Swift, Oregon – Clackamas and Eastern Railroad Stop
Name: Swift
Class:
GPS: 45.3095662, -122.5592564
Directions: Head south of Oregon on Highway 213. Take a right on S. Henrici Road. Swift was located at the corner of S. Henrici and S Reeder Road.
Description:
*Update* Upon further examination of maps of the time, this location looks wrong. The coordinates are as reported by Lat-Long.com, but as you can see from the map, this location would be several miles northwest of what the Rail Road Map says it should be. I’m leaning towards the railroad map being correct, but this still leaves the exact location of the town and it’s surroundings a question.
Map of the Clackamas and Eastern Railroad
Swift was a small community located in Clackamas County south of Oregon City on what is now S. Henrici Road. The only data point I have for this town is that the Clackamas and Eastern Railroad was built to it in 1930. This connected the line to the Molalla Lumber Company Railroad.
Looking in Google Maps and street view, it looks like a few historic buildings from that era may still exist. Shy Ann Meats and Sausage Company definitely inhabits an older historic building, and there is a barn on the corner of Henrici and Reeder Roads that looks many decades older then the house on the same property.
If you know anything more about this town, or can confirm that the above two buildings were once part of it, please comment below!
Bibliography:
http://ims.er.usgs.gov/gda_services/download?item_id=5544288
If you look at the above historical USGS map (You will need to extract it) and compare it with the C&E map, you can see that there where 2 old “communities” where Swift and Larkin were located. I am also inclined to believe the locations on this map as opposed to lat-long.com.
Where Shy-Ann Meats is located there was a railroad line near there that ran from Oregon City to Mt Angel that passed through Molalla. That was the Willamette Valley Southern Railway Company. They crossed Henrici just east of Shy-Ann Meats and crossed through the campus of Clackamas Community College.
Thank you Christian! That is an awesome map, and in my opinion pretty much settles the question.
Was the building Shy-Ann Meats in, part of the railroad? It definitely has a bit of a train station/warehouse look to it.
While I agree that the buildings have the look of having a railroad history, they are about .2 miles west of where the grade crossed Henrici. What i don’t know is the age of the buildings themselves. The 1914 USGS quad shows the railroad existing but the 1939 shows it as an abandoned grade.
This link has a little more info.
http://www.duntonfarms.com/railroad/wvsr/
I know where Elliot mills and Elliot junction are. There is an old concrete structure there too.
When I was a child in the 1950’s my family lived in Viola on a farm along the rail line near the Elliot Mill. Our 1/2 mile driveway from Market Rd ,now Redland Rd was old rail grade. There was still a short section of trestle standing then as well as a large area of it that had collapsed at Elliot Junction. We played on the rotted wood structures and collected spikes and the big bolts with forged spools and washers when we could extricate them from the rooted timbers. We still have two pieces of the small gauge rail found in the collapsed trestle.
Publishers Paper Co bought the 600 acre farm in 1961 and we moved to our present home on Ridge Rd . The land was acquired later by Port Blakely who developed a gravel quarry on site and built miles of nice haul roads along the creeks and throughout the timberland . All the old trestle debris is long gone. The house and barn and all traces of my first home are gone, part of a young forest.
The Elliot Mill may be the origin of the two ponds just below Ridge Road at the Hogback.