Over the last two weeks the Oak Lodge History Detectives succeeded in installing two historic markers on River Rd., commemorating the first two schools in the Oak Lodge area.

The idea of “first schools” historic markers was hatched six years ago when the exact location of the Oak Lodge area’s very first school, established by Orville Risley in 1856, was identified from an 1856 Clackamas County survey. That school was a log structure located at the intersection of River Rd. and Laurelwood Dr., and students from both sides of the Willamette River attended. By 1866 the student population had outgrown the little log building, so the pioneer community built a newer structure further south on River Rd., at today’s River Bluff Ct. – on what later became part of the Roethe farm. Students from today’s Lake Oswego, West Linn, Gladstone, Jennings Lodge, Oak Grove and the Concord area attended the little school. But the pioneer population continued to grow, and in 1890 the school district again needed a larger schoolhouse. It was then that Michael and Minerva Oatfield sold the school district 1 acre in the S.W. corner of their farm – where today’s Concord play area is now – and the first Concord schoolhouse was built.

The historic markers for the first two schoolhouses were made possible in part by a grant from the Clackamas County Cultural Coalition, managed by the Clackamas County Arts Alliance, and with private donations.  The bronze plaques were made by the Paul Zimmerman Foundries in Columbia, PA. The black basalt boulders were purchased locally at Portland Rock & Landscape Supply, were transported to their respective locations by Knapp Construction Company, Inc., and mounted by Greg Sandidge of Eagle Creek Engraving.

OLHD is excited to have completed this first historic marker project. Suggestions from the community for more markers have been solicited, and OLHD looks forward to the installation of many others in the future.