A History of Northwest Portland:
From the River to the Hills
Nob Hill - Slab Town - The Pearl -  Old Town


Northwest Portland History Book


This beautifully designed coffee table book, A Northwest Portland History: From the River to the Hills, lets you experience the beginning of Northwest Portland. Featuring many previously unpublished photographs showing the early days  when the muddy streets were filled with horse-drawn wagons, the harbor wharves welcomed sailing ships carrying goods and immigrants, and the waterfront teemed with lumber mills, manufacturing plants, businesses, saloons, hotels and boarding houses.  Meet the early homesteaders and entrepreneurs; and watch while the horse-drawn trolleys open up the hillsides for communities “with a view”.

A Northwest Portland History: From the River to the Hills
reveals how this riverfront land, rich in trees, creeks, and lakes, was transformed into the thriving and vibrant district of unique neighborhoods we know today. Learn about the origins of these neighborhoods: Nob Hill, Slabtown, Old Town, the Alphabet District, the Industrial District, and the Pearl, and how they they received their names.

Read about the Lewis and Clark World’s Fair; the Vaughn Street Ballpark; the shanghaiing of sailors; and, the rich mixture of pocket immigrant communities of Germans, Jews, Greek, Irish, Scandinavian, Chinese, Croatian, Japanese, and African American communities.  Learn how a hillside was moved to turn a lake into an industrial district and how landslides saved a park from development. Travel back to the days when streets were named with letters, and the term “North End" referred to Northwest Portland.



Exciting, engrossing and well researched
Over 150 historic photographs
Historic maps to help orient you to the past






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Firehouse NW Glisan 14th 15th 1905

Fire station at NW 15th and Glisan in the PEARL. Now the restaurant Touche. 1915 (Courtesy Norm Gholston)




Everett Flanders 1894 flood

NW Everett Street in OLD TOWN during the 1894 flood.(Courtesy Gholston)




Gantenbein Family at Voos Villa Pavillion

A family picnic at pavilion grounds near 23rd and Burnside in NOB HILL. c.1891 (Courtesy Norm Gholston)




History of NW Portland



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