Click on the map for a larger image, or to download a copy.
Here’s an early plat map of a portion of the neighborhood, created in 1910 by the Alameda Land Company and used in its original marketing materials. This plat shows the Alameda Park Addition, but clearly misses big chunks of today’s Alameda, which were added in the teens and twenties through new plats known as Pearson’s Addition, the Fremont Addition, Olmstead Park, Irvindale, Dunsmeade and the Miami Addition.
By 1915, at least 900 plats had been filed in Portland, many of which were much smaller than Alameda Park, and all were named by developers searching for an attractive sounding name. While in some areas the plats have retained their distinct personality and name, like Alameda, the identity of many smaller plats in our neighborhood have dissolved into the more commonly used neighborhood name of Alameda. The plat names remain today on title documents and land records for these areas.
You’ll note that many of the lots we know today are shaped differently than in the original plat. But the streets, and the Broadway Streetcar line, are in the right place. This map does not have addresses, but if it did, the addresses would not make much sense to Alamedans today. The entire city was re-addressed in the early 1930s. Click here for an article in the Alameda Stories that sheds light on the “great renumbering” of the 1930s, and the background behind our street names.
Some amazingly detailed fire insurance maps of the neighborhood were drawn up by the Sanborn Company in 1924. Click here for an illustrated article I’ve written about the Sanborn maps and a link to the maps themselves.
I’ve been working on a number of houses in the Beaumont neighborhood recently, so I figured I’d post the 1910 plat map from that neighborhood (below). The image here doesn’t do the survey justice, it’s quite a nice piece of work. The shaded lots are those that have been purchased.
Click on the map for a larger image, or to download a copy.
Olmstead Park
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. For more information, see the post about Olmstead Park.
June 10, 2008 at 1:36 am
Greetings,
You have an interesting site.
Do you know if Alameda was once referred to as ‘Gravel Hill’, or the ‘Highlands’? I looked through several weeks of the Oregonian from 8/2/1898 to 9/8/1898 and read about a fire on, or visible from Gravel Hill, and/ or the Highlands, but no street address.
The article was one short paragraph. It mentioned some names that I didn’t write down and don’t recall. I wondered if the hill or the ‘Highlands’ might be a previous set of names for Alameda because the article said something about Sullivan’s Gulch, either that the fire was extinguished with water from there, or that people took refuge there.
I’ve read that Alameda Hill was formed by gravel left by floods (Bretz?), so I wondered if Alameda might be the Gravel Hill referred to in the article.
Thank you,
Jon Wood
June 10, 2008 at 5:12 am
Hi Jon.
Thanks for stopping by for a visit. I am intrigued to know more about the article you read. Did you by chance make a copy or do you have the date and page?
Yes, Gravel Hill was the name of the high point at today’s NE 33rd and Fremont. For many years there was a gravel pit of sorts on the southwest corner of that intersection which was also used as a garbage dump. There would have been a great view from that spot out across the flats below, which were populated by several small farmsteads and orchards.
I’ve not heard of the term “the highlands” in reference to the Alameda ridge, but it could be. The newspaper story might shed light on that: was the view off toward the fire at the highlands? Maybe that refers to the ridgeline we think of today as Forest Park, also called the Tualatin Mountains. Hmm. Check out the article I’ve written about the Pearson Farm, which actually refers to a forest fire just adjacent to Gravel Hill.
Yes, you’re absolutely correct about the geology.
-Doug