1852 GLO Map of SW Portland
1852 General Land Office Map of Southwest Portland (Township 1 South, Range 1 East) (jpeg file).
1852 GLO Map of SW Portland with Modern Street Overlay
1852 General Land Office Map of Southwest Portland (Township 1 South, Range 1 East) with map of modern arterial streets overlaid (jpeg file).
1860 GLO Map of SW Portland
1860 General Land Office Map of Southwest Portland (Township 1 South, Range 1 East) (jpeg file).
1930 Sanborn Maps of Multnomah
Sanborn maps are large-scale street plans of cities and towns at a scale of 50 feet to one inch (1:600) created to assist fire insurance companies in assessing the risk of a particular property. The maps include outlines of each building and outbuilding, the location of windows and doors, street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, fire walls, natural features (rivers, canals, etc.), railroad corridors, building use (sometimes even particular room uses), house and block number, as well as the composition of building materials including the framing, flooring, and roofing materials, the strength of the local fire department, indications of sprinkler systems, locations of fire hydrants, location of water and gas mains and even the names of most public buildings, churches and companies (pdf files).
Map 1 – Index and Key (Download this first to locate the page you are interested in)
Map 2
Map 3
Map 4
Map 5 (Multnomah Business District)
Map 6
Map 7
Map 8
Map 9
Map 10
Map 11
Map 12
Map 13
Map 14
Map 15
Directory of 1933 Street and Name Changes
The city grew enormously around the turn of the century and each newly-added bit of land had its own street naming conventions and address numbering system. It was rather chaotic! In the spring of 1931, the city finally decided to act. That summer, five-man crews began walking the entire city and assigning new addresses to every building. Many street names were changed too. The crews finished their work in July 1933.
This is how we got the familiar “five quadrants” that we use today: NW, N, NE, SW, and SE. If your house was built before 1933 and you want to find its early residents, you will need to know the original address. While most of present Southwest Portland was outside city limits in 1933, many of the street name changes are relevant.
Download the Directory of 1933 Street and Name Changes (pdf file) – **Warning – 16 MB File**
Portland Annexations Map
The Portland Bureau of Planning & Sustainability’s map of historical annexations to the City of Portland (pdf file).
1984 Historic Resource Inventory
1984 Portland Historic Resource Inventory (excel 2010 file).
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