Downtown Wilsonville
circa 1910
"This was taken approximately in the 1910 era. On the right is the Farmers Bank of Wilsonville. This bank was started by John Thornton and his son, Joe. They platted the original Wilsonville area. Next to it was the furniture and implement store which was built by Jake Peters and Jake operated it for a year or two, and then leased it out to a couple of operators in Portland, and they weren't doing too good, and they torched it and burned it down. Jake had no insurance and it broke him. But this building, they didn't have anything but a garden hose running for water and it got the Aden's home which was north next to it. And then the Aden's store, they saved it by carrying out 50 pound sacks of flour and spreading them out on the roof and putting blankets over them, or vice versa putting the flour on the blankets, and put water, what they could, to make a paste to keep it from burning." Emery Aden. |
"In the front you can see this was Adolf Fallmetzger's team of horses. Adolf came down probably at least once a week to check the things and was always helpful in the community. In fact, he happened to be down with his team and wagon when the bell for the church was shipped in and they loaded the bell over onto his wagon and he hauled it up to the church. Now, of course all the road here was just mud in December in the winter time, and dust in the summertime, and they kept hauling in a little gravel out of the river until finally they got the road useable and then in 1926 the county built a market road. They cemented a nine foot wide strip from Oregon City and [Lake] Oswego to Wankers Corner, then into Wilsonville and it ended here at the break of the hill where it starts down to the Wilsonville Ferry. When they finished the road, they had this walking contest from Lake Oswego to Wilsonville, and we had a big barbeque and it just poured down rain that day. My brother and I each had a new bicycle to use on the cement road. I had a tricycle and we were riding amongst all of them here." Emery Aden. |
"Now on the left side [of the road], there was a pile of cord wood, 4 foot length cuts of cordwood. Farmers cleared their land and they would haul in a load of wood and stock it here until they got enough to fill a car load on the train and then [they] shipped it into Portland and sold it and it was one of their cash crops and they used the money to pay their county taxes. Just past the woodpile was our baseball diamond and on the left side was the railroad track and the depot. We had lots of baseball games because it was about the only activity in the summer in the whole area. Just past the baseball diamond, up in the trees and on the left here was our school. Our first school was a one room school. In 1913, they built a new two room school and then in 1953 [1951-1953], they built the present school and added on to it ever year since." Emery Aden. |