Lake Oswego

Lake Oswego, Oregon, is mostly in Clackamas County, though parts of it are in Washington and Multnomah Counties.It was founded as the town of Oswego Lake in 1847 and incorporated as Oswego in 1910. Settled as a result of the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 and the Homestead Act, located in the area between the Willamette and Tualatin Rivers. The first claimant of a land claim in the area was Albert Alonzo Durham, and he was born in Oswego, New York. He built a saw mill on what was then called Sucker Creek in 1847. Although iron ore had been discovered in the Tualatin Valley, it was not really a factor until 1861, and in 1865, the Oregon Iron Company was established in Oswego, fueling hope that the town would be an industrial center, or the “Pittsburg of the West.” The railroad laid narrow gauge linking Portland with Oswego, and by 1890, the company had grown, with production peaking at 12,305 tons of pig iron, and the town boomed. They even built an opera house. When the iron industry petered out, Oregon Iron & Steel, which was the result of the evolution of Oregon Iron, began trafficking in land development, building a power plant on the creek in 1909, and when the City of Oswego was incorporated, they got permission to provide electricity to the local residents and began to sell large parcels of land to developers. today, Lake Oswego is a rather high-end residential community.

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