Aloha Reedville

What we think of today as Aloha or Aloha-Reedville in Washington County, Oregon, was once a collection of small villages that developed near rivers and established overland routes. Bridgeport, later Farmington on the Tualatin River, was settled in 1845. Nearby, homesteads emerged along the lower slope of Cooper Mountain and the Plains-Falls Road, an official route of the territorial government of Oregon. The 1850s donation land claim era brought additional settlement and increased agricultural production. Throughout the 1860s, farmers and entrepreneurs scrambled for an effective means of transporting surplus products for export from the prolific Tualatin Valley to Portland, San Francisco, and beyond. A railroad line, completed in 1872, established Reedville as a commercial center, and by the early 1900s, passenger depots were built at Huber, Tobias, and Aloha on the interurban Red Electric railway. Today, the suburban community of Aloha, once part of Oregon's oldest agricultural centers, maintains a significant role in the development of the Portland metropolitan region.

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press How did people travel in the good old days? Ed Culp traces the history of transportation in the West, particularly into Oregon. Old photos, maps, drawings, advertisements and transportation schedules illustrate how improvements were made, with emphasis on the development of the railroad.

Hillsboro, Oregon, always seemed destined to be an important railroad town. When the first trains arrived in Hillsboro in 1871 under the banner of the Oregon & California Railroad, the town began to develop into a key railroad junction point. Hillsboro was strategically located just 20 miles from the booming Portland metropolis, a regional center of manufacturing and trade, and by 1911, Hillsboro was where several rail lines branched off. One line headed west toward Tillamook, where the railroad tapped rich timber resources along the Oregon coast. Another line cut south into the fertile Willamette Valley, accessing prime agricultural lands that produced a bounty of wheat and other commodities. A third route carried passengers and goods to and from Portland and the neighboring communities of Cornelius and Forest Grove. As these routes developed, heavy volumes of freight began rolling into Hillsboro. At the same time, travelers moved through Hillsboro on passenger trains, including the Southern Pacific Railroads famed Red Electrics and the Oregon Electric Railways interurbans, which advertised passenger service with no soot and no cinders.

Selections from The Municipal Year Book: On Sustainability contains facts, figures, and research-based articles on management trends and intergovernmental relations: (1) Early Stages of Local Government Action to Promote Sustainability, (2) Off the Beaten Path: Sustainability Activities in Small Towns and Rural Municipalities, and (3) Local Government Support for Food System Development.