8 • The Southwest Portland Post
FEATURES
January 2009
Oregonian history columnist ‘wrong in every aspect’ about Capitol Highway
By Don Snedecor
The Southwest Portland Post
In John Terry’s history column,
“First wagons easier to pin than the
last,” (The Oregonian, November
30, 2008) Tim Lyman wondered
about Southwest Portland’s Capitol
Highway.
Lyman: “Seems to me that it was
named Capitol Highway because it
was the road that went to the Capi-
tol (Salem),” he wrote. “Am I correct
in this idea? I have also heard that
portions of Capitol Highway were
some of the first concrete roads in
the USA.”
According to Terry, Capitol High-
way got its name from Capitol Hill,
which, according to Eugene Snyder’s
“Portland Names and Neighbor-
hoods,” was “a small hill in southwest
Portland developed with residential
property. There was a ‘Capitol Hill’
subdivision in 1907.” So far, so good.
But that doesn’t explain Capitol
Highway, and Snyder doesn’t take
us down that road. Other sources I
checked are even less satisfactory. My
guess is the subdivision developers
wanted a name suggesting easy access
to their tract and came up with the
name to convince potential buyers that
1907 Hupmobiles could easily make
the grade. Over time the thoroughfare
grew to somewhat warrant its appel-
lation.
As for its being the route to the state
“Capitol,” that doesn’t fly because, at
least for Portland’s west side, that was
Boones Ferry Road, which wound its
way south to the Willamette crossing
olD MultNoMah
at Wilsonville and on to Salem and
predates Capitol Highway by a good
half-century.
I’m also somewhat doubtful Capitol
Highway can lay claim to being among
the first concrete-paved highways
in the nation, but it’s possible. This
much is for sure, courtesy of the Port-
land Cement Association: “The first
concrete highway constructed in the
United States was a 24 mile (38.6 km)
long, 9 ft (2.7m) wide, 5 in. (12.7 cm)
thick strip of concrete pavement built
near Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in 1913
-- five years after the introduction of
the Model T Ford. By 1914, portland
cement concrete had been used to pave
2,348 miles (3778 km) of roadway.”
If Capitol Highway’s builders used
it, did that put it among that first
year’s 2,348 miles? Who knows? Be-
fore 1913 there was no Oregon High-
way Commission, no state highways,
and county road departments were
notoriously lax in both construction
and record keeping.
In a letter to John Terry, copied
to The Post, Lyman replied: I don’t
know what your sources are, or if
you even bothered to check any,
but you are wrong in every respect
about Capitol Highway. It was a
highway, it did go the state capitol,
and that’s why it was named Capi-
tol Highway.
Capitol Highway was a segment
of the original Pacific Highway,
predecessor to US99 and later I5,
which was laid out in 1912-1913.
Capitol Highway was purpose built
A jitney stops along Capitol Highway near Bertha Station circa 1930. (Post file photo)
for automobile traffic and was one
of the first paved automobile high-
ways in the country.
Paving started in 1914, Capitol
Highway was completely paved by
1915 and the entire Pacific Highway
from Canada to Mexico was com-
pletely paved by 1922. Boone’s
Ferry road did precede Capitol
Highway, but it was never part of
any highway system.
Attached are the frontispiece
from the State of Oregon First An-
nual Report of the Highway Engineer
Period Ending November 30, 1914 and
the page that references Capitol
Highway as going to Salem.
Also attached are two pages from
the Automobile Blue Book of 1919,
Vol 9. There is a map of roads
around NW Oregon and a passage
outlining the route from Portland
to Salem via the Capitol Highway.
The Blue Book is not a government
publication, but was considered to
be the most authoritative source of
road information in the early days
of motoring.
A simple search “capitol high-
way” on Google books would have
yielded you the same results. Even
a simple search for “Capitol High-
way” on Wikipedia would have
yielded the correct answer.
The book That ribbon of high-
way III : Highway 99 through the
Pacific Northwest, available at the
Multnomah County Library also
describes Capitol Highway. The
Multnomah County Library also
has a fine selection of early twen-
tieth century Oregon road maps.
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