Category: Willamette River

Aurora, Oregon’s ‘Clear As Mud’ Mystery

On By Roy WidingIn Aurora Colony, 97002, Aurora Oregon, Aurora Oregon History, Aurora Oregon Tourism, Dr. Wilhelm Keil, French Prairie, Oregon Aurora, Oregon History, Pudding River, Willamette RiverLeave a comment

While walking along Liberty Street in Aurora, Oregon…if you look a little to the east, you may notice a small forest of trees between you and the Pudding River. Today, you might hear songbirds and the rustle of Douglas firs. But in the Autumn of 1863, this exact stretch of woods was the site of a smoke-filled race against time. Because without what lay buried beneath these trees, the utopian dream of Aurora, Oregon, wouldn’t have just struggled… it would have stopped.

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
Most people pass by without a second glance. To be fair, it’s easy to miss, even for local residents. But below those trees was the key to unlock the region’s survival. And without it, Aurora may never have become the town we know today. Today, it’s obscured. But long ago, this area echoed with the sounds of axes, horses, shovels and the crackling of kilns.

This wasn’t just another worksite, either. It transformed Aurora into one of Oregon’s most noteworthy communities. And a case could be made that without this stretch of land, instead of a heartwarming story of community, the Aurora Colony might not have made it through the winter. To begin though…and like many mysteries…we start from the ground up.

When Dr. Wilhelm Keil brought his followers to the banks of the Pudding River in 1856, it was to become a communal society where everyone worked together. And there was plenty to be done. Yet their new homeland offered a lot to work with: Fertile soil…timber…rivers for water transport…and land routes connecting to nearby vital towns like Salem and Oregon City.

TROUBLE BREWING
But Aurora’s Colonists had a big problem. Building a community requires building materials. Many think of Aurora as a town made with wood. Nearby forests supplied plenty of lumber, but wood alone couldn’t safely heat a home during long, bone-chilling Aurora winters. That’s because one thing Aurora didn’t have was brick. Without it, there were no proper chimneys, ovens, or home foundations. And with the onset of freezing weather, surviving Oregon’s Winter took a sudden and dramatic shift. New families were arriving, all needing a place to live. Along with homes, the Aurora Colony also needed stores, churches and a variety of other buildings. Someone had to make those bricks.

ONE MORE PROBLEM
But there was another problem and that was the race against unforgiving, wet Oregon weather. If the Colony wanted brick, it would have to make its own before autumn rains turned everything to mud while families froze. Being industrious Germans, the colonists determined the answer wasn’t IN the soil. The answer WAS the soil.

That’s because around the Pudding River lay something invaluable: Clay soil. So arguably the most valuable natural resource around Aurora wasn’t timber. It was mud. Today, wet soil seemingly has no value. But to 1860’s Aurora Colonists, it was good as gold. But here’s the strange part. Today there’s almost nothing left to tell visitors that Aurora’s industrial heart once stood here.

The floodplain of the nearby Pudding River held those deposits. So to modern passersby…it looks like ordinary mud. Yet to an experienced brickmaker, it looked like opportunity. But it gets even better, because water from the Pudding River helped when mixing it and wood from surrounding forests fired the kiln. Then once those bricks cooled, they could be hauled a short distance into town where construction was booming and desperate for brick.

ONE REMAINING INGREDIENT
Nearly everything needed for a brickyard existed here, long before the first colonists ever arrived. Except one thing― Making bricks isn’t like making mud pies, since dangerously high temperatures approaching several thousand degrees are needed. Otherwise the Pudding River clay shrank, cracked and exploded in fire if not tempered, molded and baked correctly. So clay alone wasn’t enough. The colony desperately needed someone with a very specific skill. That’s because clay is useless without mastery. So they needed a brickmason. But a single brickmason wouldn’t be enough. Given the scale of work to be done, that man would have to wear many hats in order to coordinate, lead and teach others.

As it turned out…one German immigrant possessed those exact skills. His name? John Will. In 1860’s Aurora, Oregon, Will was the right man for the job. That’s because as a professional stone brick-mason, John Will served as foreman of the Colony’s brickyard operations. In Aurora…his skills suddenly became indispensable as he oversaw one of the busiest construction periods in Aurora’s history, beginning soon upon his arrival. Will wasn’t just an expert mason—he oversaw an industrial scale operation.

Picture an early morning, with workers digging clay from the river, while others mix it with water to just the right consistency. Brick molds fill, one after another, as rows of fresh bricks dry in the sun.

BLISTERING HEAT
Once temperatures approach 2,000 degrees…mud becomes brick. But miss that temperature…and days of work are wasted. The results of backbreaking labor could completely vanish if the temperature wasn’t closely monitored. Then finally…the hottest job of all…feeding the kiln. That kind of work would make working the fry vat at your local hamburger chain actually look inviting. For long periods the fires couldn’t be allowed to die, because like Goldilocks, too cool…and the bricks would crumble. Too hot…and they could warp or crack.

It was dirty and relentless skilled work, with each brick produced making a family warmer. A byproduct of all this labor was the human connection sought by the Colony’s founders. Sometimes friendship and neighborly love wasn’t demonstrated by a Sunday sermon, but from conversations beside a half-built fireplace while consoling a family experiencing hardship. Workers here carried skills with them that would leave a permanent mark on the town. And today visitors come to Aurora, admiring its historic homes, museum and antique shops. And though buildings frequently receive the attention, they were all made better with the unseen labor making the bricks.

Few realize deep in the ground, hidden behind the woods east of town lies the key that unlock Aurora’s growth. Those kilns have pretty much vanished into history and trees have reclaimed much of the land. So nature has quietly covered what people once worked so hard to create. But the story remains. Every brick laid into a chimney…every warm fireplace…every bakery oven that fed a growing community…began with clay beside the Pudding River. Today…birds sing where kilns crackled. Trees shade ground once scarred by shovels. Moss and ivy slowly cover what people built with blistered hands. But if you stand quietly and look around…you’re standing where Aurora was fired into existence. Sometimes history isn’t found inside museums. Sometimes it starts in the most ignoble place of all, beneath your feet.

Aurora didn’t simply rise from the forest, but from nearby mud along the Pudding River. And if you’ve ever wandered those quiet woods east of Liberty Street…you may have walked across the very ground where Aurora’s future was forged with trial by fire…one brick at a time.

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.