Category Archives: The Plats

Figuring out the Prescott Jog

September 3, 2016 By in Neighborhood History, Neighborhood Mysteries, Observed, The Plats Tags: , Leave a comment

AH readers know we like nothing better than a good history mystery, so we were intrigued when a reader asked recently about why NE Prescott makes a jog south between NE 33rd and NE 37th. In this case there is no one single reason: it’s multiple reasons related to changes in surveying proficiency, the passage of time, the helter-skelter nature of developers operating at the edge of the city limits in 1900, and a complete absence of planning in our turn-of-the-last-century city.

The Prescott Jog near 37th

The jog at NE Prescott and 37th

Let’s look at the basic ingredients:

The Grid: Back in 1850, surveyors used a grid to map Oregon and to organize our landscape into big boxes and small boxes, known as townships, ranges and sections. In Northeast Portland, our main east-west streets are organized on section or half-section lines. Prescott (all but the four-block stretch we’re talking about here) rests on a half section line.

The Plats: Portland has more than 900 of these: a plat is basically a plan that divides the land into lots and streets. Developers were in charge of their own plats, and gave them unique names, some of which are pretty interesting. A plat called “Willamette Addition,” drawn and filed in 1888, contains the area from Skidmore to Killingsworth and from NE 33rd to NE 37th. Of particular note: running along the bottom of that plat is our mystery stretch of Prescott between 33rd and 37th.

So here’s what happened:

The Willamette Addition was anchored on the south boundary to what in 1888 was thought to be the half-section line (the future Prescott). Actual development of the Willamette Addition didn’t happen until the 1920s, and in many cases much later.

Our maps pages shows both Alameda Park (the neighboring plat to the west, 1909) and Wilshire (the neighboring plat to the east, 1921), which were laid out decades later by different developers using different survey technology. And guess what: the location of the real Prescott (in alignment with the more-recently-surveyed half-section line) moved about 75 feet to the north.

But meanwhile the Willamette Addition was still just a drawing and raw land owned by different developers, with it’s weirdly offset four-block southern boundary, which was referred to as Columbia Street, stuck on the grid of 1888 and quickly becoming irrelevant. The developers of Alameda and Wilshire weren’t in control of the Willamette Addition, but they had to build streets around it and needed to tie their new neighborhoods into the actual half-section-line-based street we know today as Prescott. So, build they did, marooning this yet-to-be developed four-block stretch of “Columbia Street” 75 feet to the south, and necessitating eventual construction of the s-curve jogs we know today when development of the Willamette Addition finally followed years later.

There’s a story behind everything. That’s why we love history!

Neighborhood Boundary vs. Subdivision Plat

April 26, 2009 By in Alameda Park, Maps, The Plats Leave a comment

A reader has asked about how the name of a neighborhood relates to the name of an addition, plat or subdivision.

The short answer is that there isn’t necessarily a relationship at all.

Neighborhood names are administratively determined by the Portland Bureau of Planning in collaboration with the Office of Neighborhood Involvement: the Alameda Neighborhood boundaries were last plotted on a map in June 2001.

Plat or subdivision names are filed on the date of platting with the Multnomah County Surveyor and are boundaries of surveyed property tied to the legal description of the land. The original Alameda Park Addition plat was filed with Multnomah County in February 1909.

Here’s a good example of a plat that has nothing to do with the name of any neighborhood. It’s Homedale, and it spans today’s Sabin and Alameda neighborhoods. Try telling someone you live in Homedale (or any of the other 21 named plats in our neighborhood) and you’re likely to get a blank stare.

Here’s a good example of a plat that has nothing to do with the name of any neighborhood. It’s Homedale, and it spans today’s Sabin and Alameda neighborhoods. Try telling someone you live in Homedale (or any of the other 21 named plats in our neighborhood) and you’re likely to get a blank stare.

Within the confines of what the city thinks of as today’s Alameda Neighborhood are at least 21 plats of all sizes, from the Alameda Park plat, to the Homedale plat (1922), to the Town of Wayne plat (1882). Probably the only one that will ring a bell for most residents is Alameda Park, the namesake for what is today’s larger Alameda Neighborhood.

And just to make life a little more confusing, the Alameda Park plat  (historic survey boundary) exists within both the Alameda Neighborhood and the Sabin Neighborhood (late 20th century neighborhood administrative boundaries).

Here’s the full list of plats inside today’s Alameda neighborhood boundaries: Alameda Park, Homedale, Olmsted Park, Irvington, Edgemont, Pearson’s Addition, Town of Wayne, Town of Wayne Replat, Waynewood, Irvingwood, Meadow Park, Dunsmeade, Irvindale, Hillside, George Place, Bowering Donation Land Claim Tract, Norton’s Subdivision, Stanton Street Addition, Gleneyrie, Hudson’s Addition and Meadow Park.

With 21 plats in just one “neighborhood” alone, no wonder the city has chosen to lump geographical areas into single neighborhood names. No plats were moved, changed or amended to coincide with our neighborhood’s name. Rather, the place name we all know today — and it’s corresponding map — was determined decades after the ink was dry on the subdivision (plat) names.

Here’s a link to plat maps for Alameda and several surrounding areas.

Just for fun, dig out the thick pack of papers you signed at closing, or look at your property tax statement: you’ll find the name of the plat that includes the block and lot where you live. Just remember: this name exists separate from the name of our neighborhood.

Remember Manitou?

November 12, 2008 By in Beaumont-Wilshire, Maps, Neighborhood History, The Plats Tags: 2 Comments

It’s OK if you’ve not heard of the Manitou Addition, a small chunk of neighborhood that once had its own identity, now lost to time. In my research on Alameda-Beaumont-Wilshire, I’ve kept running into references to Manitou-this and Manitou-that and wondered where it was. While reviewing plat maps recently, I found it: the long block between 33rd and 35th that includes the north side of Fremont and both sides of Alameda.

Manitou Plat Detail, March 3, 1910

Manitou Plat Detail, March 3, 1910

The plat for Manitou was incorporated by Fred and Gussie Jacobs, who were partners in the Jacobs-Stine Company, which platted many Portland subdivisions with fancy sounding names, only two of which are in circulation today-Errol Heights and Argyle. Fred Jacobs told a reporter in April 1910 that Manitou was named for Manitou Springs, a picturesque mountain community about 65 miles south of Denver. (Incidentally, Fred Jacobs was the Portland real estate man who died in the crash on Stuart Drive that resulted in it being known as “Deadman’s Hill.“)

Of course, when I found Manitou, it begged another question because that plat is a subdivision of the Spring Valley Addition. Now there’s another name that has fallen out of use. Spring Valley is easily one of the oldest plats in the area, filed on November 6, 1882 by one “Clara L. Files, Spinster,” and encompassing the area east-west between 33rd and 37th and north-south between The Alameda and Skidmore (including Wilshire Park). Interesting to note that until 1941 (when development really came to that part of the neighborhood) the Spring Valley plat showed a major planned north-south thoroughfare called Broadway, located about where NE 35th is today.

The cumulative mushroom effect of historical research guarantees that you can’t look into the history of the Spring Valley Addition (or Manitou) without bumping into other nearby mysteries, including plats for Maplehurst (south of Fremont), Irene Heights, Fullerton, Whiterose, Rossdale, Rosyln, Calman, Wilshire and Railroad Heights (nope, no railroads ever ran up here, but you might have been able to hear a train or two).

Memory Map

April 20, 2008 By in Maps, Neighborhood History, The Plats 4 Comments

I’ve been in touch with Dick Taylor, who grew up in Alameda during the 1930s. He’s one of the men whose brain I’ve been picking for details on the “old man” who I’ve heard stories about. Dick grew up on Shaver between NE 34th and NE 35th.

A few weeks back I sent him a copy of the Sanborn map of that vicinity from 1924. He kindly added some detail showing who lived where in the 1930s, and where the “old man” lived. Check out the annotated version of the map he sent me back, drawn from memory.

A couple of observations here: Note that the property on the south side of Shaver Street was a victory garden during the 1940s. Interesting too to point out there was an old brick house in the far southeast corner of Wilshire Park that Dick says was torn down. Have a look at his annotated map:

 

Click on the map for a larger image.

Here’s what Dick says about the “old man:”

He was the neighborhood character and had a reputation for starting fires. Almost everytime we would hear a fire engine, we knew the old man was up to starting a fire. He would always help extinguish it with a large gunny sack he always carried draped over his shoulder. As kids we used to play a game he taught us called “duck on the rock.”

Interesting to ponder the many interesting souls who have walked these streets…

Olmstead Park

December 26, 2007 By in Maps, Olmstead Park, The Plats Tags: , 5 Comments

 

olmstead-park-plat-1909.jpg

 

Here’s the cadastral map from 1909 showing the Olmstead Park plat. This roughly five-block square area is north of the Alameda Ridge and tucks in under the southeast corner of Alameda Park. Today this part of the neighborhood is clearly considered part of the Alameda District. Out on the ground even in 1911, these two brand new districts were indistinguishable, interwoven by the same streets, the same water, gas and sewer mains, and many of the same architects and builders who were beginning to populate this area with homes.

The Olmsted in “Olmstead Park” was probably John Charles Olmsted, stepson and nephew of the legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (this is not a typo…someone added an “a” into the plat name over the years). John Charles Olmsted and his brother Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. helped design Portland’s park system and were busy with other commissions here in Portland — including one for the Alameda Land Company — in the years after the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition (which they also designed).

By 1909, the neighborhoods to our north and south were already established, and the Portland Railway, Light and Power Company was opening its Broadway Streetcar line with a connection to the heart of Alameda Park and Olmstead Park.

In 1910, before home construction was underway, much of the property in Olmstead Park was owned by one man: B.M. Lombard, a real estate developer who owned large tracts in north and northeast Portland, and whose name is memorialized by North Portland’s Lombard Street. In fact if you look at the plat, you can see that today’s Dunckley Avenue was originally platted as Lombard. Other properties were owned by construction companies, investment banks and real estate developers, including Oregon Home Builders Inc., Colonial Construction Co., Hibernian Investment Bank, Provident Trust Company and Clodfelter Real Estate.

I’ll keep a copy of this in “The Maps” for future reference…

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