Willamette district gets historic status

The West Linn Tidings, Oct 14, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

West Linn’s historic Willamette district is Oregon’s latest entry in the National Register of Historic Places.

Oregon’s State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation recommended the district’s nomination in June 2009. Three properties are already recognized in West Linn, including the Willamette Falls Locks and the former home of Nicholas O. Walden, which is located in the recently established historic district.

Gail Holmes of the city’s Historic Resources Advisory Board announced the milestone to the West Linn City Council Monday night. The national recognition has been a long time coming. Residents of the Willamette neighborhood embarked on the effort in the mid-1980s.

“Hopefully it brings in tourism and all kinds of wonderful things,” Holmes said.

Platted by the Willamette Falls Company in 1893, the community of Willamette Falls was designed by businessman and real estate speculator Nicholas O. Walden.

Walden’s ambitious plan for the town called for a modern and bustling trade and manufacturing center complete with underground utilities, including water and sewer systems, and electricity generated at Willamette Falls. Soon after its founding, the town boasted a number of fine homes, a busy downtown, a modern shoe factory and an electric trolley line. The town was incorporated in 1908.

While Willamette Falls never grew into the boomtown its founders envisioned, the community is important as an example of the many towns that developed along the banks of the Willamette River in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Willamette Falls is recognized as the largest and most developed of these communities and one of the very few towns in the nation during the late1900s that incorporated modern utilities into the original city design. The neighborhood also boasts one of the best collections of historic housing in West Linn.

The National Register is maintained by the National Park Service under the authority of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966.

More information about the National Register and recent Oregon listings are online at www.oregonheritage.org.

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