Aurora, Oregon’s Phantom Train

On By Roy WidingIn Aurora Oregon, Aurora Oregon History, Willamette RiverLeave a comment

It’s 1908 and you’re walking through the woods here in Aurora, Oregon…long before World War 1 and the Great Depression. Continuing your walk, you happen upon a clearing…then see what look like railroad tracks.

Little seems to have changed around these parts of Aurora over the past century. That’s because railroad tracks and the trains that rode them…like this one…were here, more than a century ago, when this new railway started. Yet mystery still lingers in this spot, just waiting to be uncovered. In fact, there are more than a few hidden secrets around here, all in plain sight…if you know where to look.

A KEY DIFFERENCE
Imagine standing beside these tracks a century ago. Here’s a key detail that surprises most people. You wouldn’t know by watching trains here today, but back then they were powered by something very unique. For that time, many would picture a loud locomotive— spouting smoke, burning coal and maybe stopping for water. But that’s not what passed through Aurora. So how exactly how were trains powered through here in 1908…and what changed? That answer is contained in the railroad’s name, once considered the future of American railroads…yet today is forgotten.

This wasn’t the Oregon Steam Railway. It wasn’t the Oregon Coal Railway. It wasn’t the Oregon Diesel Railway. It was the Oregon Electric Railway. So instead of passing through rural Aurora here behind a smoking engine, passengers were riding in clean, quiet electric cars—with comfortable seats and a smoothness that felt futuristic. Passengers glided peacefully through Aurora on thick padded seats, with polished wood interiors, ample legroom and brass trim.

Riding aboard the Oregon Electric Railway wasn’t just transportation—it felt like the future, with electric lights and sometimes a freshly-prepared meal, making the journey a refined event, instead of jostling down Oregon’s muddy roads in early automobiles. The score at that point was Oregon Electric Railway: One, and early cars: Zero, because the electric train’s more reliable and luxurious transportation, all while moving at up to 60 miles per hour…was tough to beat.    

The Oregon Electric Railway seemed unstoppable. Yet that same year the futuristic railroad opened, competition was already beginning to appear—and its rivals weren’t limited just to other railroads. The Oregon Electric wasn’t our region’s lone local railroad, either. That’s because just a few miles away, another railroad was racing toward Salem, creating one of Oregon’s early transportation rivalries.

COMPETITION
The Oregon Electric Railway faced competition from an established area rival. Just a few miles east, Southern Pacific was pushing south through Oregon City and Canby, with both railways eventually meeting at Donald, Oregon.Donald became a significant railroad junction, since it connected both systems, where freight and passengers could also transfer there between different railroads.

STATION TO STATION
While much has disappeared around Aurora, something survives: Names. And those weren’t names of just any place. They were destinations. Scattered across Aurora’s landscape are clues from the Oregon Electric Railway era—they’re names people pass every day, without realizing each one is part of both Aurora’s past…and also its present. Why? Because a century ago, they were literal landmark destinations, important to Aurora travelers.  These seemingly insignificant historical breadcrumbs have turned into today’s precious gems, so don’t be fooled by the small signs representing them.

Your first clue transporting you back more than a century is the Prahl Road directional sign you may have noticed driving west from Charbonneau and the I-5 freeway, toward Butteville and Boones Ferry Road.

Those Prahl Road signs are important…and for a reason you might never have considered: Even now, they literally point you back to the year 1908. That’s because Oregon Electric Railway trains crossed the Willamette River from Wilsonville near here, with their very first rural Aurora stop called Prahl Station.

Prahl Station and the subsequently-named Prahl Road are associated with Frederick Prahl, the Oregon Electric Railway roadmaster who supervised construction of the train bridge connecting Aurora to Wilsonville in the years before it opened for traffic in 1908.

When the bridge opened, Prahl Station served as both a landmark and flag station, a railroad destination where the train stopped if someone signaled, or flagged to be dropped off there.

But Prahl Road is not the only clue hiding in plain sight. That’s because just south of the old Prahl stop is another forgotten Oregon Electric Railway location you may have passed through without ever considering its significance. The name? Curtis Station. That railroad crossing still intersects with Arndt Road, just like it did long ago, located literally a stone’s throw from Klupenger Road to the west. Like the Prahl stop, Curtis was also a rural flag station. But it’s worth lingering here a little while longer for evidence of what once was.

That’s because while this station has all but disappeared from maps and much of written history…here on the ground, if you know what to look for, you’ll still see the almost forgotten name of “Curtis” clearly emblazoned on the train shed there.

BRIDGE ON THE RIVER…WHY?
Looking at the river today, it’s easy to forget that before 1908 there was no bridge connecting Aurora and Wilsonville. Aside from local ferries, travelers and freight had no convenient way to cross here. The Oregon Electric Railway changed that forever by building the bridge. Those stations only existed because that railway solved the first and enormous problem: Crossing the Willamette River.

Another interesting clue lies at the river itself. So why was this railroad bridge built here where the Willamette River meets a seemingly random patch of Aurora soil?

This crossing’s location was no accident. The Oregon Electric Railway needed a place where it could overcome its greatest obstacle—the Willamette River—while still creating a direct route south toward Salem.

When we look at this crossing today, it’s easy to think that when the railroad reached the river, they built a bridge. But the real engineering challenge began long before the water. That’s because the land beside the river was low and therefore prone to flooding. This meant a railroad could be washed away simply by rising water. That’s major problem #1 and this meant the stretch of land between Aurora and Wilsonville was unsuitable for a railroad. Yet it gets worse, because here’s the thing: The Willamette crossing at Aurora wasn’t simply about crossing the Willamette River. The real challenge was getting trains up, over, and back down. That was major problem #2.

So how are you going to address both of these mammoth and seemingly intractable issues? Engineering found a way. So to fix this, railroad engineers created a raised pathway—using long trestles and carefully engineered approaches—for trains to safely cross the river. Find out what happens next in our next video.

Aurora, Oregon: Ground Zero For Disaster, Part 1

On By Roy WidingIn 97002, Aurora Oregon, Aurora Oregon History, Aurora Oregon NewsLeave a comment

People camping just outside of Aurora, Oregon today are enjoying life at the site of an erased civilization. They have no clue they’re standing at ground zero of the most violent, destructive natural disaster in Oregon’s recorded history. Click the image below for Part 1 of this compelling story.

And though it remains the granddaddy of them all…you’ve never even heard of it….even with the epicenter nearby. And while Aurora’s town and rural areas were hit hard, outskirts like this were wiped virtually clean. There were winners and losers, with one nearby community holding on and the other now inhabited mainly by passing tourists, with no idea of what happened. So what was this disaster and why haven’t you heard about it? This is the battlefield of a community that fought…and lost badly …with that big battle occurring under a frightening set of events.

BIGGER THAN 1996
Whether it’s an earthquake, lightning strike or flood, natural disasters each tend to provide their own frame of reference. Many Oregonians recall the 1996 flood in much of the Willamette Valley. That regional soaker became a benchmark for water disasters. Yet here’s what’s left out: There’s a flood by comparison that was worse…and it isn’t even close. The flood of 1861 stands as the all-time record holder for the most disasterous on the Willamette River. That 1861 flood barrelled through at 635,000 cubic feet per second, being half again worse than the 1996 flood and packing more than seven times the punishing power of Niagara Falls.

AREA MAP: LAY OF THE LAND

CALM BEFORE THE STORM
The 1861 Willamette River flood was the result of a perfect storm: A ‘Pineapple Express’ weather event that unfolded in two distinct phases. Because November, 1861 was unusually cold and snowy, first came heavy snow accumulation. Then the situation got worse…much worse…because after that massive snow drop, next came a tropical cyclone with strong winds…and that part happened fast…with most of the warmer rainfall compressed into just 72 hours, rapidly melting the dense snowpack. 

The result? Flash flooding…which is what made the 1861 disaster so devastating. It triggered a sudden surge of runoff into the Willamette River, with a flow greater than the mighty Mississippi, raising water levels to record highs. As a result of that thousand year event, much of the Willamette Valley became a freshwater ocean…the size of 273,000 football fields and more than half the size of Rhode Island.

WHEN THE RIVER BECAME A WEAPON
In 1861 around Aurora, water was cresting by December 5th. Yet the real damage was just getting started, because here’s something people don’t realize: Water alone wasn’t the deadliest part. That’s because the Willamette River was now weaponized. Water cresting, the river was armed and dangerous, fully loaded with a quiver of mountain timber. Soil now softened, fir trees were uprooted and fell like dominos, then raced torpedo-like with the fast running current. Local Butteville pastor Reverend Michael Fackler wrote in amazement about pitch-black currents carrying massive fir logs up to 200 feet long.

SHOWDOWN AT GRAHAM’S FERRY
Graham’s Ferry was at a critical bend in the river and where colossal trees were turning into battering rams. They tore ferry cables, leveled orchards and pushed buildings over with ease. Imagine waking up in the freezing darkness of December to the sound of roaring water and 200-foot missiles snapping your house in half. Use heavy, low-frequency “thuds” and wood-splintering sound effects in the audio mix. Timber pierced through the current, slamming into lowlands around Graham’s Ferry and Butteville Road to devastating effect. The sheer force of massive logs, swinging Paul Bunyan-like, clubbed everything in their path, leaving heaps of scattered lumber across French Prairie as the water receded.

FLOODING AND FIGHTING
By December 1861, the United States was entering its first, bloody Christmas of the Civil War as President Abraham Lincoln struggled to heal the fractured Union. Back east, soldiers prepared for the brutality of battle by digging trenches in Virginia. But here in Oregon, pioneers fought a very different enemy, digging out from the massive heaps of French Prairie mud covering where their towns used to be. As Civil War soldiers raced toward each other, in Oregon, survival depended on racing from a rising river.

At Champoeg—the very birthplace of Oregon’s first government—the water reached a mind boggling 30 feet depth. Famous as the site of Oregon’s first provisional government, Champoeg was submerged under about 30 feet of fast-moving water. Every structure was swept away except for the Hudson’s Bay Company warehouse.

AFTERMATH
During the late 1800’s, railroads gradually replaced the steamboat for transporting the area’s freight and passengers, with Champoeg declining as a trade center. Some residents attempted to rebuild, but another flood decades later permanently ended their efforts as the buildings at Champoeg were again swept away. The hopelessness of re-establishing a town at Champoeg was eventually understood, leading to its abandonment in 1892. Champoeg is now a State Park.

Aurora Oregon history including details about local communities like Butteville, Champoeg, Donald and French Prairie
Steamboats at Champoeg, Oregon

WINNERS AND LOSERS
Yet an Aurora area community survived…and though it’s small, it’s still here. That place? Butteville, Oregon.

So what about another nearby French Prairie area, like nearby Donald, Oregon? Donald didn’t even exist then, developing into a town decades later. As a result, damage to that area was pretty much limited to what was then largely French Prairie farmland.

WHY DID CHAMPOEG DIE WHILE BUTTEVILLE SURVIVED?
Geography helped. Champoeg wasn’t destroyed because it sat dramatically lower than Butteville. Instead, it was just a few extra feet of elevation. Yet when floodwaters spread across French Prairie, that made all the difference. This hill just outside of Butteville—known by its French Prairie derived name of La Butte is a hard volcanic basalt escarpment that gave Butteville its name. At 427 feet elevation, it doesn’t seem that tall. Yet this seemingly non-descript hill would have represented higher ground to those seeking refuge during the 1861 flood. The elevation of La Butte was above the 30-foot floodwaters that also completely obliterated the lower-lying town of Champoeg.

Along with Champoeg, the 1861 flood completely destroyed several other Willamette Valley towns, mills and bridges never designed to withstand such pressure. A few of these were:

1. Linn City: The bustling mill town of Linn City was swept away and eventually replaced by the town of West Linn.

2. Orleans: Just across the Willamette River from Corvallis, Orleans was completely washed away and never re-established. 

3. Santiam: A short drive from Albany, the town of Santiam is another community erased by the 1861 flood and and never rebuilt.

So the next time you’re driving around Aurora between Butteville and Graham Road along Butteville Road, or camp at nearby Champoeg Park, look around. You’re on the site of Oregon’s greatest-and most forgotten-disaster.

Jury’s Out On Aurora Jail

On By Roy WidingIn Aurora Colony, Aurora Oregon, Aurora Oregon History, Aurora Oregon News, Aurora Oregon Public SafetyLeave a comment

This is the Aurora, Oregon jail, located just behind Aurora’s city hall. Passing by, you might not give it a second thought. Like what’s the big deal about an old gray building no longer being used? That is, unless you start asking questions. Any building this old must have a story. Like who built it? And if the walls could talk, what kinds of things would you learn?

Aurora, Oregon’s Old Jail

The door of this jail remains open, in more ways than one…and it’s also smaller than you might guess. Once inside, it seems tiny. And it is, about the size of a large garden shed.

It features a decorative exterior, three individual cells and a narrow corridor to enter and exit. Three bumps above the entry make for a classy flourish on a building meant to lock people inside. Imagine spending a night in this jail…not as a willing visitor, but as someone held against your will. No privacy. No way out.

With no insulation, comfort was clearly not a consideration. That’s one good reason jails are sometimes referred to as “the cooler.” Those bars over the windows stress what was far more important.

Aurora Oregon Jail Window With Bars
Aurora, Oregon Old Jail Window

Looking around, rust on the interior walls indicate a century of Oregon weather, each season adding another faint layer. Exposed metal rebar is randomly visible through the concrete, underscoring how time and the elements can soften even the toughest material, sometimes even a hardened criminal. A single toilet with zero privacy sits in full view for all and the extra heavy steel door ensures you don’t leave.

Aurora Oregon Jail Interior
Aurora, Oregon’s Jail Interior

Jails strike legitimate fear in many of us. They’re a place virtually no one wants to go.
So what’s the story behind this place…and was it really so bad?

Jailhouse Rocked
But this jail’s story takes an unexpected turn…because Aurora’s old jail, the place that once struck fear, more recently has had an appointment with the wrecking ball. With the walls themselves closing in on those four walls, it’s ironic that this once threatening place is now itself threatened.

The Threat
That’s because in August 2024, an Aurora committee met to determine if the deteriorating structure was too far gone to keep. A consensus determined the old building wasn’t feasible to move, so the decision was made to take it down. A plan was devised to save the door, the bars, one cell and take the rest down. That discussion didn’t choose complete erasure, but selective preservation. There’s something sincere in that compromise, yet something sad about it, too. A door alongside photos in a display case can show what a jail looked like. But this century old structure is the real deal.

Aurora Oregon Jail Interior
Aurora, Oregon’s Jail Interior

Closing The Door
Remembering Aurora’s past, including structures like this, gives a truer perspective of Aurora long ago. And once it’s gone, it’s gone. Then, there’s no way to experience the reality of just how truly small this jail was, what it felt like to be inside and how confining the sensation. That’s when once living history turns into photographs and fading memories. It’s curious how the century old jail sits steps away from Oregon’s first historic district designation, yet the jail itself was never included. History, it seems, is in the eye of the beholder.

True Mystery
For starters, a little digging reveals the Aurora, Oregon jail is older than anyone thought. That’s because one old newspaper clipping from 1893 leaves this tantalizing clue:

“Ground has been leased and the contract let for the building of a city jail…C. Zimmerman being the contractor. Work will commence on the building in a few days, weather permitting. The council deserves much credit for the prompt action taken in this matter.” That phrase “prompt action” hints the town of Aurora needed a jail sooner, rather than later. Aurora’s apparent jail builder, Christian Zimmerman, was a longtime Aurora resident. Assuming he built the jail when referenced, in 1893 Mr. Zimmerman was then 55 years old.  

The Inmates
As with any old building, history leaves clues and here are a few. Dramatic stories survive in old newspapers. We even know a few things about some of the prisoners held here, though years apart. They include a chicken thief and two men traveling through town after burglarizing a neighboring community.

Aurora Lawman Eyes Trouble
Among the earliest records is from 1921, when two men aboard a local freight train stopped in Aurora one Saturday morning, while the train loaded water for the train’s steam engine. Aurora’s own Marshal George Fry recognized them as the pair he helped arrest in Woodburn a few days earlier, taking them immediately to the Aurora jail. Marshal Fry’s instincts were correct that the men were escapees and he returned the two men to the Oregon City jail, where the fugitives had escaped on a charge of burglarizing a home between the two towns.  

From the Henhouse to the Hoosegow
Another Aurora jailbird was held in 1935 on a charge of stealing chickens. He was given a bail of $250, then lodged here when he wasn’t able to pay. That alleged poultry pilferer had been found guilty on a morals charge the year before, leading to him to spend 30 days in the jail. Yet he was eventually cleared of the chicken thievery charge by a grand jury, a few months after his later arrest.

What to do with a jail like this is often considered settled. But in this case, not yet. It seems the term ‘doing time’ cuts a little differently for jails. That’s because when it comes to this century old building, there’s no firm agreement yet on what the appropriate sentence is. But first, why does it even matter? Some might say it’s an old building….Time to make room for something new and relevant.

Determining the fate of a historical building with a mindset of ‘newer is better’ misses the entire point, especially in this town itself older than the state of Oregon, with a historic district and a stream of events celebrating Aurora’s early origins. And given Aurora’s small size, even seemingly minor decisions like what to do with an old jail, get inflated.

Why It Matters
Aurora’s old jail matters for at least three reasons: History, identity, and stewardship. History shows how the community operated. Identity says something about how Aurora sees itself now. Stewardship shows Aurora’s priorities.

Possible Reprieve
The old Aurora jail still stands and that’s really the story for now. Between the 2024 deliberations by town leaders and the wrecking ball, the jail is receiving at least a temporary reprieve. That’s because a 2025 town meeting underscored the consideration being given by Aurora’s leaders for the old jail, even inviting input from the Aurora Colony Historical Society, an institution that truly knows the importance of Aurora history. It’s been said that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. And by all appearances, Aurora’s leaders remain open to dealing with their town’s past…even if it’s an old jail.

Ideas have ranged from preservation to tourism use to partial reconstruction—but no final direction has been set. As a possible tourist attraction, visitors taking photos around the jail, then posting them on social media could be another unique way to help promote Aurora.What some may see as a town’s delay in deciding the fate of this old jail is frustrating. For others, it’s a chance to get it right, with a real shot at resolving an issue deferred for decades. Sometimes a town’s monetary balance sheet is exceeded by its ample historic ‘balance sheet,’ of less tangible assets. Beauty, history, education and even an old jail can provide benefits in addition to monetary considerations.

Aurora’s jail and cemeteries have something in common, because their presence makes a statement about the treatment given to those that each facility holds. Here’s a related story about one Aurora, Oregon hero to remember with that video below.

So for now at least, the door to Aurora, Oregon’s old jail remains open…both literally and figuratively.

Doing Time
whether the jail’s future ultimately involves preservation, adaptive re-use, relocation, documentation, or demolition, its story will always be part of Aurora’s history.

So what’s lost when a place like this disappears—not a cathedral, not a battlefield, just a one-room jail behind a small-town city hall? Maybe just the fact that something happened here, against this wall, beneath a scalloped roofline someone once thought worth the extra concrete. So after an initial vote for demolition, the historic Aurora jail remains. For now.

Aurora Oregon Old Jail Door
Aurora, Oregon’s Old Jail Door

The Slammer
A salvaged jail door shows you what a jail door looked like. Yet you won’t know what it felt and sounded like, while closing on those being held under the force of law

Aurora Oregon Jail, Aurora Oregon History, Aurora Oregon
Aurora, Oregon’s Old Jail Reimagined

Boones Ferry…or Booze Ferry?

On By Roy WidingIn Aurora Oregon History, 97002, Aurora Oregon, Boones Ferry, Charbonneau, French PrairieLeave a comment

Aurora, Oregon Is Shaken, But Not Stirred

It’s a story with all the workings of a well hidden caper. That’s because under the cover of night, this true event featured an elaborate undercover operation…with a secret hideout near Boones Ferry Road on the outskirts of Aurora, Oregon, including a unique transportation hub to evade detection. The stakes are also high and law enforcement is hot on the heels of criminals and actively working to track them down. Except this is one story you’ve never heard before.

The Setting: 1930’s Aurora, Oregon
It’s the evening of October 3, 1936 and federal authorities are readying a criminal takedown. But this isn’t a misdemeanor sting on a few two bit punks. The men on these outskirts of Aurora, Oregon, are smugglers, with their center of operation a short strip of land between current day Charbonneau and nearby Boones Ferry Landing. It’s the length of maybe a few football fields. From there, they move their contraband across the Willamette River, north to Wilsonville and on to greater Portland.

Law Enforcement: On The Case
The information given to law enforcement involves a liquor distillery on the periphery of Aurora, with that liquor traveling across the Willamette River to Wilsonville. With this tip, officers begin their surveillance from the Wilsonville side of the river. Their surveillance pays off big-time, as the lawmen notice a heavily loaded truck cross the ferry to Aurora’s backyard known as French Prairie on the north end of Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

French Prairie Oregon Map In The Willamette Valley

French Prairie
Located south of the Willamette River, the area was settled in the 1800’s by French-Canadian frontiersmen and trappers. It became a strategic crossroad for smuggling contraband. That’s because roads and rivers have long been plentiful around Aurora. The old Pacific Highway — now called Highway 99E — passes through town, connecting Portland to Salem. Boones Ferry Road has also long connected both of those major cities. As for waterways, both the Pudding and Willamette rivers meander past Aurora. Each route gives moonshiners options to evade government detection. For lawmen trying to intercept illegal hooch, it becomes a ‘cat and mouse’ game.

Getting the Lay of the Land
After a few nights of watching, law enforcement spots the same truck again crossing from Wilsonville on Boones Ferry Road. It then takes Boones Ferry across the Willamette River. Officials follow it to the old Wagner farm, now part of present day Charbonneau, but then the site of a distillery and storage facility.

Boones Ferry Road, Boones Ferry Landing, Wilsonville, Willamette River

Hide & Seek
As officers watch from a nearby field, one early distillery giveaway is the smell of fermenting mash. Sounds emanating from a water pump also revealed what was for that time a state-of-the-art mechanized well. Law enforcement then observes trucks leaving with lights off. It’s then a short drive from the distillery to Boones Ferry Landing, then across the Willamette River, back to Boones Ferry Road on the Wilsonville side and north to Portland. Minimal road exposure means little risk of being spotted by passing lawmen on a main highway. And by operating without lights, it’s clear the smugglers know their way around…even in the dark. 

Secret Sauce
Over multiple nights, officers observe even more heavily loaded trucks, plus a car driving in and out of the Wagner farm property. Further surveillance finds men unloading bulky items at the distillery, then loading what appear to be containers of liquor. The crooks are clever to avoid detection on the road…and in hiding their distillery, too. That’s because their distillery is located within a separate enclosure, surrounded by a high fence of chicken wire. It also has an early warning system, plus a yard gate, approachable only through the Wagner residence.

Law Enforcement Takedown
Fast forward To the night of October 3,1936, when just before the bust, federal officials hear the perpetrators comment “We’ll run the mash tomorrow night,” with mash a key ingredient for making moonshine liquor. One officer then notices a still and related paraphernalia, including an industrial size 25 pound package of yeast, another component of home brewing. But to these federal officials, most noteworthy is the bottle containing an amber colored fluid, classic for whiskey, with no revenue stamps attached. This is the felony act.The entire operation is soon disrupted for good. Federal agents move in with their raid when one defendant walks out of the building to retrieve yeast, returns to the building and is arrested while entering his car. Several other men on the Wagner farm are then arrested.

Distillery device also known as a liquor still

White Lightning
What’s significant isn’t so much that this arrest happened, but WHEN. That’s because it occurred AFTER Prohibition, once alcohol use had again been legalized. That irony is deep as the nearby Willamette River. So what gives? One word: Taxes. So the men running liquor through the hinterlands of Aurora weren’t violating Prohibition laws. Instead, given their possession of four gallons of moonshine whiskey, they were violating federal tax law, the liquor tax act. The actual charge was the removal, concealment and transportation of non-tax paid liquor, the same kind of federal tax beef that sealed mafia kingpin Al Capone’s fate when government couldn’t make his other mob-related charges stick.

Prohibition Over
The case is decided years after Prohibition’s 1933 repeal. By then, the public had largely moved on from arguments about alcohol. Bootlegging arrests began as front-page news during the 1920’s, because that was part of a national discussion on Prohibition. Yet by 1937, that argument was settled. This meant that a moonshine bust around Aurora was now more of a tax evasion case, not a referendum on drinking alcohol.

What Happened To The Distilling Defendants?
District Judge James Fee renders his decision on March 22, 1937, giving the ringleader four years of hard labor at McNeil Penitentiary in Washington State. His associates were given lesser sentences and the farmowner received a suspended sentence, but required to pay a hefty fine for the unpaid tax value of all the liquor accounted for.

Sentence Appealed
The main character’s four year sentence is later appealed on Fourth Amendment grounds about unwarranted search and seizure, but that challenge fails, finding officials had sufficient probable cause for search and seizure of alcohol without the payment of required federal tax. History lives on. That’s because the Wagner farm was later annexed into Wilsonville’s Charbonneau neighborhood on the Willamette River’s south bank. The district traces its name to Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, a son of Sacagawea who traveled with his mother on the Lewis and Clark Expedition as an infant. 

Old Wagner well in Charbonneau located at Wilsonville, Oregon

The Site Today
Even now you can observe an existing remnant at the center of this distillery drama near the former Wagner farm site. Passing through Charbonneau’s northern section on the appropriately named French Prairie Road, you’ll see a tall wooden structure. That’s the old Wagner farm well location, sitting on the same land where a hidden distillery operated behind a chicken wire fence, as trucks ran without lights on their way to Boones Ferry Landing…and where federal officers smelled fermenting mash, as they monitored the scene from a neighboring pasture. Ironically, those same grounds are now part of a posh golf community.

Charbonneau neighborhood near Aurora Oregon

Part of that same Wagner farm was once owned by someone with a storied Boone connection, since it was once part of the Boone family’s long held land claim. So Chloe Boone, great granddaughter of Daniel Boone, married Oregon’s last territorial governor, George Curry. Part of that Curry House land later became the Wagner farm where the takedown occurred. So the next time you’re driving on the outskirts of Aurora near Charbonneau, consider taking a pleasant detour and observe what remains of this interesting local history. You can also learn about the origins of Aurora, Oregon’s historic Boones Ferry in the video below.



Aurora, Oregon’s Confusing Daniel Boone Connection

On By Roy WidingIn Daniel Boone, 97002, Aurora Oregon, Aurora Oregon History, Aurora Oregon NewsLeave a comment

You’re driving one of Oregon’s oldest roads. Not a freeway, not a bypass, but a road with a story, stretching back nearly two centuries.

But here’s what most people miss.

Many assume this road was named for Daniel Boone — the famous frontiersman. And they’d be wrong. Daniel Boone never set foot in Oregon…but his grandson, Alphonso Boone, did.

Like his grandfather Daniel Boone, Alphonso looked west.

Through brutal terrain, river crossings, the constant threat of illness and hostile territory, the Boones made it across the Oregon Trail in 1846 with ten kids in tow, settling along the Willamette River, not far from the town of modern day Aurora.

When Alphonso and his family arrived in Oregon in 1846, they saw what was needed: A way to cross the river.

By 1847, Alphonso Boone and his eldest son Jesse built a ferry crossing on the Willamette, appropriately named Boones Ferry.

The Boone family insisted the ferry run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — in a time with no electricity, no engines, and no guarantee of traffic. This meant manual labor using oars.

But a ferry alone wasn’t enough. To make the crossing useful, you also needed a road to get to it.

So as the ferry moved people across the river, Daniel Boone’s great grandson Jesse began clearing the path to make a road connecting Portland to Salem.

Driving Boones Ferry Road today, no one pictures the challenge of what building a road then and there meant, without today’s machinery. Plus when rains hit, ground turned to mud. The need was real.

So logs were split in half lengthwise, then laid flat-side up across the road surface — creating a continuous wooden mat over soft ground.

As a result, the labor intensive, corduroy constructed log road ran north toward Portland and south toward Salem, passing through Marion, Washington, Clackamas and Multnomah Counties. That road became Boones Ferry Road.

So why does all this matter today?

Because Boones Ferry and the road leading to it were the commercial and cultural spine of Oregon. Boones Ferry Landing and the road connecting to it became the first viable land link between Oregon’s key cities, including Salem, our state capital and the booming Portland/Vancouver region.

Farmers, merchants, government officials — everyone moving goods and transacting business passing through here used Boones Ferry Road. So the road you’re driving right now, was once the busiest corridor in the territory, literally bringing the state together.

So what does that mean to you and me?

Fast forward to now, nearly two centuries later and Boones Ferry Road is still doing what it was built to do: Move people. Interstate 5 runs right alongside it, almost exactly where the Boone family cleared the trail now known as Boones Ferry Road.

First came Boones Ferry Road and then the I-5 highway. Boones Landing is where it all started. The community that grew up around it was named Wilsonville in 1880, after the town’s first postmaster.

But if you think that’s surprising, consider this:

The ferry itself operated for an extraordinary 107 years and shut down in 1954 with the completion of Interstate 5 and Boone Bridge, a literal stone’s throw from the original ferry landing.

The Oregon Trail spirit — move west, build and connect people — runs directly beneath your tires every time you take Boones Ferry Road…and Aurora is at the heart of it.

So the next time you’re on Boones Ferry Road, you’re basically driving the same path a family began in the Aurora, Oregon wilderness in 1846. If you want to learn about another side of Boones Ferry Road few know about, check out that interesting feature article here or its companion YouTube video below…about ‘Booze Ferry.’