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The city is known as a residential area for the wealthy, particularly the homes overlooking the lake. In 2000, the city had a median income of $71,597, up from $57,499 in 1990. Like the rest of the Portland metropolitan area, house prices have grown rapidly; the median value in 2000 was $296,200, over twice what it was in 1990 ($142,600).
The Clackamas Indians had occupied the land now known as Lake Oswego, but diseases transmitted by European explorers and traders decimated the tribes. As settlers arrived, they found the land under-occupied.
Prior to the influx of population via the Oregon Trail, the area between the Willamette River and Tualatin River had a scattering of early pioneer homesteads and farms.
Albert Alonzo Durham founded the town of Oswego in 1847, naming it after his New York birthplace. He also built a saw mill on Sucker Creek (now Oswego Creek ), the town's first industry.In 1855, the Federal Government took Clackamas Indians and moved them to the Grand Ronde Reservation in nearby Yamhill County.
In 1865, prompted by the earlier discovery of iron ore in the Tualatin ValleyThe Tualatin Valley is a farming and suburban region southwest of Portland, Oregon in the United States. The valley is formed by the meandering Tualatin River, a tributary of the Willamette River at the northwest corner of the Willamette Valley, east of t, the Oregon Iron Company was incorporated. Within two years the first blast furnaceA blast furnace is a type of furnace for smelting whereby the combustion material and ore are supplied with air in the centre of the chamber such that the chemical reaction does not take place only at the surface. Typically this is used for the production on the west coastIn general, the term West Coast is a nickname for the coastal states of the Western United States, comprising California, Oregon and Washington, and sometimes Alaska and Hawaii (see Pacific States . The West Coast is a portion of the West. It has also com was built, patterned after the arched furnaces common in northwestern ConnecticutConnecticut is a state of the United States, part of the New England region. Connecticut was one of the thirteen colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution. USS Connecticut was named in honor of this state. History Main article. Other companies such as the Oswego Iron Company and Oregon Iron and Steel Company followed, collectively intent on making Oswego into the PittsburgPittsburgh is a city in western Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 334,563 ( metropolitan area 2,358,695). Pittsburgh, nicknamed The Steel City has traditionally of the West. By 1890, the industry had the capacity to produce 12,305 tons of pig ironPig iron is raw iron, the immediate product of smelting iron ore with coke and limestone in a blast furnace. Pig iron has a very high carbon content, typically 4-5%, which makes it very brittle and not very useful directly as a material. Pig iron is typic, and at its peak provided employment to around 300 men.
The iron industry was a vital part of a strategy designed by a few Portland financiers who strove to control all related entrepreneurAn entrepreneur is a business innovator who establishes a new business entity to offer a new or existing product or service into a new or existing market for profitable motivations. Entrepreneurs often have strong beliefs about a market opportunity and arial ventures in the late 1800sEvents and Trends Beginning of the Napoleonic Wars ( 1803 1815). Semaphore is adopted by navies. United Kingdom founded in 1801 World Leaders Emperor Napoleon I ( France) Emperor Francis II ( Holy Roman Empire) Pope Pius VII Emperor Alexander I ( Russia). Control of shipping and railroads was held under the Oregon Steam Navigation Company , later to become the Oregon Rail & Navigation Company . These two monopolies provided a strong and increasing demand for iron and steel as the Industrial Revolution took hold of the expanding Oregon frontier, and illustrates the importance of Oswego's role in Oregon's economic history.
The success of this industry greatly stimulated the development of Oswego, which by this time had four general stores, a bank, two barber shops, two hotels, three churches, nine saloons, a drugstore, and even an opera house.
During this early period in Oregon history, river transportation was vital to commerce and development. Principle trade proceeded from Portland to Oregon City via the Willamette River, and up the Tualatin River Valley through Tualatin, Scholls , and Hillsboro. The thick woods and rain-muddied roads were major obstacles to traveling by land. Along the rivers of this area can still be seen the vestiges of river landings, ferry stops, and covered bridges of this period. A landing at George Rogers Park is thought to have been developed by Durham around 1850 for lumber transport, and certainly was used by the Oregon Iron Company for their Portland-bound pig iron shipments. The Tryon Creek outlet into the Willamette was a second important river landing place.
The railroad arrived in Oswego in 1886, in the form of the Portland and Willamette Valley Railroad. A seven-mile-long line provided Oswego with a direct link to Portland. Prior to this, access to the town was limited to primitive roads and river boats. The railroad's arrival was a mixed blessing; locally, it promoted residential development along its path, which enabled Oswego to grow beyond its industrial roots. But nationally, the continued expansion of freight railroad system gave easy local access to cheaper and higher quality iron from the Great Lakes region. This ultimately led to the local industry's demise.
The Southern Pacific Railroad, which had acquired the line at the end of the 19th century, widened it from narrow to standard gauge and in 1914 electrified it, providing rapid, clean, and quiet train access to the city of Portland. Passenger traffic hit its peak in 1920 with 64 trains to and from Portland daily. Within nine years of the peak, passenger service ended, though the Willamette Shore Trolley provides tourist rides on the line today.
Oregon Iron and Steel adopted to the new century by undertaking programs in land development, selling large tracks of the 24,000 acres (97 kmē) it owned, and power, building a plant on Oswego Creek starting in 1905 and erecting power poles in subsequent years to supply power to the Oswego citizens. With the water needs of the smelters tailing off, the recreational potential of the lake and town was freed to develop rapidly.
One of the land developers benefitting from OI&S' sales was Paul Murphy, whose Oswego Lake Country Club helped promote the new city as a place to "live where you play." Murphy was instrumental in developing the first water system to supply the western reaches of the city, and also played a key role in encouraging the design of fine homes in the 1930s and 1940s that ultimately would establish Oswego as an attractive place to live.
In the 1940s and 1950s, continued development helped spread Oswego's residential areas. In 1960, the town annexed part of neighboring Lake Grove and was renamed Lake Oswego.
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