Photo by Greg Johnson
This beautifully designed coffee table book, A Northwest Portland History: From the River to the Hills, lets you experience the beginning of Northwest Portland, Oregon.
Featuring many previously unpublished photographs showing the early days when the muddy streets were filled with horse-drawn wagons, the harbor wharves welcomed sailing ships carrying goods and immigrants, and the waterfront teemed with lumber mills, manufacturing plants, businesses, saloons, hotels and boarding houses.
A Northwest Portland History: From the River to the Hills reveals how this riverfront land, rich in trees, creeks, and lakes, was transformed into the thriving and vibrant district of unique neighborhoods. Learn about the origins of these neighborhoods: Nob Hill, Slabtown, Old Town, the Alphabet District, the Industrial District, and the Pearl, and how they received their names.
Read about the Lewis and Clark World’s Fair; the Vaughn Street Ballpark; the shanghaiing of sailors; and, the rich mixture of pocket immigrant communities of Germans, Jews, Greek, Irish, Scandinavian, Chinese, Croatian, Japanese, and African American communities. Learn how a hillside was moved to turn a lake into an industrial district and how landslides saved a park from development. Travel back to the days when streets were named with letters, and the term “North End” referred to Northwest Portland.
