Main Street - Independence, Oregon
Pioneer History
 

      
Independence
      was founded in Oregon's lush Willamette Valley by settlers from
      Independence, Missouri, who traveled the Oregon Trail in wagons
      to farm Oregon's lush Willamette Valley in the 1840s. The town
      was platted in the heart of the valley, just a few miles from
      the state Capitol of Salem, and on the bank of the Willamette
      River. Independence was incorporated in 1884, and by the turn
      of the century (above, in 1906), a thriving business district
      had grown along wide, dirt-surfaced Main Street. Independence
      had become an important river landing, where valley produce was
      loaded onto rail and barges destined for Portland's seaport,
      50 miles downstream.

      
 

      
 By 1910,
      the City of Independence was making improvements to modernize
      the dirt surface of Main Street (above), and paving the way for
      the automobile. The street that would soon emerge as part of
      State Highway 51, on the new land route from Salem to Corvallis.
      Most of the historic buildings seen in both of these images still
      preside over Main Street in Independence.

      
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 All images
      are ©Tom Kloster, 2002, and may only be used by permission