Archaeology Addendum shows Overlay with 1852 and 1861 Maps

Cuz we're all hunkered down for the storms, here's a (relatively) unpolemic note on history and floods.

In the Archaeological Resources Technical Report Addendum Summary there is this great set of overlays with the footprint of the Preferred Alternative's alignment and two historic maps from right around statehood, one from 1852, the other from 1861.*

1861 and 1852 survey maps with an SRC and modern overlay
(if the caption reads left to right, the dates are switched!)

McLane Island appears in the 1852 map (r), but not the 1861 map (l). (It is at least a possibility that McLane Island is not a stable geographical feature, and that pre-settlement flooding would have regularly altered it as a seasonal gravel bar.)

1852 map with overlay

1852 map all by itself

Though it's spelled "Harriet," I think, on the 1852 map, I'm certain this is the claim of Jesse Harritt, whose 1858 house is still at 2280 Wallace Road and is on the National Register. There is also a Harritt Drive and Harritt Elementary School, of course.

1858 Harritt House - via Wikipedia

On the 1852 map you can also see one of the Keizur family members, approximately where the Fred Meyer complex is located. Wallace Road approximates, but does not follow closely the first road or trail alignment.

1861 map detail - No McLane Island

Far more significant than McLane Island is the island formed by a branch of the Willamette along the "unnamed slough" and River Bend Road NW. The river jumped its banks and orphaned the slough in one of the floods. (The slough at Minto Park was orphaned in the 1881 flood - not the 1861 flood as you might suppose - and maybe it happened here at this time too.)

J.B. McLain - in the Highland neighborhood area (1861 map)

On the 1861 map, there is a claim for J. B. McLain in the Grant and Highland neighborhoods, and it may be that this is the source of McLane Island's name, since it is immediately adjacent to the island. I haven't run across this name before, and a casual google turns up this 1889 entry for John Birch McClane, a pioneer of 1843, Marion County treasurer in 1851-52, and later agent of the Grande Ronde Reservation. Huh. Might be more to his story! (Do you know more?)

I don't see any other names that stay with us today, and I don't think the maps really disclose anything important about why the SRC is a good idea or a bad one. Maybe you will see something interesting!

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* Here's a good discussion from the University of Washington of the mapping and survey effort. The maps themselves can be downloaded from the University of Oregon here.