Lake Oswego resident discovers long-lost trade route from West Linn area to Tualatin Valley

When peering at an old map showing the local area in 1852, Lake Oswego resident Paul Pappas noticed something interesting: a lost roadway that ran from Oregon City through Lake Oswego and to the Tualatin Valley. The road spanned over his own property near Oswego Lake before it expanded and establishments like Lake Grove Elementary School and a local post office cropped up along the route.

With the help of the city of Lake Oswego Historic Review Board, Pappas hopes to have a marker commemorating what was known as the Tualatin Plains Road.

“I would like it to have the recognition for those that came before us. I just want it recognized. It’s an important piece of our history,” he said.

According to Pappas’ research, the roadway once served as a trade route from modern day West Linn and Oregon City to the Tualatin Valley in the 19th century, and remnants of it include Rosemont Road in West Linn and Reese Road in Lake Oswego.

“Oregon City, of course, was the hub of new industry, new people trying to shape their new Oregon from the old Oregon,” Pappas said, adding that the road’s route was efficient but challenging.

The roadway also passed through modern day Tigard and Beaverton and concluded near Forest Grove. Pappas noted that the stairway from the Lake Grove Swim Park and Reese Road both follow the old road’s alignment. The roadway was gone by the early 20th century, but Pappas wasn’t sure how or why that happened. Expansions of Oswego Lake, including the building of the canal to connect with Lakewood Bay in the early 20th century, meant that part of the old roadway path is now submerged in water.

“You’ve walked in the footsteps of our ancestors as you leave your mail at the Lake Grove Post Office, or drop your children off at the Lake Grove Elementary School. As you go around the roundabout at Carman and Quarry Road, you are driving right next to the original steps of the Native Americans who probably created the path, and those of the original European settlers of Lake Oswego and this region,” Pappas wrote in a column in a city historic resources newsletter.

Pappas suggested the city put up a marker at the current Lake Grove Swim Park. Historic Resources Advisory Board member Robin Quon liked Pappas’s idea and helped with the story about it in the city’s newsletter. The board has discussed the idea but has not made a decision yet on whether to include the marker.

“We go about our daily lives and we’re busy and you don’t stop and think about how things were in the past. Indians, people on horseback, wagons needing to get from Oregon City to Tualatin Valley and the way they would do that — it never occurred to me to wonder how they did it. This information gives us the whole story of the route they took. You can trace how they did it,” Quon said. “I think that this is a great opportunity to get a little bird’s-eye view into how people lived back then. That is always fascinating to me.”

City planner Paul Espe said the funding source for a plaque is undetermined but one way would be through a neighborhood grant. He said the resource board would have more discussions about this idea.