BUILDINGS, BUSINESSES, AND RESIDENTS
Since the arrival of the first organized party of Americans at Willamette Falls in 1842 a variety of buildings have been erected in the historic downtown area. Over time most of these buildings have been replaced, some more than once. These pages present the history of many of these buildings and those who ran the different businesses located in the old downtown.
The Buildings
The Mill Area to Fifth Street
The Buildings
Fifth to Fifteenth Streets
Businesses
Store, hotels, saloons, restaurants, professional offices, and the like.
Residents
Prominent business people, civic leaders, and their families
”These enterprises may be enumerated as follows: Five general stores, five grocery stores, three drug stores, three jewelry stores, one large stove store and tin shop, one furniture store, one agricultural implement warehouse, one book store, three confectionery stores, two meat markets, one livery stable, three wagon shops, two undertaking establishments, one feed stable, two hotels, and one restaurant. There are, also, a good bank, representatives of the various professions, and two good weekly papers, the Enterprise and Courier.”
“The City at the Falls.” The West Shore, August 1887.
The development of downtown Oregon City is a story of industry and commerce. The original homes, businesses, saw mills and flour mills, along with general merchandise stores, stables and offices, were clustered on the sides of Main Street from Fifth Street to the upper basin at the falls. As new mills were erected to make use of the power from the falls, the residential and commercial center moved slowly north on Main Street.
As early as the 1880s families were begin to look for lots on top of the bluff, shifting the residential section to the second level. Into the early 1900s the old homes and churches built downtown north of Fifth Street were replaced by new commercial buildings as property values downtown increased. Some houses, most notably the McLoughlin house and the Barclay house, were moved up the hill to new lots.
Today downtown Oregon City has only one intact building from the 1850s and remnants of a few other old buildings. Several factors came into play to remove the older structures, most commonly a fear of fire.
Oregon City lost a few structures to fires over the years, but a vigilant volunteer fire department helped limit damage and the spread of fires, unlike many other Oregon towns that had been decimated by fire. To assist in firefighting a system of water pipes was laid by a private company downtown beginning in 1867, replacing large cisterns built on the corners of intersections. The piped system included hydrants for firefighting and advertised “a stream that would shoot over any building.”
In 1891 a “fire-limits” program was first proposed, requiring that any new commercial building be constructed of brick or fire-proof material. These fire limits sped up the replacement of older wooden structures, removing most of the older buildings downtown.
Want to see more photos of Old Oregon City?
The book Old Oregon City is a reprint of a popular book originally published by the Clackamas County Historical Society in the 1970s.
It is available in the gift shop at the Museum of the Oregon Territory, 211 Tumwater Dr., Oregon City, OR or online through Amazon.com:
All sales benefit the Clackamas County Historical Society and help preserve the largest collections of photographs of Clackamas County as collected by the founders, members and volunteers of the society.
The OLD OREGON CITY blog is a product of 30+ years of research on what I have called the “genealogy of dirt.” Starting with Dr. McLoughlin’s property sales to arriving Americans in 1842 I have accumulated information on property ownership, sales, and transfers, construction, demolition, fires, building collapses and changes in business ownership from 1842 through the 1940s and 1950s, and in some cases beyond.
I hope you enjoy this travel through time in words and photos as we visit the historic downtown of the oldest incorporated city west of the Rocky Mountains.
Karin D. Morey, amateur historian – karin.morey@gmail.com
Old Oregon City 