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Even in a place like the central Willamette Valley much of the area’s early history is hidden—some of it remarkably well hidden. Yet in ways both great and small that history, noted now by little more than a vacant school, a roadside church, or country road, helped create this place many of us call home. For nearly two hundred years life in our beloved valley has been shaped by wave after wave of technological improvement. From wagon trains to river boats to railroads to expansive highway systems each new wave expanded the reach of a growing population—creating new lifestyles, changes in how and where those people lived their lives. Today’s prosperous farmlands and thriving cities are in many ways the result of those changes. In the early years—when a few miles to the nearest store might be a day-long journey, when each creek or river meant a ford, a ferry, or if the water was too high, an impassible obstacle,—crossroad trade and social centers might be found every few miles. Over time each new round of technology made travel and communication easier, spurring new growth for some villages, while dooming others. That sort of change faced each of the hamlets we visit in this volume, and dozens of others we have not included. Yet even as their commercial hearts stopped beating many of these villages have remained viable residential centers, home to new generations of commuters.
