Fairview: Named for What You Can See

Fairview sits at the western edge of the Columbia River Gorge where settlers could look east to Mount Hood and south across a broad valley. They named the town for exactly what they saw: fair views. Before them, a Multnomah band village had stood along the river for generations, but by the time Lewis and Clark came through in eighteen oh six, smallpox had devastated the community.

Settlers began farming the bottomlands in the eighteen forties, planting hay, orchards, and berry crops. The first post office was called Cleone, but when another Fairview on the Oregon coast closed theirs, the name transferred here. Fairview incorporated in nineteen oh eight, and though it is now part of the Portland metro, it keeps its agricultural roots just inside the gorge's western gate.