Map Information

Most people look at this map and can't believe there's this many communities in such a small space. I couldn't either! You may find many of them unfamiliar. I did not make them up. This page explains how I decided what to include.

There is no official definition of a "community". Many places have no borders or municipal government. How many homes need to be how close together before a crossroad becomes a village? If I limited the map to incorporated cities, I'd visit some pretty obscure places (Dersham? King City?) and miss many important ones (Aloha, Bethany).

So, I curated my list from three major sources. All have caveats. The Washington County GIS database of "Local Community Areas" is the closest thing to an official map.

It’s terrible.

The database draws heavily from the age of rail. Pioneer towns (Phillips, Centerville) are omitted, modern features (Bonny Slope, Tanasbourne) are absent, but many insignificant, short-lived stops along the train line are classified as communities (Christie, Cipole, Lincoln). So are highway interchanges (Davies, Stanley's Junction) and a temporary logging camp that, unofficially, had a silly name (Timbuktu).

As far as Washington County is concerned, you're looking at downtown Lincoln, Oregon.

Despite the ridiculousness and remoteness of some of these locations, I plan to visit them all.

Next, I used the Historic Post Office Archives to pinpoint population centers from the early days of Oregon history. A post office usually but not always indicates a community. Many towns didn't survive to the railroad era so the post office records are the best proof of their significance.

However, that's not always the case. Some post offices opened to support a timber boom or founded on growth speculation rather than actual demonstrated community. Some were conveniences serving only a few scattered farmers. Still, I tracked down every one.

The colored areas in italics are CDPs.

My third source is the 2020 Census Designated Places. CDPs are a federal government invention to track areas with a lot of people but without a municipal government (unincorporated). In WashCo, most CDPs are the neighborhoods in the hills between Beaverton and Portland (Aloha is the largest and an archetypal example).

Finally, I added a few locations because they are important but didn't show up in any other source. There's too many great rides (Hagg Lake, Pumpkin Ridge, Chehalem Ridge) and several high-population areas (Cooper Mountain, Consolidated Camp) to bypass on some cartographer's whim.

Taken together, I got about 150 unique locations and drew the line there.

See a place you REALLY think I should visit that's not on the list? I want to hear from you! Reach out to me on Blue Sky or Facebook (links at the bottom).

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