Kenton, Portland, Oregon

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Paul Bunyan, a Kenton landmark

Kenton is a neighborhood in the north section of Portland, Oregon, United States. The neighborhood was founded in 1911 as a company town for the Swift Meat Packing Company, and later annexed by Portland.

Geography

Kenton's northern border is formed by North Portland Harbor, the channel of the Columbia River that separates the area from Hayden Island. Kenton's eastern boundary is Interstate 5 and the neighborhood's southern edge is defined by North Lombard Street. The western border (traveling from north to south, respectively) follows North Portland Road, North Columbia Boulevard, and North Chautauqua Boulevard. The Columbia Slough passes through Kenton.

Neighborhoods bordering Kenton are: Hayden Island to the north; Bridgeton, Sunderland, and Piedmont to the east; Arbor Lodge to the south; University Park to the southwest; and Portsmouth and St. Johns to the west.

Kenton is home to the Portland International Raceway and the Portland Metropolitan Expo Center. The historic site of Vanport City, a public housing project built to provide homes for World War II shipbuilders, and later destroyed by a 1948 flood, is also located within the current boundaries of the Kenton neighborhood.

History

Kenton was a company town built by the Swift Meat Packing Company, with major development beginning circa 1911. The area was later annexed by the City of Portland, becoming home to Portland's main stockyards and the center of the West Coast cattle trade for a time.

The 1959 Oregon Centennial celebrations were held in Kenton. A large statue of Paul Bunyan was built at the intersection of North Interstate Avenue and North Argyle Street (just north of Kenton's historic business district on North Denver Avenue) as a reminder of those centennial festivities. The statue now stands at the corner of North Interstate and North Denver,^[1] across from the Kenton/N Denver Ave light rail station, and is considered a symbol of the neighborhood. The Paul Bunyan Statue was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 28, 2009.^[1][2]

References

Coordinates: 45°35′24″N 122°41′42″W / 45.59006°N 122.69508°W / 45.59006; -122.69508

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