page_title: Orenco station (TriMet)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Orenco station (TriMet) / History
caption_attribution_description: Former store in Orenco, Oregon.
context_page_description: Orenco, formerly known as Orenco/Northwest 231st Avenue, is a light rail station in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States, served by TriMet as part of its MAX Light Rail system. It is the sixth eastbound stop on the Blue Line, which connects the cities of Hillsboro, Beaverton, Portland, and Gresham. The island platform station is situated between the Quatama and Hawthorn Farm stations and serves the Orenco Station neighborhood. The neighborhood is considered a positive model for smart growth and transit-oriented development, and is home to Intel's Ronler Acres campus.
  An Oregon Electric Railway depot of the same name served the nearby area in the early 20th century. The TriMet station was built as part of the Westside MAX project, which extended MAX service from downtown Portland to downtown Hillsboro in 1998. With the city's renaming of Northwest 231st Avenue to Northeast Century Boulevard in 2017, TriMet simplified the station's name to its current form. The station includes a 125-space park and ride lot, secure bike parking, and a connection to TriMet's 47–Baseline/Evergreen bus line.
context_section_description: The station is named for the former company town of Orenco, a community founded in 1906 by the Salem-based Oregon Nursery Company, which had purchased 1,200 acres (485.6 ha) of land in Washington County as part of a plan to expand its operations in the Portland area. The Oregon Electric Railway made the town a part of its branch line between Portland and Forest Grove in 1908 at the behest of the company, laying tracks through nursery property and building a depot just east of where the present light rail station is located. In 1913, the year the town incorporated, the Orenco depot served an average of 1,000 passengers per month. The outbreak of World War I resulted in severe economic setbacks for the Oregon Nursery Company, having disrupted its plans to expand into Europe. Following years of financial hardship, the company filed for bankruptcy and closed in 1927. In 1932, the Oregon Electric Railway's branch service ceased as a result of the Great Depression and competition from automobiles. The city government was dissolved in 1938.
  The former town and its vicinity remained rural for decades after, becoming known primarily as a site for illegal dumping. In the 1950s, much of the area was subdivided and sold to development ventures, many of which failed. The city of Hillsboro initiated annexation plans and consolidation of land ownership with the creation of an urban renewal district in 1983. Consolidated land was later sold to Intel and Pacific Realty Associates, the latter of which would eventually develop the transit-oriented, mixed-use community of Orenco Station.
  Planning for a light rail line extending west from Portland began in 1979, with initial plans terminating at 185th Avenue, east of the old Orenco townsite. The efforts of Hillsboro Mayor Shirley Huffman and others helped to extend the planned line farther west, through Orenco to downtown Hillsboro, in July 1993. The cost of the Hillsboro extension, estimated at $224 million, required approval for an additional $75 million of federal funding, which was granted in 1994. TriMet began construction of the Westside MAX project in August 1993; track construction between 12th Avenue and 185th Avenue in Hillsboro, the segment which included Orenco, commenced in April 1996. The line was scheduled to open from Portland to 185th Avenue in 1997, and to Hillsboro in 1998, but delays during the construction of the Robertson Tunnel pushed most of its opening back by one year. Orenco station opened along with the rest of the Westside MAX line on September 12, 1998.
  In September 2017, the station was renamed from Orenco/Northwest 231st Avenue to simply Orenco, in connection with street-name changes approved by the Hillsboro city council in October 2016. The changes included the January 2017 renaming of Northwest 231st Avenue within Hillsboro as Northeast Century Boulevard.
caption: The old Orenco Grocery, erected in 1908, shown here in 2010
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