Shedd is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

(CDP) in Linn County,

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

, United States, on Oregon Route 99E. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 204.

History

In 1858, a community and

gristmill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that h ...

was established about a mile and a half east of the present town of Shedd and called "Boston", probably because one of the founders came from

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. Boston was

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Survey System, Public Lands Surveys to ...

ted in 1861 with a

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

–style

town square A town square (or public square, urban square, city square or simply square), also called a plaza or piazza, is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town or city, and which is used for community gatherings. Relat ...

. The town became a

stagecoach A stagecoach (also: stage coach, stage, road coach, ) is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by ...

stop, and "Boston Mills" post office was established in 1869. Efforts to get the Oregon and California Railroad, which was being built south from Albany, to come through Boston Mills were unsuccessful. The railroad was instead built through the nearby land donated by Civil War veteran Captain Frank Shedd, and "Shedd's Station" was created in 1871. The post office was moved soon after. Many of Boston's buildings, though not the mill itself nor the Farwell DLC homestead, were moved west to the new Shedd's Station to be near the railroad. In 1899, the railroad changed the name of the station to "Shedd", but the name of the post office did not change until 1915. East of Shedd at the former site of Boston Mills, on the Calapooia River, is the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

-listed Boston Flour Mill (aka Thompson's Flouring Mill), Oregon's oldest continuously operating water-powered mill, part of

Thompson's Mills State Heritage Site Thompson's Mills State Heritage Site is a state park near Shedd, Oregon, Shedd in Linn County, Oregon, United States, administered by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. The mill was first built in 1858. It burned down in 1862 but was reb ...

. It is one of the four remaining gristmills in the state, and one of only two mills still in operation.

Geography

Shedd is in western Linn County in the

Willamette River The Willamette River ( ) is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward ...

valley, with Shedd Slough, a tributary of the Calapooia River, flowing northwards on the east side of town. Oregon Route 99E passes through the center of town, leading north to Albany and south to Halsey. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Shedd CDP has an area of , all of it recorded as land.

Demographics

References

External links

History of Boston Mills
from Linn County Historical Society
Historic images of Shedd
from Salem Public Library
Historic images of Thompson's Mill
from Salem Public Library
Historic images of Shedd and the Shedd family
from Webshots {{Authority control Populated places established in 1858 Unincorporated communities in Linn County, Oregon Census-designated places in Oregon 1858 establishments in Oregon Territory Unincorporated communities in Oregon