Oakland Historic District - Oakland, Oregon
Posted by: 
ddtfamily
N 43° 25.331 W 123° 17.914
10T E 475831 N 4807742
Established as a National Historic District in 1979 and as a state historic district in 1968
Waymark Code: WMH945
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 06/09/2013
Views: 2
Established in 1979, the Oakland Historic District comprises approximately 30 city blocks and, at the time of the nomination, included 130 contributing buildings and two contributing sites.
Among the first white settlers to arrive in this region were the Rev. Joseph A. Cornwall and his family. The Cornwalls arrived in the area by way of the Applegate Trail in 1846. After the exhausting trip they built a cabin to survive the winter before continuing north. A 
granite monument to the Cornwalls can be found along the I-5 northbound on-ramp.
Several years later, in 1851, Dr. Dorsey S. Baker built a gristmill, which was followed by several mercantile stores, a blacksmith shop, hotel stables and stagecoach shop, establishing Oakland as the area's first town. It was located across Calapooya creek from Cornwall's cabin. When the Oregon-California line was built, the line did not go through Oakland. As a result, in 1872 Alzono F. Brown founded a new town two miles southwest to it's present location, providing access to the rail line.
Oakland's newspaper, in 1907, described the town as the major shipping point for agricultural produce between Portland and San Francisco. By 1929 the town became known as the busiest shipping point of turkeys in the United States and to celebrate, the town held the first Northwestern Turkey Show, at the time the largest in the world. For the next ten years the turkey industry grew until the locally-preferred range method was supplanted by the more efficient of raising turkeys in pens, employed by Midwestern turkey farmers. By the 1940s, the cheaper Midwestern production method ended Oakland's turkey trade.
Through the 1950s, the lumber industry thrived; a mill located near the community field (since burned) provided employment for many in town. Today the town's economic support comes from the surrounding rich farmland, wineries and tourist trade.
GPS Coordinates are from the front of the E.G. Young Bank Building, located near the west end of Locust Street, the town's main commercial district.
Note: Click a photo to enlarge