Troutdale started as Sandy in 1840s
Photo courtesy of the Troutdale Historical Society
The raw new town of Troutdale, which developed in 1891 and 1892, is seen from Broughton Bluff across the Sandy.
The community we know as Troutdale began at the confluence of the Sandy and Columbia rivers. Now comes the tricky part – it was first known as Sandy, not to be confused with the present city of Sandy.
Before the Barlow Road extended around the south flank of Mount Hood in 1846, the only option for Oregon Trail travelers who wanted to get through the Cascade Mountain Range to the promised land in the Willamette Valley was to float the Columbia River.
Arriving at The Dalles, the travelers sent their drovers and herds westward on rugged overland trails, then engaged boats or rafts to carry themselves, their dismantled wagons and their families and goods downriver. A pioneer with money in his pockets might buy passage all the way to Oregon City, fledgling Portland or Fort Vancouver. But those at the end of their resources wanted to leave the river as quickly as possible. Once through the steep reaches of the Columbia River Gorge, the first likely spot to regain solid ground was at the mouth of the Sandy River. There a speck of a community named Sandy rose to meet the needs of travelers.
From the start of the migration in the 1840s until about 1880, the landing site and cluster of buildings at the Sandy River was a significant crossroad for river travelers.
Researcher Sally Donovan noted in her 1992 history of the Sandy River Delta: “In 1852 George Griswold established a ferry business transporting Willamette Valley-bound settlers from the Cascades on the Columbia River to a point opposite the Sandy River. Griswold then ferried the passengers across the Columbia to the west side of the mouth of the Little Sandy River where a wagon road… connected the Sandy River to the settlements at Portland, Oregon City and the Willamette Valley.”
Donovan added that a landing west of the mouth of the Little Sandy River was called Stott’s Landing, after early land claimant James Stott. In 1852, E.R. Scott established a post office there named Sandy where mail was delivered to the community situated “at the foot of the Cascade Mountains.”
The landing at the Sandy bustled with the traffic of riverboats, ferries and Oregon Trail travelers. Even after the Barlow Road offered a land-based route to immigrants around Mount Hood, some travelers continued to choose the Columbia River, landing at the Sandy to rejoin their teams, rebuild their wagons and set off to find their chunk of the new state.
Though small, the community provided sufficient numbers to produce a love triangle that ended in murder, a tale recounted in a 1926 Outlook story:
OLD TRAGEDY
RECALLED BY
FINDING BONES
While excavating for a roadway to his house from the recently constructed subway on Main Street at Fairview, John Loser unearthed the remains of a human body that have a history almost as old as the settlement and older than the county of Multnomah.
The decaying bones attracted considerable curiosity and much speculation as to whose they had belonged to in life. D.S. Dunbar was the one who finally unraveled the mystery with a history of them.
The bones were the remains of a man named Charles McClellan who was shot and killed by a Mr. Cox, a storekeeper at the mouth of the Sandy River in the year 1853. That was 63 years ago when Clackamas County held jurisdiction over this part of the state, and Multnomah county had not been formed.
The trial of Mr. Cox was held at Oregon City, that being the county seat of Clackamas county, as it yet is. Mr. Dunbar’s father, the late A.C. Dunbar, was one of the jurymen on the trial, and on the first ballot the defendant was acquitted, the jury considering the killing justifiable, the cause being the alienation of the affections of Mr. Cox’s wife.
Mr. McClellan was the first white person ever buried in the vicinity of Fairview and the locality of grave had long been forgotten.
The Gresham Outlook, November 7, 1916
Note: Daniel Dunbar’s memory was not far off. Charles McClellan died Aug. 23, 1858.1
The first settlers to arrive at the Sandy River quickly claimed the lowlands along the Columbia, which flooded annually, creating grassy prairies dotted with oak savannahs. Claims on these relatively clear lands were snapped up because they provided pasture without the need to clear the huge, old-growth firs, then regarded as an impediment to farming.
George Pullen, descendant of a pioneer family, recalled in 1971 that his family “settled there because they called it the prairie. There was grass for their cattle without clearing the land.” Granted, when the Columbia flooded in the spring and summer, people got their feet wet.
Until the coming of the railroad in 1882, the mouth of the Sandy was the center of the community. It offered commerce. Cattle and logs, salmon and spuds were shipped from Sandy. John, Jackson and David Powell, pioneers of 1847, arrived by boat on the last leg of their journey and secured work during the fall and winter rolling logs from the Sandy River to the government saw mill at Vancouver.
Settlers from areas now known as Twelve-Mile Corner, Fairview and Troutdale were part of a single far-flung community centered on the Sandy Precinct. They combined forces in 1853 to form the Methodist Sunday School and in 1855 built a school. They rallied in 1856 to protect their families during the Indian attack at the Cascades (now Bonneville Dam).
Gradually these scattered settlers separated into individual communities centered on schools. William Jones donated the land for Cedar School. David Buxton helped create Troutdale School. Fairview residents built a school in their community.
Sandy lasted until about 1880 when a railroad line was built through the Columbia River Gorge. The track and a depot were built uphill on the Sandy Road above the normal flood area. The train lured a new town to develop around the railroad and a depot. It was named Troutdale in honor of the farm and trout ponds of Capt. John Harlow.
Troutdale Historical Society
• The Troutdale Historical Society office is in the Troutdale Rail Depot Museum, 473 S.E. Historic Columbia River Highway, across from Troutdale City Hall. Office hours are Tuesday through Friday, 8 to 11 a.m. and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. The mailing address is 104 S.E. Kibling, Troutdale, 97060.
The society offers tours by appointment to its Union Pacific caboose, Harlow House and Barn museums by calling 503-661-2164. The society maintains library, artifact and photo collections and conducts a series of winter historical programs, usually on the third Sunday of the month in Troutdale City Hall. For newsletters, meeting dates and further information e-mail info@troutdalehistory.org or call the number above.
This piece on Troutdale is by Outlook reporter/columnist Sharon Nesbit, former historian of the Troutdale Historical Society and a founder of that organization.
She is the author of Troutdale’s centennial history, “It Could Have Been Carpdale,” and with Tim Hills wrote “Vintage Edgefield,” a history of the Multnomah County Poor Farm and McMenamins Edgefield. She edited “A Pictorial History of East Multnomah County.”
Nesbit has worked for The Outlook for more than 40 years, and writes “Just the Other Day,” which is gleaned from the bound volumes of the newspaper, first published March 3, 1911.