The Railroad Mistake that led to Terwilliger Parkway and OHSU: A History Lesson
(view from Terwilliger Parkway to the east)
There is an often told story that an out-of-town railroad company bought land for a rail yard “sight unseen” in Portland in 1880. They looked at a map and decided that a chunk of land south of downtown Portland would be a good location. What they ended up buying was Marquam Hill, surrounded by steep slopes and inaccessible to trains.
The railroad was Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (ORNC), controlled by Henry Villard (pictured here) and based in New York City, and they were building the first Northwest connection to the transcontinental line. In his later book “Early Transportation in Oregon”, Villard reflected on that purchase:
“In the first part of 1880, in anticipation of the early completion of the Portland-Dalles line, I made the no doubt well-remembered purchase in South Portland of a large body of real estate, adjacent to the Willamette, for terminal purposes. This proved to be a mistake on my part, and it took the company years to resell portions of it, not without some loss.”
The odd thing is that Villard was no stranger to Portland and had actually been up to Marquam Hill when he first visited Portland in July 1874. In the same book he wrote: “I had heard much praise of the situation of Portland, but its attractiveness went much beyond my anticipations. Paul Schulze, of Portland… took me up on Marquam Hill the first day, and the grand panorama I saw out before me from that height with the three snow-clad giants of Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Adams clearly visible in the mighty splendor, seemed to me one of the finest sights I had ever enjoyed.”
Evidently Villard was a busy man with too much on his mind to remember his early visit to Marquam Hill. Much of ONRC’s mistaken purchase was likely sold at a discount. Part of it was purchased by the City of Portland for the creation of Terwilliger Parkway, and part of it was purchased by Oregon Journal owner Sam Jackson and then donated to the University of Oregon Medical School (now OHSU.)
Now visitors to Historic Terwilliger Parkway are treated to the same “grand panorama” that Villard enjoyed in 1880.