Bolton is an unincorporated community in Linn County, Oregon, United States, on Oregon Route 99E.
In 1858, a community and gristmill was established about a mile and a half east of the present town of Shedd and called Boston, probably because one of the founders came from Boston, Massachusetts.[1][2] Boston was platted in 1861 with a New England-style town square.[2][3] The town became a stagecoach stop, and Boston Mills post office was established in 1869. Efforts to get the Oregon and California Railroad, which was being built south from Albany, to come through Boston Mills were unsuccessful. The railroad was instead built through the nearby land donated by Civil War veteran Captain Frank Shedd and "Shedd's Station" was created in 1871. The post office was moved soon after.[1][2] Many of Boston's buildings, though not the mill itself nor the Farwell DLC homestead, were moved west to the new Shedd's Station to be near the railroad.[3] In 1899, the railroad changed the name of the station to Shedd, but the name of the post office did not change until 1915.[1]
East of Shedd at the former site of Boston Mills, on the Calapooia River, is the National Register of Historic Places-listed Boston Flour Mill (aka Thompson's Flouring Mill), Oregon's oldest continuously operating water-powered mill, part of Thompson's Mills State Heritage Site.[4] It is one of the four remaining gristmills in the state, and one of only two mills still in operation.[5]