Oregon Nursery Company - History

History

The Capital City Nursery company was founded by 1867. It originally operated from a site in Salem just east of the Willamette University campus, along State Street. The company changed its name to the Oregon Nursery Company in 1896 to reflect its expanding business. By 1904, the company was one of the largest nursery companies in the country, shipping nursery stock throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It was well known enough that Luther Burbank chose the company to propagate his Maynard plum and introduce it into the market.

By the early 1890s the Oregon Nursery Company was being run by two Canadian Scots, Malcolm McDonald and Archibald McGill. In 1896, the partners decided to expand their operation into the Portland area. They purchased 640 acres (2.6 km2) of farm land in rural Washington County 17 miles (27 km) west of Portland, in what is now Hillsboro. When a fire destroyed the company’s packing plant in Salem in 1905, the entire business was moved to Washington County.

The first building to be built at the Washington County site was a 2-acre (8,100 m2) packing shed, the largest building of its kind in the country. Because of its size the building was the home of the Washington County Fair for many years. Over the next several years, McDonald and McGill purchased additional farm land adjacent to their nursery, expanding the company’s property to 1,200 acres (4.9 km2). Most of the land was quickly planted with fruit trees, nut trees, shade trees, berries, and other nursery stock. In 1909, the company built a new office next to the packing shed. That same year, the Oregon Electric Railway opened a line to the Oregon Nursery Company site, offering the opportunity to further expand the company’s business.

During that time, the company began sponsoring Hungarian immigrant families into the area to add to its workforce. To accommodate its workers, the company built residential homes, utilities, a school, and a church. It also encouraged small businesses to locate in the area. As a result, the town of Orenco was founded in 1908. The town name was an acronym for ORE-gon N-ursery CO-mpany. By 1910, the town population had reached 500, and a fire department was organized. The Orenco city hall was finished in 1912. The city of Orenco was officially incorporated on 6 January 1913, and Malcolm McDonald was elected the city’s first mayor.

In 1913, the Oregon Nursery Company was at its peak of production and sales. Its 1,200 acres (4.9 km2) were covered with millions of trees and shrubs, and its nursery stock was in great demand. On 21 June 1913, the company hosted a national horticultural event that brought three hundred nurserymen from around the country to visit the Orenco operation. A special train carried the attended from Portland to Orenco. A grand banquet was served in the packing shed, to impress the guests with the size of the building and show off company’s modern processing and distribution facilities.

Before 1916, the company had expanded production significantly, anticipating a move into the European agriculture market. The company planted more than a million apple trees specifically for that purpose. However, the outbreak of World War I ended any hope of selling nursery stock in Europe for many years. As a result of slow moving inventory that cost money to maintain and increasing competition from other nurseries, the company began losing money. It filed for bankruptcy and was dissolved in 1927.

When the company closed, the city of Orenco lost its only large employer. Some families started small nurseries of their own, but most moved away looking for work elsewhere. In 1938, eight Orenco residents, representing the community’s remaining families, voted to dissolve the city government.