,000 had been spent on paving the streets of Kenton. The growing community soon demanded a park, library and schoolhouse. [6] Just a few years later, Kenton was annexed with St. Johns by the City of Portland, becoming home to Portland's main stockyards and the center of the West Coast cattle trade for a time. [7]
A story of the "Kenton ghost" was published in the January 5, 1913 edition of The Oregonian which recounted several residents accounts of a shadowy figure lurking the streets of the community. Several prominent citizens came forward with their own sightings of the ghost including the secretary of the Interstate Bridge Commission. Former Albina, Oregon Mayor W. M. Killingsworth led a group of people who looked for the ghost. [8] Kenton had a semi-professional baseball team in 1916 and 1917. The Kenton Giants played in the Inter-City League with three other teams. [9]
The 1959 Oregon Centennial celebrations were held in Kenton. To commemorate the occasion, a large statue of Paul Bunyan was built at the intersection of North Interstate Avenue and North Argyle Street (just north of Kenton's historic business district on North Denver Avenue) as a reminder of centennial festivities. The statue still stands at the corner of North Interstate and North Denver, [10] across from the Kenton/North Denver Avenue station, and is considered a symbol of the neighborhood. The statue was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 28, 2009. [10] [11] Directly across N Denver Ave from the Paul Bunyan Statue are the four blue hooves of Babe the Blue Ox, his trusted animal companion.
The Kenton Commercial Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001 for its role in the development of the neighborhood and the city. [12]
Wilsonville is a city in Clackamas and Washington counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. Founded with the name Boones Landing for the Boones Ferry that crossed the Willamette River, the community became Wilsonville in 1880. The city was incorporated in 1969 with a population of approximately 1,000. The population was 19,509 at the 2010 census and grew to 26,664 as of the 2020 census.
The MAX Yellow Line is a light rail line serving Portland, Oregon, United States. Operated by TriMet as part of the MAX Light Rail system, it connects North Portland, Portland City Center, and Portland State University (PSU). The line serves 17 stations; it runs north–south from Expo Center station to PSU South/Southwest 6th and College station, interlining with the Green and Orange lines within the Portland Transit Mall. Service runs for 21 hours per day with headways of up to 15 minutes. The Yellow Line is the fourth-busiest service in the MAX system; it carried an average 12,960 riders per weekday in September 2019.
St. Johns is a neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, United States, located in North Portland on the tip of the peninsula formed by the confluence of the Willamette River and the Columbia River. The iconic St. Johns Bridge crosses the Willamette from the south, leading into downtown St. Johns. It was a separate, incorporated city from 1902 until 1915, when citizens of both St. Johns and Portland voted to approve its annexation to Portland, which took effect on July 8, 1915.
The Oregon Centennial was the 100th anniversary of the statehood of the U.S. state of Oregon. The day of the anniversary was February 14, 1959, but centennial events took place throughout the year. Festivities were held all over the state, with the major attractions at the Oregon Centennial Exposition and International Trade Fair, located at the Expo Center in Portland's Kenton neighborhood, which took place from June 10 to September 17, 1959.
Laurelhurst is a neighborhood of vintage single-family homes and undulating streets surrounding a park of the same name, straddling the NE and SE sections of Portland. Stone markers flank the entrances to the area. The center of the neighborhood, Coe Circle, contains a gilded equestrian statue of Joan of Arc, which is a World War I war memorial. The Laurelhurst Historic District was officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.
Mount Tabor is an extinct volcanic vent with a city park on the volcano, located in Portland, Oregon's neighborhood of the same name. The name refers to Mount Tabor, Israel. It was named by Plympton Kelly, son of Oregon City pioneer resident Clinton Kelly.
The Pittock Block is a historic building in downtown Portland, Oregon, occupying a city block between SW 9th and 10th Avenues, SW Stark and Washington Streets, and west of O'Bryant Square.
Interstate 5 (I-5) in the U.S. state of Oregon is a major Interstate Highway that traverses the state from north to south. It travels to the west of the Cascade Mountains, connecting Portland to Salem, Eugene, Medford, and other major cities in the Willamette Valley and across the northern Siskiyou Mountains. The highway runs 308 miles (496 km) from the California state line near Ashland to the Washington state line in northern Portland, forming the central part of Interstate 5's route between Mexico and Canada.
There are a number of statues of Paul Bunyan on display in the United States.
Kenton/North Denver Avenue is a light rail station on the MAX Yellow Line in Portland, Oregon. It is the 8th stop northbound on the Interstate Avenue MAX extension.
The North Bank Depot Buildings, in central Portland, Oregon, United States, are a pair of buildings formerly used as a freight warehouse and passenger terminal for the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway (SP&S). Formed in 1905, the SP&S was commonly known as the North Bank Road during the period in which these buildings were in use. The Portland buildings' passenger facilities were also used by the Oregon Electric Railway after that railway was acquired by the SP&S. Located in what is now known as the Pearl District, the buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. They were in use by the SP&S and its successor, Burlington Northern Railroad, from 1908 until the 1980s. Only the east building was used as a passenger station, and this usage lasted from 1908 until 1931.
Francis I. McKenna was a real estate and land developer, and architect from the 1890s to the 1920s in Portland, Oregon. McKenna moved to Portland in 1889 and purchased the land now known as the University Park neighborhood. He went on to establish the Portland Belt Line Company, which lobbied city officials to extend the cable car system to St. Johns, Oregon. The project was constructed in 1905. McKenna was also known as an advocate of civic improvement and industrialization.
The Kenton Library is a branch of the Multnomah County Library (MCL), in the Kenton neighborhood of Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. Preceded by reading rooms in North Portland and later by the Lombard Branch Library, the Kenton Library opened in 2010 in a storefront on North Denver Avenue. The branch offers the MCL catalog of two million books, periodicals and other materials.
Claussen and Claussen was an architecture firm based in Portland, Oregon, that designed several prominent buildings in the first half of the 20th century. Some of the buildings have been added to the National Register of Historic Places, including the Roosevelt Hotel, the Park Heathman Hotel, the Loyalty Building, Ira Powers Warehouse, and Portland Van and Storage.
A bronze sculpture of American pioneer, newspaper editor and historian Harvey W. Scott (1838–1910) by Gutzon Borglum, sometimes called Harvey Scott or Harvey W. Scott, was installed on Mount Tabor in Portland, Oregon, United States, until being toppled in October 2020.
Paul Bunyan Statue is a 31-foot-tall (9.4 m) concrete and metal sculpture of mythical logger Paul Bunyan in the Kenton neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, United States. It was built in 1959 to commemorate the centennial of Oregon's statehood during the Centennial Exposition and International Trade Fair, which was held in the Kenton area.
The Kenton Commercial Historic District is a historic district in north Portland, Oregon's Kenton neighborhood, in the United States. The district is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The World Famous Kenton Club, or simply Kenton Club, is a bar and music venue in north Portland, Oregon, United States. The venue was established as the Kenton Club in 1947, and became a biker bar. The "world famous" tagline was acquired after appearing in the film Kansas City Bomber (1972); the venue became known as World Famous Kenton Club, and memorabilia related to the film and its star Raquel Welch are displayed throughout the interior.
Lombard Street is a main thoroughfare in Portland, Oregon, United States. It serves as a boundary and main commercial street for several north Portland neighborhoods.