Brownsville is a city in
Linn County,
Oregon
Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
, United States. As of the
2020 census the population was 1,694.
It is the setting for the fictional town of Castle Rock, Oregon, in the 1986 film ''
Stand by Me''.
History
Establishment
Brownsville was originally known as "Calapooya" after the area's original inhabitants, the
Kalapuya
The Kalapuya are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American ethnic group, people, which had eight independent groups speaking three mutually intelligible dialects. The Kalapuya tribes' traditional homelands were the Willamette Va ...
Indians, or "Kirk's Ferry", after the ferry operated across the
Calapooia River
The Calapooia River is an tributary of the Willamette River in the U.S. state of Oregon.
The Calapooia flows generally northwest from its source in the Cascade Range near Tidbits Mountain. In its upper reaches, it passes through parts of the W ...
by early settlers Alexander and Sarah Kirk.
When Linn County was created from the southern portion of
Champoeg County on December 28, 1847, the
Provisional Legislature named Calapooia as the county seat.
The Spaulding School in Brownsville served as the original county courthouse.
Brownsville was named in honor of Hugh L. Brown, who settled there in 1846 and opened the first store.
In 1851, the Territorial Legislature passed an act establishing
Albany as the county seat.
A special election in 1856 reaffirmed Albany as the county seat.
[Paul A. 2010 September 10. Fixing Courthouse Steps: It's an Art. Albany Democratic Herald.]
''Stand by Me''
In the mid-1980s, Brownsville assumed a