page_title: Columbia Slough
section_title: Farming, commerce, and industry
hierarchical_section_title: Columbia Slough / History / Farming, commerce, and industry
caption_attribution_description: English: Jacob Zimmerman House, 17111 Northeast Sandy Boulevard, in Gresham, Oregon. The house is on the National Register of Historic Places.
context_page_description: The Columbia Slough is a narrow waterway, about 19 miles long, in the floodplain of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Oregon. From its source in the Portland suburb of Fairview, the Columbia Slough meanders west through Gresham and Portland to the Willamette River, about 1 mile from the Willamette's confluence with the Columbia. It is a remnant of the historic wetlands between the mouths of the Sandy River to the east and the Willamette River to the west. Levees surround much of the main slough as well as many side sloughs, detached sloughs, and nearby lakes. Drainage district employees control water flows with pumps and floodgates. Tidal fluctuations cause reverse flow on the lower slough.
  The Columbia floodplain, formed by geologic processes including lava flows, volcanic eruptions, and the Missoula Floods, is part of the Portland Basin, which extends across the Columbia River from Multnomah County, Oregon, into Clark County, Washington. Five percent of Oregon's population, about 158,000 people, live in the slough watershed of about 51 square miles. Municipal wells near the upper slough provide supplemental drinking water to Portland and nearby cities.
context_section_description: By 1850, White settlers established donation land claims in the Columbia Slough watershed. One settler, Lewis Love, became wealthy by cutting timber in the watershed and using the slough as part of a shipping route to downtown Portland. Other settlers logged the forests near the slough and built sawmills, fished, and farmed. In 1852, James John operated a ferry based on the peninsula of land between the Columbia and the Willamette River. The community of St. Johns, platted in the same year on the peninsula, is named after him. Legislation creating the Port of Portland in 1891 improved St. Johns' prospects as a Willamette River port. In 1902, the U.S. Congress passed a Reclamation Act that encouraged irrigation, flood control, and wetland development in places like the peninsula. In 1907, the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway began work on a rail line across the peninsula. The railway and the port improvements led to high expectations. "St. Johns, the City of Destiny", a 1909 editorial appearing in a booster publication called The Peninsula, said:
  Nature has been more than lavish in her gifts to St. Johns. Travel as many miles as you like and go where you will, it is highly improbable that you will find a spot with so many magnificent nature advantages as has St. Johns. The fine stretch of level land on which the city is located, the deep water of the two rivers, the navigable sloughs and the superb scenery which nature has painted with a master hand, makes the location an ideal one in every respect either for industries or residences.
caption: The Jacob Zimmerman House, built in 1874, belonged to settlers who established a dairy farm near the upper slough.[50]
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