Traveling the Old Road

d oa R ry er Present Road F es arly Oregonians traveled by Indian trails, n Alphonso Boone, grandson oo B er w water courses, or on primitive rough-hewn N Lo of frontiersman Daniel Ewagon roads etched into the landscape by N Boone, and his ten children ) e emigrant settlers. Long before ’s State v emigrated to Oregon in i

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a er t Tua n Riv s lati r e t

n Highway Commission took charge of road I 1846 along the arduous (

5 - Tualatin I construction in 1917, enterprising pioneers Community Park . In 1847,

erry Road established many of the state’s first and most Boones F the family established a Hedges Creek important transportation routes like Boone’s Wetlands homestead on the banks of Ferry Road. the near

Road ood erw present-day Wilsonville, and h latin-S Tua within the year they

1 operated an oar-drawn ferry on the river. Before the year’s end, Alphonso’s eldest son, Jesse, began clearing a Alphonso Boone (1796-1850), grandson of Daniel Boone, path that eventually 2 patriarch of Oregon’s Boone connected Portland with family, and Oregon emigrant Salem—a route paralleled

Boones Ferry Road of 1846. I-5 (Interstate Five) in many places by today’s Interstate 5.

PORTLAND The Boone’s Ferry Road was first paved in the early 1900s with gravel from the You Are Here Nyberg rock quarry. Logs from the old corduroy surface lie in the ditch to the left. Tigard Durham Lake Oswego The Boone’s Ferry crossed the Willamette River Tualatin 1 near present-day Wilsonville for 107 years Wilsonville Tualatin Grade and High School built in 1899. carrying thousands of horses, cows, buggies, Champoeg ) State Park ve i

r ef e at automobiles, and pedestrians. Jesse Boone iv t

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operated the ferry from 1847 until his death in m 5( I- a

l l i W 1872. The State of Oregon assumed control of the Boones Ferry Road ferry during the early 1900s, and by the 1950s, Salem 2 a cable-drawn vessel carried up to 12 cars per Little Red School House crossing. The ferry was decommissioned in 1954, built in 1866. shortly after completion of the I-5 bridge over the The Boone’s Ferry with Jesse Boone standing to the right of the three women on N the Willamette River. Willamette River. Old Boones Ferry Road Photos courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society.