Witch Hazel is a neighborhood of the city of Hillsboro in Washington 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 The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Formerly an unincorporated community, and considered a separate

populated place Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

by the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

, it is on the

Tualatin Valley Highway The Tualatin Valley Highway No. 29 (see Oregon highways and routes) is an Oregon highway which passes through the Tualatin Valley, between the cities of McMinnville and Beaverton. Between McMinnville and Forest Grove, the highway is signed as ...

and the

Southern Pacific The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

railroad line a mile () west of Reedville.

History

Snow scene in Hillsboro Jan 2017 - Oregon

A small cemetery for the Stewart family dating to 1856 was discovered in Witch Hazel when the land was cleared for development. According to ''An Illustrated History of the State of Oregon'' by Harvey K. Hines, the Stewarts lived on "Hazelwitch farm" beginning in 1849. Former Portland mayor Van B. DeLashmutt had a farm there in the 1880s and supposedly named the place for one of his racehorses, however. But according to racehorse authority Governor

Oswald West Oswald West (May 20, 1873 – August 22, 1960) was an American politician, a Democrat, who served most notably as the 14th Governor of Oregon. He was called "Os West" by Oregon writer Stewart Holbrook, who described him as "by all odds the mo ...

, he had never heard of a racehorse named "Witch Hazel". Mayor DeLashmutt did once own a building at Southwest Front and Madison streets in Portland that he called the "Witch Hazel Building". Apparently he liked the name, although the

witch-hazel Witch-hazels or witch hazels (''Hamamelis'') are a genus of flowering plants in the family Hamamelidaceae, with three species in North America ('' H. ovalis'', '' H. virginiana'', and '' H. vernalis''), and one each in Japan ('' H.&nb ...

plant, ''Hamamelis virginiana'', is not native to Oregon. The

Portland, Eugene and Eastern Railway The Southern Pacific Red Electric Lines, also known simply as the Red Electric, was a network of interurban passenger train services operated by the Southern Pacific Transportation Company, Southern Pacific Railroad in the Willamette Valley of th ...

had a station at Witch Hazel with the line later becoming part of the Southern Pacific. DeLashmutt once had the finest string of racehorses in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

and his racetrack at Witch Hazel was once one of the best racetracks in America. There were two tracks on his Witch Hazel Farm. The main track was a oval used for races. The second, a half-mile () oval was surrounded by sheds. Witch Hazel post office was established in 1904 and closed in 1905. About 1921, in Witch Hazel were subdivided for a development called Witch Hazel Little Farms. The property was divided into 24 tracts of up to , and by November 1921 ten tracts had been sold. By May 1922, the number of tracts had increased to 27, and 24 had been sold. By August 1924, however, the developer was reporting that eight tracts had been sold in the preceding week, and remained unsold. At that time water, gas, and electricity were all available in the development and construction on three homes had begun. In 1927, dog racing began at a track in Witch Hazel featuring

whippet The Whippet is a dog breed of medium size. It is a sighthound breed that originated in England, descended from the Greyhound. Whippets today still strongly resemble a smaller Greyhound. Part of the hound group, Whippets have relatively few ...

s. In 1999 and 2002,

Metro Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to: Geography * Metro (city), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urba ...

brought in Witch Hazel into the

urban growth boundary An urban growth boundary, or UGB, is a regional boundary, set in an attempt to control urban sprawl by, in its simplest form, mandating that the area inside the boundary be used for urban development and the area outside be preserved in its natural ...

. The City of Hillsboro passed a community development plan for the area in February 2004. Once the development is completed, it is estimated that it will house 5,000 people.

Schools

In 1859, a school was built in neighboring Reedville and children from the Witch Hazel area attended school at that one-room schoolhouse. The Witch Hazel School District 79 was formed in 1889 and took its 28 students out of the Reedville School District. The one-school Witch Hazel district merged back into the Reedville district in 1966. The current Witch Hazel Elementary School is located in the community on Davis Street at Brookwood Avenue, and is part of the

Hillsboro School District The Hillsboro School District 1J is a unified school district located in Hillsboro, Oregon, Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. The district operates 26 elementary schools, four middle schools, and four high schools. Founded in 1851, the school di ...

. A new building was built in 2003 to replace the old structure located on Tualatin Valley Highway at Brookwood Avenue prior to the re-alignment of Brookwood Avenue and Witch Hazel Road at the highway. The reconstruction of those intersections came in late 2006. In 2009, South Meadows Middle School opened adjacent to the elementary school.

References

External links

Description of DeLashmutt farm
from the April 5, 1893 ''Beaverton Chronicle'' {{authority control Hillsboro, Oregon Neighborhoods in Oregon 1849 establishments in Oregon Territory