Lake Oswego (
oss-WEE-goh) is a city in the
U.S. state of
Oregon, primarily in
Clackamas County, with small portions extending into neighboring
Multnomah and
Washington counties.
[6] Population in 2020 was 40,731, a 11.2% increase since 2010. Located about 7 miles (11 km) south of
Portland and surrounding the 405-acre (164 ha)
Oswego Lake, the town was founded in 1847 and incorporated as
Oswego in 1910. The city was the hub of Oregon's brief iron industry in the late 19th century, and is today a suburb of Portland.
About Lake Oswego, Oregon
The Clackamas people once occupied the land that later became Lake Oswego, but diseases transmitted by European explorers and traders killed most of the natives. Before the influx of non-native people via the Oregon Trail, the area between the Willamette River and Tualatin River had a scattering of early pioneer homesteads and farms.
As settlers arrived, encouraged by the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 and the subsequent Homestead Act, they found the land underoccupied.
Albert Alonzo Durham founded the town of Oswego in 1847, naming it after Oswego, New York. He built a sawmill on Sucker Creek (now Oswego Creek), the town's first industry.
In 1855, the federal government forcibly relocated the remaining Clackamas people to the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation in nearby Yamhill County.
During this early period in Oregon history, most trade proceeded from Portland to Oregon City via the Willamette River, and up the Tualatin River valley through Tualatin, Scholls, and Hillsboro. The thick woods and rain-muddied roads were major obstacles to traveling by land. The vestiges of river landings, ferry stops, and covered bridges of this period can still be seen along this area. A landing in the city's present-day George Rogers Park is thought to have been developed by Durham around 1850 for lumber transport; another landing was near the Tryon Creek outlet into the Willamette.
In 1865, prompted by the earlier discovery of iron ore in the Tualatin Valley, the Oregon Iron Company was incorporated. Within two years, the first blast furnace on the West Coast was built, patterned after the arched furnaces common in northwestern Connecticut, and the company set out to make Oswego into the "Pittsburgh of the West". In 1878, the company was sold off to out-of-state owners and renamed the Oswego Iron Company, and in 1882, Portland financiers Simeon Gannett Reed and Henry Villard purchased the business and renamed it the Oregon Iron and Steel Company.
The railroad arrived in Oswego in 1886, in the form of the Portland and Willamette Valley Railway. A 7-mile-long (11 km) line provided Oswego with a direct link to Portland. Prior to this, access to the town was limited to primitive roads and riverboats. The railroad's arrival was a mixed blessing; locally, it promoted residential development along its path, which enabled Oswego to grow beyond its industrial roots, but nationally, the continued expansion of the freight railroad system gave easy local access to cheaper and higher quality iron from the Great Lakes region. This ultimately led to the local industry's demise.
By 1890, the industry produced 12,305 tons of pig iron, and at its peak provided employment to around 300 men. The success of this industry greatly stimulated the development of Oswego, which by this time had four general stores, a bank, two barber shops, two hotels, three churches, nine saloons, a drugstore, and even an opera house.
The iron industry was a vital part of a strategy designed by a few Portland financiers who strove to control all related entrepreneurial ventures in the late 19th century. Control of shipping and railroads was held under the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, later to become the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company. This local monopoly responded to the area's increasing demand for iron and steel, and grew to play a key role in economic history throughout the area.
The Oregon Iron and Steel Company adapted to the new century by undertaking programs in land development, selling large tracts of the 24,000 acres (97 km2) of land it owned, and power, building a plant on Oswego Creek starting in 1905, and erecting power poles in subsequent years to supply power to Oswego citizens. With the water needs of the smelters tailing off, the recreational potential of the lake and town was freed to develop rapidly.
In 1910, the town of Oswego was incorporated. The Southern Pacific Railroad, which had acquired the P&WVR line at the end of the 19th century, widened it from narrow to standard gauge and in 1914 electrified it, providing rapid, clean, and quiet service between Oswego and Portland. The service was known as the Red Electric.
Passenger traffic hit its peak in 1920 with 64 trains to and from Portland daily. Within nine years of the peak, passenger service ended, and the line was used for intermittent freight service to Portland's south waterfront until its abandonment in 1984. The line was preserved, however, and the Willamette Shore Trolley provides tourist rides on the line today.
One of the land developers benefiting from sales by OI&S was Paul Murphy, whose Oswego Lake Country Club helped promote the new city as a place to "live where you play." Murphy was instrumental in developing the first water system to supply the western reaches of the city, and also played a key role in encouraging the design of fine homes in the 1930s and 1940s that ultimately established Oswego as an attractive place to live. In the 1940s and 1950s, continued development helped spread Oswego's residential areas.
Mass transit service after the end of electric interurban service was provided by Oregon Motor Stages, but that company suspended all operations following a drivers' strike in 1954. In 1955, a newly formed private company, Intercity Buses, Inc., began operating bus service connecting Oswego with downtown Portland and Oregon City. This service was taken over by TriMet in 1970.
In 1960, Oswego was renamed "Lake Oswego" when it annexed part of neighboring Lake Grove. The city has some nicknames including "Lake No-Negro", "Lake Big Ego", "Fake Oswego" and "Fake Lost Ego". Additionally, it was spoken of as Nimbyville during a planning-related seminar on 2008 by Dennis Egner. A 2012 article in the Daily Journal of Commerce identified Egner as a long-range planning director for the city of Lake Oswego. According to historian James W. Loewen, locals often call it "Lake No Negro" in reference to its recognition status as an "elite white suburb".
In August 2020, Lake Oswego received significant media attention when its resident received an anonymous letter from neighbors asking them to take down their "Black Lives Matter" sign from the window, complaining that it lowers property values, which prompted Mayor Studebaker to issue a response to this matter. A documentary titled Lake No Negro about Lake Oswego's racially exclusive past was produced by a Lakeridge High School student in 2020