Irvington History

In my spare time (or lack there of) I still try to research the history of our home and the neighborhood... Here's a little history to our Irvington Neighborhood.


"Few city neighborhoods in the West have the variety and quality of early 20th Century residential architecture to equal Portland's historic Irvington Neighborhood. Portland's population boomed in the years after 1900, spurred by the 1905 Lewis Clark Exposition. With the west side of the Willamette River fully built up, the city expanded to the east side trolley car suburbs like Irvington in the years from 1900 through 1920.

Upper middle class Portlanders built substantial Irvington houses in the styles common to the period -- Arts and Crafts, Craftsman, Colonial Revival, Prairie Style, Bungalow -- many with an inventiveness and creative touch freed from East Coast architectural proprieties. Despite some losses to urban development, Irvington retains its historic charm, with thousands of well maintained or recently restored homes."

and more...

"The trolley car made Irvington. Before automobiles provided nearly universal mobility, the 5 cent streetcar fare offered ordinary citizens the opportunity to live more than walking distance from their work, and opened up the "suburban" areas of Portland east of the Willamette River to settlement. From its late 19th century beginnings, Irvington was planned as an upper middle-class residential area. Deed covenants set minimum values for new homes and imposed other restrictions. The result was slow but steady growth, and an unusually high quality of design and construction throughout the area."