A long time coming

West Linn’s historic Willamette district is now officially recognized as such

By Kara Hansen

The West Linn Tidings, Oct 22, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

file photo VERN UYETAKE / west linn tidings

Ruth Offer talks about the Willamette district’s efforts to earn status on the National Register of Historic Places last fall. The neighborhood earned the designation last week.

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More than a decade after residents began lobbying for recognition, West Linn’s historic Willamette district is Oregon’s latest entry in the National Register of Historic Places.

Gail Holmes of the city’s Historic Resources Advisory Board recently announced the achievement to the West Linn City Council, heralding the end of a journey Willamette neighborhood residents began in the mid-1980s.

Oregon’s State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation recommended the district’s nomination in June 2009.

“Hopefully it brings in tourism and all kinds of wonderful things,” Holmes said.

Three properties are already nationally recognized in West Linn. They include the Willamette Falls Locks, reportedly the country’s oldest continuously operating navigation system of its kind; the Lewthwaite-Moffat house, built in 1896 at 4891 Willamette Falls Drive; and the former home of Nicholas O. Walden, founder of the recently established historic district, built around 1895 and now owned by Charles Awalt.

Platted by the Willamette Falls Company in 1893, the community of Willamette Falls was designed by Walden, a businessman and real estate speculator.

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