Marking the miles of history

By Howard Horner

The Gresham Outlook, Sep 30, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

Jim Clark / The Outlook

This Stark Street mile marker is at Mt. Hood Community College. The 14 is how many miles to P (Portland).

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Most of us who drive to downtown Portland by way of Stark Street are unaware that we are traveling on one of the oldest, most historically favored routes ever available in the East Portland area. In fact, the Stark Street route has a fascinating history more than 150 years old. (Older even, than the state of Oregon.)

In June 1851, John B. Preston, surveyor general for the Territory of Oregon, established a point for the intersection of the Willamette Meridian and the Willamette Baseline. Just off 6500 N.E. Skyline Boulevard, a spot marked by the Willamette Stone is the foundation for all Oregon and Washington surveys. Every parcel of real estate in these states is referenced to that pinpoint intersection of the Willamette Meridian and Baseline.

“Meridian” usually denotes the north-south (between the poles) direction. The Willamette Meridian hits California near Ashland and goes north to Canada.

From the Willamette Stone, the Baseline runs west to the Pacific Ocean, near Bay City, and goes east to the Idaho border near Imnaha.

Preston asked William Ives, deputy surveyor, to survey the Baseline from the Willamette Meridian to the east, 36 miles into the Cascades. In 1851, there were only two roads leading away from Portland on the east side of the Willamette River: one from the ferry landing near the foot of Oak Street to the Columbia River; the other along what is now Foster Road to meet one branch of the old Barlow Road. In 1854, the Clackamas County Commission (Multnomah County was later created from part of Clackamas County) was successfully petitioned by more than 30 people for a road to run from the Sandy River along the baseline as near as possible to the Willamette River.

Travelers leaving Portland to use Baseline Road crossed the Willamette on the Stark Street ferry. A wooden trestle then took them to what is now the Southeast Grand Avenue area, where they could continue east.

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