Woodstock

The Woodstock neighborhood of Portland, Oregon is located in the city’s inner southeast section. It is bounded on the north by SE Holgate Avenue, west by SE 39th Avenue, east by SE 60th and SE 45th, and south by Johnson Creek. Woodstock borders the neighborhoods of Reed and Eastmoreland on the west, Creston-Kenilworth on the north, Mt. Scott-Arleta and Brentwood-Darlington on the east, andArdenwald-Johnson Creek on the south.

It is one of the city’’s older neighborhoods, first platted in 1889. The northern portion of the neighborhood contains the majority of the neighborhood’s older homes, some built as early as the 1880s. Post World War II housing construction is concentrated in the southern panhandle and the northeast corner of the neighborhood. More recent urban infill housing is scattered throughout the area although more concentrated in the eastern portion of the area.

The land that is now the Woodstock Neighborhood was still wilderness in 1848 when an itinerant Methodist minister, Clinton Kelly, his wife Mary, their children and extended family members arrived from Kentucky. The threat of a civil war and the prospects of free land in the west prompted Kelly and his brothers and their families to migrate to Oregon.

The first order of business for all the of the Kellys was to locate land suitable for farming. Archon Kelly, the third son of Clinton Kelly was 17 years old when he crossed the plains with his family. He filed for his land claim in December of 1852 when he was 21. Being unmarried at the time, he was entitled to only 320 acres. The plateau of wilderness, overlooking an equally underdeveloped, fir-studded area, now the site of Reed College and Eastmoreland, was five miles by wagon road from the main business section of Portland. Using present day street names, the southern boundary of the granted land parcel was Duke Street from SE 42nd to SE 52nd Avenues and the Northern boundary was Raymond between SE 42nd and SE 52nd Avenues. Archon lived on the farm until January 1863 when he sold it to his father for $2,500.

The land subsequently changed hands several more times until it was platted for residential development in 1889. Five men bought 194.5 acres for $48,000 and named the subdivision Woodstock. Since many residential districts were being formed and people were running out of family names, it had become en vogue to use names from Sir Walter Scott’s romantic novels. Woodstock is one of the several names from Scott’s writings used for naming subdivisions in southeast Portland.

In 1893, James Havely, who acted as trustee for the group who had bought the Woodstock plat, built one of the first houses here; a Queen Anne residence that is now a historic landmark is located at 5450 SE 40th Avenue. He also arranged to have the neighborhood supplied with electricity and water.

Business and civic activity is concentrated in Woodstock’s Village Center located on SE Woodstock Blvd. between SE 39th and SE 52nd Avenues. Churches, a library, and a community center are interspersed with large and small commercial establishments offering a wide range of consumer goods and services. Single and multi-unit residential surround the Village Center with most multi-unit dwellings located near SE Woodstock Blvd. Three schools — Woodstock Elementary School Lewis Elementary School, and Our Lady of Sorrows Elementary School —are within easy walking distance of the Village Center. Reed College is down the hill to the west, two blocks away.