Beaverton turns 133 years old on February 10th, Happy Birthday, Beaverton!

The road to Beaverton’s incorporation as a city began with the 1840s westward migration. Pioneers settled where the indigenous Atfalati people had occupied the Tualatin Valley for thousands of years in a traditional homeland they called Chakeipi (meaning “Place of the Beaver”). The first land claims in what is now Beaverton date to 1845-1850. when homesteaders found that fertile beaver dam soil would produce wheat, fruit, onions, asparagus, turnips, and horseradish. Nearby densely-forested hills provided abundant logging and lumbering resources, as well.

When speculators and businessmen saw the site’s potential as an important trade and transportation terminal, railroad owner, Ben Holladay, agreed to build a depot if residents would construct one commercial structure. Joshua Welch, with his wife Olive, filed a town plat with the county for the proposed township in December, 1868. Three years later, George Betts built a combination general store and post office on Front Road (now Farmington Road) and Angel Streets.

Among the first endeavors in the 1870s and 1880s in the growing community were William Plummer’s fruit dryer, E. Stone’s blacksmith shop, Thomas Denney’s sawmill, a Grange, Ames Chapel, a school , and a firm owned by a Welch and Deshields that produced hoop poles. Mrs. Theophilus Humphreys opened a singing school, Jack Powers’ owned a wood, stave and lumber company, and Oscar Thayer published the Beaverton Chronicle newspaper. The unincorporated hamlet had churches, saloons, general stores, fraternal organizations, a doctor, and a brass band.

Self-reliant farmers were in no hurry to form an official city, wary of higher taxes and loss of land to development. Eventually, shopkeepers and agriculturalists put aside ther differences, agreeing that incorporation would improve infrastructure and create an orderly, regulated place to live. Beaverton was incorporated on February 10, 1893. Population: 250

The city continued to add services: a hook and ladder company, telephone line, bank, rail passenger transportation. Population increased from 580 in 1920 to 863 by 1930. As a “City of Homes,” it was evolving into a developed bedroom community with a new library, sidewalks, silent movie studio, and the beginnings of the very busy noncommercial Bernard Airport. The municipality rebounded, though, after the Great Depression that saw a slight drop in population and private construction projects.

Beaverton and Oregon changed significantly between 1945-1960. The years following World War II altered economic and social order as military personnel, shipyard workers, and minorities arrived and stayed after the war. The completion of U.S 26 (Sunset Highway) on the city’s northern boundary fostered a shopping center and major residential expansion. Open farmlands began to give way to a built-up environment of industrial parks, private housing developments, and the start of the Silicon Forest. Its population zoomed from slightly more than 1,000 to about 6,000.

Agriculture, once the Tualatin Valley’s dominant industry, remains an essential component even as the economy diversifies. Technology, apparel companies, fresh food processors and distributors, electronics, and manufacturing are central to the area’s vitality. It is becoming a culinary and arts destination. Beaverton’s 2025 ethnically diverse population is approximately 100,000; the seventh-largest city in Oregon and the second largest in Washington County.

By Ann Koppy, local historian.