Where the Country and City Meet: The History of Parkrose
Parkrose is located in northeast Portland, Oregon, between Northeast 82nd and 148th Avenues, encompassing approximately 15 square miles of the city. The community is surrounded by several notable geographic features: Rocky Butte to the west, the Columbia River and Columbia River Slough to the north, and scenic views of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood to the north and east. It’s nestled between central Portland and Gresham, near the base of the Columbia River Gorge. Parkrose was founded as an agricultural community in the early twentieth century and still maintains some of its pastoral character today. Despite recent urbanization, large swaths of farmland remain visible, including Rossi Farms off Northeast 122nd Avenue and Shaver Street, adjacent to present-day Parkrose Middle School and Parkrose High School. The Parkrose community includes six neighborhoods: Parkrose, Parkrose Heights, Russell, Argay Terrace, Sumner, and the city of Maywood Park. For much of its history, Parkrose was not part of Portland; instead, it was “unincorporated” Multnomah County. Throughout the twentieth century, the community experienced increased industrialization and growth, especially following annexation into the city of Portland in the 1980s.
Map of the current boundaries for the Parkrose School District, including the neighborhoods of Parkrose, Parkrose Heights,
Argay Terrace, Russell, Sumner, and the city of Maywood Park. Courtesy of the Parkrose School District.
The Chinookan peoples, the first inhabitants of the Parkrose area of northeast Portland, arrived in the Pacific Northwest about 11,000 years ago, among them several tribes, including the Multnomah, the Clackamas, the Kathlamet, and the Tualatin.[1] Chinookan populations lived along the lower Columbia River and upper Willamette Valley as hunter-gatherers with distinct cultural and social attributes: sedentism (living in one place), social stratification (categorizing individuals in a society based on various factors), property ownership, craft specialization, and material cultures (cultures based in physical objects and resources, like clothing, tools, arts, and weapons).[2] The Chinookan peoples were decimated by diseases introduced by European colonists in the late 1700s and early 1800s. European settlement consequently destroyed many local Indigenous communities before the organized development of Parkrose in the twentieth century.[3] Much of Parkrose’s celebrated “pioneer” history—including its notable place in Portland’s historical consciousness as a prime location of European immigration and settlement—ultimately rests on this problematic legacy of settler colonialism and violence, not unlike the rest of Oregon. Nevertheless, many Chinookan communities still live in the Pacific Northwest today, particularly in Oregon and Washington.
The first Parkrose plat was filed on October 4, 1911, covering the area between present-day 102nd to 112th Avenues and northeast Fremont Street to Sandy Boulevard.[4] The Parkrose community was mainly developed by Hartman & Thompson and Slauson-Craig Company, real estate firms based out of Portland. The name “Parkrose” likely came from the area’s close proximity to Rose City Park, which was established four years earlier. From its start, real estate companies advertised Parkrose as a spacious and cost-effective alternative to crowded city living, sold mostly as acre and half-acre lots. Early newspaper advertisements boasted of the area’s natural features, such as its rich soil, productive farmland, and scenic views:
“Yesterday we decided on the name. It’s PARKROSE ACRES. It’s a fitting name for these beautiful half-acre and acre tracts, because they are located just beyond Rose City Park. [...] Soil experts pronounce this land among the finest in the Northwest. It’ll grow fruit, grain and vegetables abundantly. You can maintain a cow, chickens, bees, etc., profitably. You can cut your living expenses squarely in two and on top of this enjoy a happy, most healthful, profitable life.”
Hartman & Thompson newspaper advertisement from a September 1911 edition of The Morning Oregonian.
Courtesy of Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon.
“[Parkrose] will furnish the source of supply for ALL the fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs, etc., that you and your family can use, and IN ADDITION TO THIS, it will produce enough vegetables for market to net you a handsome income—yes, enough to actually take care of the payments on the property [...] This can be done at PARKROSE, for the soil is RIGHT.”
Hartman & Thompson newspaper advertisement from an October 1911 edition of The Morning Oregonian.
Courtesy of Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon.
“Just beyond Rose City Park, commencing at the junction of Sandy Road and Columbia Boulevard, lies Parkrose—all told over 800 acres—divided into half-acre and acre tracts. The land lies beautifully—sloping gently from the main line of the O.-W. R. & N. to the Columbia River. Social experts pronounce it the best garden and fruit land in the Northwest.”
Hartman & Thompson newspaper advertisement from an October 1911 edition of The Morning Oregonian.
Courtesy of Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon.
“PARKROSE lies just beyond Rose City Park, where the Sandy Road joins Columbia Boulevard—far enough from the noise and dust of the city, close enough to be convenient. Here you can build a cozy home amid pleasant surroundings—plant garden truck of all kinds, trees, shrubs, vines—keep a cow and some chickens and really LIVE as you have never lived before.”
Hartman & Thompson newspaper advertisement from an October 1911 edition of The Oregon Daily Journal.
Courtesy of Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon.
Early advertisements for Parkrose also emphasized the area’s close proximity to Portland and its accessibility from the city via automobile or the Rose City Park Car:
“Here the country and the city meet. Here you have all the advantages of the country combined with practically all the conveniences of right ‘downtown.’ Parkrose is the place for YOU.”
Slauson-Craig Company newspaper advertisement from a July 1912 edition of The Sunday Oregonian.
Courtesy of Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon.
“An Acre in Apples at Parkrose will pay the grocery bills, butcher bills—in fact, it will pretty nearly run the house [...] You haven’t any idea what you are missing until you get out to Parkrose. Just enough outdoor work on an acre to keep you in good condition for hard work in the office, store, or factory. Plenty of fresh air, plenty of room, plenty of green grass and fresh vegetables, your own cow’s fresh milk, your own butter—and, best of all, right in town, with car service, city water, telephone and every convenience.”
Hartman & Thompson newspaper advertisement from a May 1912 edition of The Oregon Daily Journal.
Courtesy of Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon.
“18 Minutes by Auto. You’ve been reading about Parkrose—you’ve heard lots of people discussing Parkrose. Now, why not go and see the property for yourself? It’ll only take about half an hour going and coming. Then you’ll be able to judge for
yourself and discuss Parkrose intelligently.”
Hartman & Thompson newspaper advertisement from a October 1911 edition of The Morning Oregonian.
Courtesy of Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon.
“Yes, Sir-ee! The Rose City Park Car Will Run to the Center of PARKROSE [...] The Rose City Park Carline will be extended to the very center of the tract. Remember, too, you will be able to cut your living expenses squarely in two—grow your own delicious fruit and vegetables—enjoy rich milk and fresh eggs a-plenty daily, besides a most healthful, independent life.”
Hartman & Thompson newspaper advertisement from a October 1911 edition of The Morning Oregonian.
Courtesy of Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon.
Residential homes in early Parkrose mainly consisted of bungalows advertised as “city-farms” to local families:
Photos from Hartman & Thompson and Slauson-Craig Company newspaper advertisements from 1911, 1912, and 1915 issues of The Oregon Daily Journal.
Courtesy of Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon.
Before formal development in 1911, several prominent settlers lived in the Parkrose area, including Henry Holtgrieve, George Long, Harry Johnson, and Andrew Pullen.[5] Many early community members were European immigrants from Italy and Germany. By 1910, the Portland-area Italian immigrant population included more than 5,000 residents, many of whom farmed.[6] In Parkrose, several notable farming families immigrated from Italy, such as the Rossi family. The Rossis arrived in Portland from Genoa in 1880 and farmed in Ladd’s Addition of southeast Portland before arriving in the Parkrose area in 1900.[7] Nick Rossi, father of Aldo Rossi and grandfather of Joe Rossi, the farm’s current owner, purchased the 122nd Avenue farm where the Rossi barn sits today from the Pullens in 1920.[8] The Parkrose area’s first schoolhouse began operations in 1885 and was located off present-day Sandy Boulevard and 122nd Avenue.[9] The community grew exponentially following its first official plat in 1911. Hartman & Thompson advertisements often emphasized the speed at which Parkrose land sold. By 1915, a new $10,000 schoolhouse was built on 10624 NE Wygant Street:[10]
“A MODERN SCHOOL built in Parkrose, that beautiful addition to Portland, which four years ago was a wilderness, but has been
presto—changed by Hartman & Thompson into the sweetest suburbs of “city farms,” located along and south of Sandy boulevard. This $10,000 school tells its own story. A story of wonderful growth.”
Photo and blurb about Parkrose’s school by Hartman & Thompson in a May 1915 edition of The Oregon Daily Journal.
Courtesy of Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon.
The “Parkrose Schoolhouse” had over 200 pupils and 11 teachers in 1920.[11] By 1921 and 1922, the Portland Railway, Light & Power Company extended its service to the area, and telephones were installed in the community.[12] Newspaper articles speak to the growing development in Parkrose in the 1920s: a church was constructed, along with a clubhouse and a public library at the schoolhouse.[13] Parkrose tracts continued to sell, and the community further transitioned from a rural space to a residential suburb.
Photo of Parkrose, NE Sandy Boulevard looking east from NE 99th Avenue, in 1949. Courtesy of City of Portland (OR) Archives, AP/7655.
Parkrose experienced wartime changes similar to the rest of Portland. The city, in general, saw an influx of workers to the Kaiser shipyards in the 1940s: nearly 125,000 people worked in Portland and Vancouver, Washington shipyards during World War II, resulting in a housing shortage.[14] Parkrose, which was still rural compared to the inner city, further developed into an automobile suburb. Many of Portland’s Black workers lived in the Albina neighborhood of North Portland or Vanport, a hastily-built wartime city created in 1942 near the Columbia River, less than ten miles from Parkrose. During the war, Vanport had become the nation’s largest wartime development, with a peak population of 40,000 residents.[15]
On Memorial Day, May 30, 1948, the Columbia River flood struck and destroyed the city of Vanport. Scholars estimate that roughly 18,500-20,000 people were displaced as a result, one-third of which were Black.[16] Many of these Black refugees were not allowed to buy housing elsewhere in the city due to racist and discriminatory policies and practices. As a result, many were forced to crowd into the Albina district. Some white Vanport residents, including Dottie and Robert Dueltgen, found homes in Parkrose following the flood (read the Dueltgens’ recollections of Vanport in The Wheel Keep Turning: An Oral History of Parkrose).
Black residents who did move to Parkrose in the mid-twentieth century were not always welcome; some faced racially charged threats. In May 1953, Charles Gragg, a Black man, moved to Parkrose Heights with his wife and small son to a house located on 11261 NE Knott Street, near present-day Knott City Park. Newspaper articles from 1953 note that many white Parkrose residents protested the arrival of the Graggs to the neighborhood. A few weeks later, at approximately 3:00 a.m., the Graggs awoke to a wooden cross burning on their front lawn. The FBI was notified of the event, but the Graggs ultimately remained in Parkrose. A similar event occurred four years later: Rowan and Parthina Wiley, a Black couple, purchased land in Parkrose after being denied housing elsewhere in Portland. They began building a home off NE 140th Avenue, between NE San Rafael and Halsey Streets, in what was an all-white neighborhood. On July 3, 1957, an arsonist covered their unfinished home in gasoline and lit it on fire. Nevertheless, the Wileys continued to build their home following the event and moved in later that year.[17]
Articles about the cross-burning at the Graggs’ Parkrose Heights home from May 1953 issues of The Capital Journal and
The Portland Challenger, a local Black newspaper. Courtesy of Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon.
Several significant developments in the Portland area shaped change in Parkrose throughout the late twentieth century. Parkrose’s residential growth continued as new mid-century subdivisions were created, including Argay Terrace, which began development in the late 1950s.[18] Gateway Fred Meyer and the Gateway Shopping Center opened in 1954, and the original stretch of the Banfield Freeway was completed in 1955.[19] The Banfield was the first freeway to change the landscape of the Parkrose area by physically dividing the Parkrose and Parkrose Heights neighborhoods and the Argay Terrace and Russell neighborhoods from north to south.[20] Additionally, many Parkrose-area schools were either constructed or reconstructed in the late 1940s to the 1960s: Prescott Elementary in 1947; the old Parkrose High School in 1950; Knott Street Elementary (now Knott Creek School, owned by Multnomah Education Service District) in 1951; Thompson Elementary (now Wheatley School, owned by Multnomah Education Service District) in 1957; Parkrose Heights Junior High (now owned by Portland Christian Junior/Senior School) in 1957; Sacramento Elementary in 1960; Parkrose Middle School (formerly Fremont Middle School) in 1961; Shaver Elementary in 1963; and Russell Elementary in 1963. (Today’s Parkrose High School was built in the late 1990s, and the new Parkrose Middle School opened in 2014.)[21]
In 1967, the community of Maywood Park voted to become its own city after unsuccessfully attempting to stop the construction of Interstate 205 through Parkrose. (Despite community protest, construction of I-205 was completed in 1982. The freeway was originally slated to be built closer to central Portland but was moved to Parkrose after city residents complained.[22]) I-205, coupled with the Banfield Freeway—Interstate 84—and the community’s close proximity to the Portland International Airport, is largely responsible for increased traffic and air/noise pollution in Parkrose.[23] Like the Banfield, I-205 altered the landscape of Parkrose by cutting the community off from Rocky Butte and other nearby Portland neighborhoods to the west. Despite these changes, Parkrose residents remained mostly white and middle-class through the 1950s and 1960s.
Urban renewal and revitalization projects in north and northeast Portland contributed to a growing Parkrose community in the late twentieth century. Like the 1948 Vanport flood, several large urban renewal projects—including the Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Interstate-5, Lloyd Center Mall, and the Emanuel Hospital—displaced and disproportionately harmed Portland's Black community. In the 1950s, the city cleared an area of the densely-populated Albina district and demolished 476 homes for the construction of the Memorial Coliseum and I-5, consequently wiping out a significant portion of homes and businesses owned by the city’s Black community.[24] Lloyd Center Mall, which opened in 1960, also fractured the city’s Black community and coincided with large-scale urban renewal projects.[25] In the 1960s, the city decided to expand Emanuel Hospital, which demolished 188 businesses and residences in north Portland and once again forced communities in the Albina district—who were predominantly Black—to relocate.[26] By the end of the 1960s, the Emanuel Hospital Expansion had displaced more than half the population of the Eliot neighborhood of Albina.[27] Additionally, from the 1980s through to the present day, many traditionally underserved and historically Black areas of north and northeast Portland have continually faced neighborhood revitalization via gentrification (the process by which less affluent areas of a city are rebuilt by wealthier residents, raising prices and displacing poorer residents). Because of the lingering impacts of these urban renewal projects and Portland’s various neighborhood revitalization efforts, many displaced communities had no choice but to move north or further east to areas on the periphery of the city, like Parkrose, particularly in the 1990s and 2000s.
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Photo looking east at Parkrose from Rocky Butte in 1960. Courtesy of City of Portland (OR) Archives, AP/59471.
The 1980s also brought significant change to Parkrose. Portland began annexing areas of unincorporated Multnomah County into the city, including mid-county neighborhoods like Parkrose, to the dismay of many local community members. Many Parkrose residents viewed annexation negatively since it required them to pay higher taxes, switch from septic to sewer, and obey city land-use laws, which ultimately “cannibalized large lots and transformed farmland to block after block of cheap apartments.”[28] Some mark the city’s annexation of the community in the 1980s as the start of “Parkrose’s decline”[29]—to others, annexation opened new avenues to making the area home.
In the late twentieth century, significant numbers of refugees and immigrants settled in Parkrose, including Vietnamese, Cambodian, Lao, Hmong, Russian, Ukrainian, Ethiopian, Burmese, Kurd, and Bosnian communities.[30] Today, many of Portland’s displaced Black residents and racially and ethnically diverse communities continue to move to eastside areas like Parkrose, where housing and living are more affordable compared to the central and inner city. Because of Parkrose’s foreign-born communities, along with urbanization, industrialization, and the gentrification of other areas of the city, Parkrose has become one of the most racially and ethnically diverse communities in Oregon: the Parkrose School District, which is independent of Portland Public Schools, serves roughly 2,800 students total, of which are 30% white, 28.8% Hispanic/Latino, 17.1% Black, 10.5% Asian or Asian Pacific Islander, 9.3% two or more races, 3.3% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and 0.5% Native American or Alaskan Native—standing in stark contrast to other Portland-area schools and predominantly white communities.[31]
As a peripheral area, one of the most diverse communities in the state, and a late addition to Portland, Parkrose is underserved by city government and does not receive the same resources as central Portland residents. Scholars have detailed Portland’s uneven development by illustrating how the urban core of Portland has become more “affluent and White” while the city’s outer eastside—such as Parkrose—has become “more diverse and poor.”[32] Social inequalities and racialized poverty are particularly apparent in the neighborhoods east of 82nd Avenue, and scholars argue that the city’s advances in “green” sustainability “have come at the cost of East Portland’s devaluation.”[33] Others have highlighted the social and health consequences of Portland’s uneven development: the diverse communities of East Portland, like Parkrose, experience disproportionate exposure to air pollution and negative health and environmental impacts.[34] East Portlanders have less green space, fewer crosswalks, sidewalks, and bike trails, and “generally less investment than more affluent parts of the city.”[35] Today, Parkrose continues to bear the brunt of Portland’s industrialization and environmental and health hazards—the most recent example being the construction of a Prologis freight warehouse across the street from Parkrose High School off NE 122nd Avenue, despite community protest.
Many longtime residents of Parkrose describe a loss of community character as the area and its neighborhoods have grown, urbanized, and amalgamated into the city (see oral histories). Nevertheless, Parkrose remains a distinct and diverse community with a rich, often untold history. It’s a unique area of Portland that would undoubtedly benefit from greater city support, care, and investment.
See additional Resources & Further Reading here.
[1] William Toll, “First Peoples in the Portland Basin,” Oregon History Project, Oregon Historical Society, 2024.
[2] Toll, “First Peoples in the Portland Basin.”
[3] “East Portland Historical Overview & Historic Preservation Study,” City of Portland Bureau of Planning, December 20, 2007, 4.
[4] “East Portland Historical Overview & Historic Preservation Study,” 10.
[5] “East Portland Historical Overview & Historic Preservation Study,” 9-10 and The Wheel Keeps Turning: An Oral History of Parkrose, ed. Rachel Blumberg (Portland: FamilyWorks & PCBC, 2002), 35.
[6] Sarah Griffith, “G Arata & Company, Wholesale Liquors,” Oregon History Project, Oregon Historical Society, 2002.
[7] “East Portland Historical Overview & Historic Preservation Study,” 9-10.
[8] “East Portland Historical Overview & Historic Preservation Study,” 9-10.
[9] The Wheel Keeps Turning: An Oral History of Parkrose, 9, 25.
[10] “About Parkrose School District,” Parkrose School District, 2024.
[11] “Parkrose Schoolhouse,” The Oregon Daily Journal, November 13, 1920.
[12] “New Clubhouse Nearly Finished,” The Oregon Daily Journal, January 8, 1921 and and “Community News in and Near Portland: Parkrose,” The Oregon Daily Journal, March 26, 1922.
[13] “Parkrose School to Have Library,” The Oregon Daily Journal, September 18, 1920.
[14] Kathy Tucker, “Nightshift Arrives Portland Shipbuilding,” Oregon History Project, Oregon Historical Society, 2002.
[15] Carl Abbott, “Vanport,” Oregon Encyclopedia, Oregon Historical Society, September 26, 2023.
[16] Lucas N.N. Burke and Judson L. Jeffries, The Portland Black Panthers: Empowering Albina and Remaking a City (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016), 34-35, and Abbott, “Vanport.”
[17] Joshua Binus, “Wiley Family Housing Struggle,” Oregon History Project, Oregon Historical Society, 2004.
[18] “The Streets and Homes of the Argay Terrace Neighborhood,” Argay Terrace Neighborhood Association.
[19] “East Portland Historical Overview & Historic Preservation Study,” 37-38.
[20] “East Portland Historical Overview & Historic Preservation Study,” 37.
[21] “About the Parkrose School District,” Parkrose School District.
[22] Eliot Henry Fackler, “Protesting Portland’s Freeways: Highway Engineering and Citizen Activism in the Interstate Era,” University of Oregon, June 2009.
[23] Cully/Parkrose Community Plan and Maps, 1986, AF/22657, City Archives, City of Portland Archives & Records Management, Portland, OR, 27, 117.
[24] Burke and Jeffries, The Portland Black Panthers, 43.
[25] Nico Larco, “Lloyd District Urban Design Studio: Site Analysis and Logistics,” University of Oregon: Portland Campus, 2022.
[26] Burke and Jeffries, The Portland Black Panthers, 45.
[27] Burke and Jeffries, The Portland Black Panthers, 46.
[28] Nigel Jaquiss, “Land of the Lost,” Willamette Week, October 14, 2003.
[29] Jaquiss, “Land of the Lost.”
[30] “East Portland Historical Overview & Historic Preservation Study,” 42.
[31] “Parkrose School District 3,” U.S. News: Education, U.S. News & World Report, 2019-2020 and 2020-2021.
[32] Erin Goodling, Jamaal Green, and Nathan McClintock, “Uneven Development of the Sustainable City: Shifting Capital in Portland, Oregon,” Urban Geography 36, no. 4 (2015): 4.
[33] Goodling et al., “Uneven Development of the Sustainable City,” 3.
[34] Steven A. Kolmes, “Intended and Unintended Consequences of Two Paradigms of Urban Planning, and Their Social Justice and Human Health Impacts, in Portland, Oregon,” Environments 9, no. 10 (2022): 9.
[35] Kolmes, “Intended and Unintended Consequences of Two Paradigms of Urban Planning,” 9.