Turner: A Miller's Name on a Railroad Stop
Near Salem, Oregon
Turner is one of a string of Marion County towns that owe their existence to the Oregon and California Railroad's march south through the Willamette Valley. When the railroad reached this area in eighteen seventy-one it established a station named for Henry L. Turner, a well-known local pioneer who operated a flour mill. Turner recorded a town plat around the station on March ninth, eighteen seventy-one.
Before European settlers arrived, the Santiam Kalapuya people had lived in this valley for generations. The first American settlers came in eighteen forty-three. The railroad community that grew around Turner's mill incorporated formally in nineteen oh five. Today it sits just southeast of Salem, a quiet farming town whose founding mill owner got a degree of immortality most pioneers never achieve: a town with his name still on the map.
