Willamette, Oregon

Last updated June 13, 2023

The town of Willamette, Oregon was incorporated on October 5, 1908,^[1]^[2] and is located directly West across the Willamette River from Oregon City, Oregon and upstream from the Willamette Falls.

The area was first called Willamette Falls, but later shortened to Willamette. The first mayor of Willamette was James Downey.^[1] The town consisted of approximately 300 residents. The main business within the town limits was the Capen Shoe Company Factory,^[3] located at 7th Avenue (now known as Willamette Falls Drive) and 12th Street. Each residence had electricity, running water and a sewage disposal system. Willamette had its own electric trolley service from the Main Street into town to the Willamette Falls Railroad station located at the bridge to Oregon City. Some residents used the trolley service to travel to work at the paper mills on the west side of the Willamette River and in Oregon City.

Typhoid outbreak

In 1910 and 1911, the town of Willamette was struck by a typhoid fever outbreak, first believed to be caused by the spring floods of the Willamette River which poisoned the town well at the bottom of 12th Street. Newspaper reports of the time, state that 10% of the town (35 people) were stricken with typhoid fever and at least one died. The source of the second outbreak was in question since the well had tested clean by state health officials.

Paperwork anomaly

In 1912, the former mayor James Downey, sued the town of Willamette when a property was enforced. Downey claimed that Willamette had not filed the proper paperwork of incorporation according to Oregon law and therefore was unable to collect a tax. A judge agreed since county officials had never verified the 1908 vote of incorporation. A new vote was held in 1913, and the proper paperwork was filed.

Annexation

In 1913, the town of Willamette made two unsuccessful attempts to annex its neighboring communities to the north, Sunset, Windsor, West Oregon City, and Bolton. In August 1913, these communities then merged to form the current city of West Linn.

In 1917, the much larger neighbor, West Linn, annexed Willamette into its boundary allowing Willamette access to West Linn's clean water from the nearby Clackamas River, secured through an arrangement with Oregon City.

The original area of Willamette was designated as a National Register Historic District in 2009, under the name of "Willamette Falls." The area encompasses the local historic district of Willamette, established by West Linn in the 1970s.

Related Research Articles

Oregon City is the county seat of Clackamas County, Oregon, United States, located on the Willamette River near the southern limits of the Portland metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 37,572. Established in 1829 by the Hudson's Bay Company, in 1844 it became the first U.S. city west of the Rocky Mountains to be incorporated.

The Willamette River is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is 187 miles (301 km) long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward between the Oregon Coast Range and the Cascade Range, the river and its tributaries form the Willamette Valley, a basin that contains two-thirds of Oregon's population, including the state capital, Salem, and the state's largest city, Portland, which surrounds the Willamette's mouth at the Columbia.

West Linn is a city in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States. A southern suburb within the Portland metropolitan area, West Linn developed on the site of the former Linn City, which was named after U.S. Senator Lewis F. Linn of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, who had advocated the American occupation of the Oregon territory as a counterclaim to the British.

Albany is the county seat of Linn County, Oregon, and is the eleventh largest city in that state. Albany is located in the Willamette Valley at the confluence of the Calapooia River and the Willamette River in both Linn and Benton counties, just east of Corvallis and south of Salem. It is predominantly a farming and manufacturing city that settlers founded around 1848. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population of Albany, Oregon was 56,472.

Wilsonville is a city primarily in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States. A portion of the northern section of the city is in Washington County. It was founded as Boones Landing because of the Boones Ferry which crossed the Willamette River at the location; the community became Wilsonville in 1880. The city was incorporated in 1969 with a population of approximately 1,000. The population was 13,991 at the 2000 census, and grew to 19,509 as of 2010. Slightly more than 90% of residents at the 2000 census were white, with Hispanics comprising the largest minority group.

The Tualatin River is a tributary of the Willamette River in Oregon in the United States. The river is about 83 miles (134 km) long, and it drains a fertile farming region called the Tualatin Valley southwest and west of Portland at the northwest corner of the Willamette Valley. There are approximately 500,000 people residing on 15 percent of the land in the river's watershed.

The Willamette Shore Trolley is a heritage railroad or heritage streetcar that operates along the west bank of the Willamette River between Portland and Lake Oswego in the U.S. state of Oregon. The right-of-way is owned by a group of local-area governments who purchased it in 1988 in order to preserve it for potential future rail transit. Streetcar excursion service began operating on a trial basis in 1987, lasting about three months, and regular operation on a long-term basis began in 1990. The Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society has been the line's operator since 1995.

Willamette, from the Clackamas language of the Columbia River, Oregon, can refer to:

The Willamette Falls is a natural waterfall on the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon, in the United States. It is the largest waterfall in the Northwestern United States by volume, and the seventeenth widest in the world. Horseshoe in shape, it is 1,500 feet (460 m) wide and 40 feet (12 m) high with a flow of 30,849 cu ft/s, located 26 miles (42 km) upriver from the Willamette's mouth. Willamette Falls is a culturally significant site for many tribal communities in the region.

Oregon Route 43 is an Oregon state highway that runs between the cities of Oregon City and Portland, mostly along the western flank of the Willamette River. While it is technically known by the Oregon Department of Transportation as the Oswego Highway No. 3, on maps it is referred to by its route number or by the various street names it has been given.

The Willamette Falls Locks are a lock system on the Willamette River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Opened in 1873 and closed since 2011, they allowed boat traffic on the Willamette to navigate beyond Willamette Falls and the T.W. Sullivan Dam. Since their closure in 2011 the locks are classified to be in a "non-operational status" and are expected to remain permanently closed.

Linnton is a Portland, Oregon neighborhood located between Forest Park and the Willamette River along U.S. Route 30, close to the agricultural community of Sauvie Island. It borders the neighborhoods of Northwest Industrial on the south, St. Johns and Cathedral Park via the St. Johns Bridge across the Willamette on the east, and Forest Park on the west. The neighborhood extends north somewhat beyond Portland city limits into unincorporated Multnomah County, ending at the Sauvie Island Bridge.

Linn City was a community in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States, that existed from 1843-1861 and was destroyed in the Great Flood of 1862. The former site of Linn City was incorporated into the city of West Linn.

Gazelle was an early sidewheeler on the Willamette River in what is now the U.S. state of Oregon. She did not operate long, suffering a catastrophic boiler explosion on April 8, 1854, less than a month after her trial voyage. This was the worst such explosion ever to occur in the Pacific Northwest states. The wrecked Gazelle was rebuilt and operated for a few years, first briefly as the unpowered barge Sarah Hoyt and then, with boilers installed, as the steamer Señorita. A victim of the explosion was D.P. Fuller, age 28, who is buried in Lone Fir Cemetery in Portland, Oregon.

The Van Buren Street Bridge is a swing span, steel motor vehicle bridge spanning the Willamette River at Corvallis in the U.S. state of Oregon. Opened in 1913, the black colored bridge was the first bridge across the river at Corvallis and is now the third oldest bridge across the river. Owned by the state and maintained by the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), the 708-foot (216 m) long span is of a through truss design and carries one lane of traffic of Oregon Route 34 eastbound from Corvallis into neighboring Linn County. The bridge no longer is able to swing open.

The Astoria Riverfront Trolley is a 3-mile (4.8 km) heritage streetcar line that operates in Astoria, Oregon, United States, using former freight railroad tracks along or near the south bank of the Columbia River, with no overhead line. The service began operating in 1999, using a 1913-built streetcar from San Antonio, Texas. As of 2012, the service was reported as carrying 35,000 to 40,000 passengers per year and has been called a "symbol" and "icon" of Astoria. The line's operation is seasonal, normally during spring break and from May through September.

James Clinton was a steamboat which operated on the upper Willamette River from 1856 to 1861. Although the Clinton was said to have been "not a very good boat.", it was the first steamer ever to reach Eugene, Oregon. James Clinton was destroyed in April 1861, when a large fire broke out at Linn City, Oregon in a shoreside structure near to where the vessel was moored.

George Anson Pease was a well-known steamboat captain in the Pacific Northwest region on the United States, who was active from the earliest days of steamboat navigation on the Willamette River in the 1850s. He worked in various roles until the early 1900s, commanding numerous vessels during that time. During a flood in 1861, while in command of the sternwheeler Onward, Pease rescued 40 people from a flood in the area of Salem, Oregon.

Orleans was a city in Linn County, Oregon, United States. It was established around 1850 and destroyed in the Great Flood of 1862. It was not rebuilt. The city was located across the Willamette River from Corvallis. The Orleans cemetery survived because it was built on high ground at 44.5697°N 123.1913°W.

The Willamette Falls Paper Company is an American paper mill located just above the Willamette Falls on the northwest bank of the Willamette River, in the city of West Linn, Oregon.

References

1 2 Cornelia Becker Seigneur (January 2009). West Linn. Arcadia Publishing. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-7385-5850-9 . Retrieved 1 June 2013.
↑ "Willamette Living History Tour – Willamette (West Linn) 1908". willamettelivinghistory.org. Retrieved 1 June 2013.
↑ "Capen Shoe Company Factory, Willamette - c. 1908 - West Linn". oldoregonphotos.com. Retrieved 1 June 2013.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[Seigneur2009-1] 1 2 Cornelia Becker Seigneur (January 2009). West Linn. Arcadia Publishing. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-7385-5850-9 . Retrieved 1 June 2013.

[Willamettelivinghistory-2] "Willamette Living History Tour – Willamette (West Linn) 1908". willamettelivinghistory.org. Retrieved 1 June 2013.

[OldoregonphotosCapen-3] "Capen Shoe Company Factory, Willamette - c. 1908 - West Linn". oldoregonphotos.com. Retrieved 1 June 2013.

[1]

[2]

[3]