More Oregon City content now available!

Posted on by srabun@uoregon.edu

In partnership with Oregon City Public Library, with a grant from the Library Services and Technology Act from the Institute of Museum and Library Services via the Oregon State Library, we’ve just added over 750 new issues of historic newspaper content from Oregon City! Latest additions include:

The 1902 New Year’s edition of the Oregon City courier=herald has some especially interesting information and photographs of the development of Oregon City and the surrounding area. Here are just a few examples in regards to transportation:

Photograph of a steamboat with several passengers aboard has caption that reads: "Portland - Oregon City Steamer Leona at O.C. Dock"
Oregon City courier=herald. (Oregon City, Or.) 1898-1902, January 03, 1902, New Year NUMBER, Page 11, Image 13. http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn00063697/1902-01-03/ed-1/seq-13/

The steamship Leona was operated by the Oregon City Transportation Company from 1901 until it was destroyed by fire in 1912.

Photograph of an electric railway car with the words "Oregon City" and "Sellwood, Milwaukie, Oregon City and Canemah" on the car, indicating the route of the train.
Oregon City courier=herald. (Oregon City, Or.) 1898-1902, January 03, 1902, New Year NUMBER, Page 42, Image 44. http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn00063697/1902-01-03/ed-1/seq-44/

The article following this image of an Oregon City electric railway car reads:

Article reads: "Portland - Oregon City Electric Line. A new era dawned for Oregon City when the electric railway was opened connecting it with the City of Portland. The railway practically brought both cities, socially and commercially, closer together. Were it to cease running its cars tomorrow, the consequent inconvinience and interference with established business relations would be most serious to our citizens. The fact is now that we have the electric line, we could not get along without it. It has to a degree made Oregon City metropolitan. The large patronage it receives from early in the morning till late at night tells its own story. But under the direction of the present energetic president of the P.C. & O. Railway, W.H. Hurlburt, this 'harnessing of the powers of the air' will be extended in the Willamette Valley. Electricity will bring the foot-hill farmer closely in touch with the merchants of Washington street. That is what the recent purchase of water power on the Clackamas River by Vice President F.S. Morris means. The time may be not far off when the denizens of Eagle Creek will be able to hear an opera at the Marquam Grand and sleep in their beds at home the same evening. The civilizing, the educating, the refining influences, which will, in such manner, reach the denizens of remote hamlets and farms, have a value which can not be figured in dollars and cents, as they are inestimable. The electric horse will bring lands now of comparatively little value because too far from a market, nearly as close to Portland as the Chinese truck gardens. Speed the electric horse!"
Oregon City courier=herald. (Oregon City, Or.) 1898-1902, January 03, 1902, New Year NUMBER, Page 42, Image 44. http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn00063697/1902-01-03/ed-1/seq-44/

How much has changed since 1902? Take a peek through these pages yourself and see what other kinds of interesting gems you can find! Happy searching!