Durham: Named for the Man Who Built Lake Oswego
Near Dundee, Oregon
Durham is a quiet residential city tucked into Washington County just south of Tigard, but its name reaches back to one of the busiest entrepreneurial figures in early Oregon. The area was named for Albert Alonzo Durham, the man who founded nearby Lake Oswego. Around eighteen sixty-six, Durham sold his house and mill in Oswego and built a new sawmill and flour mill along Fanno Creek on this land.
The area was largely agricultural and rural for decades. In nineteen oh eight the Oregon Electric Railway built through the area and established a stop called Durham Station near the old mill site. The community carried that name informally for years before incorporating officially in nineteen sixty-six, with residents specifically focused on preserving the area's natural character rather than promoting growth. It remains one of the smallest cities in the Portland metro.
