Molthrop and Seghers

Starting from Fern Hill Wetlands in Forest Grove, we head south, parallel to Hwy 47. Our first stop is Penstemon Prairie, just a few miles south. This has been a habitat restoration success story but not well-publicised. I've been biking and driving by the site for years and didn't know it was there.

The prairie is not the most inviting area. There's only a few parking spaces alongside the road in mud. The entrance is a closed gate (also muddy) and there's no real footpath. The prairie itself looks unexciting in the off-season (we visited in February). 

Despite that ringing endorsement, I can't wait to go back with proper survey equipment. Elk and rare birds have been spotted here. All the plant life is native. The site is still getting developed and naturalized. I think whenever I go bird-spotting in Fern Hill, I'll make a point of stopping by Penstemon (in tall waterproof boots).

After a few minutes checking out the budding plant life, we continue south on Spring Hill Road. Traffic is, frankly, bad and I'm not sure why. It's mid day on a weekday well outside of agricultural season. Any through traffic would take Hwy 47. I don't see enough houses to warrant local traffic. Best guess: this is wine tourists on a circuit of the valley. In any case, including a 12-in shoulder in any future projects would make the route more popular and safer among cyclists.

In all, it's about 12 miles to our destination.

Molthrop

There's a lot to unpack here, so bear with me. The intersection of Spring Hill Rd, North Valley Rd, Laughlin, and Albertson Rd has more names than any phantom town I've ever encountered. I've taken to calling it Molthrop because that's the one name least likely to get confused with anywhere else.

The post office paperwork was filed in 1852 and named the location "Wapatoo". The nearby lake was Wapato and at the time, spelling was subjective. However, several early maps labeled the site by the name of the postmaster and landowner: William Molthrop. The office closed in 1865.

Confusingly, another office named WapatoE opened in the 1870's on the other side of the lake. More confusingly, it was sometimes misspelled as Wapato so depending on when and where you were delivering your letter, you may have needed to send it to Wapato, Wapatoe, or Wapatoo (but not WapatA, that was Sauvie Island).

Wapato/Wapatoe was eventually renamed...to Gaston.

At some point after the 1880's, the crossroads formerly known as Wapatoo/Molthrop became Dewey. I don't know why, but that name lives on in old maps and present-day signs:

But that's not all. The school near to the intersection wasn't Dewey. Instead it's called Lake View. You might think: "Lake View, that's a good name for a school with a view of Wapato Lake." You'd be wrong. 

The school house still stands and you can't see the lake from the building. Furthermore, at the time the school was built, there was no lake at all. Old Joe Gaston spent a few decades draining it to plant onions. 

Seriously.

So that's lake view with no lake, 3 different Wapatos, and a Dewey lost to time. Nothing here answers the critical question: what's that got to do with Washington County? I passed the county line a mile and a half ago and what happens in Yamhill stays in Yamhill, right?

Well, check out this olde tyme map:

This is an excerpt of the Preston Sectional Map from 1856, before Oregon was a state. The four metro counties are defined and Molthrop PO is drawn in Washington County. The post application also clearly lists Wapatoo as located in WashCo.

We moved the border. I don't know when, I don't know why but at some point in Oregon history, Yamhill was allowed to seize 2 miles from our southern border for their own nefarious purposes. 

Molthrop is stolen land!

Yamhill Co hasn't developed the area much. It's still farms. I visited the creek where there used to be a mill in the 1800s but I found no trace. The road was gravel, just a small piece of the extensive Yamill gravel network prized by gravel riders in Portland. I've ridden Yamill gravel before (to Cherry Grove) and I'll ride it again (to Barney Reservior) and it does make for a great day trip through farmlands. 

For now though, I turn back to the relative safety of Washington County.

Seghers

On the way back, I swing west through Gaston on my way to another phantom town: Seghers. Seghers was a critical junction on the Westside rail, where the spur to Stimson Mill split off from the main line to McMinneville. 

Nowadays, the main track is completely gone, although the old right-of-way is still visible as a scar through the farmlands on satellite images but the entire segment of track beyond Forest Grove is sometimes still labeled as the Seghers spur.