History

The Sandy Historical Society, formerly known as the Sandy Pioneer Association has been active and held meetings for 80 consecutive years. They met semi-annually until the early 1970's and since have met quarterly. They have collected many artifacts and considerable history of the area. For years, newspaper articles of the history of Sandy, presented at the meetings were preserved in scrapbooks. Since 1973, the society has continued the scrapbooks but has also published three books on the, "Sandy Area History" as a better way to save the history and disseminate it to the public.

Sandy was a stop for Rest and Restoration on the Barlow Road as people continued west to Oregon City. As the greater Sandy area was settled, its residents played a significant role in the early logging industry and in supplying lumber throughout Clackamas County and to communities east of Portland.

The Sandy Post Office was founded in 1873, giving us a starting date for the City of Sandy. However, the pioneers, finding mild climate, rivers teeming with fish, deer and elk roaming the hills and prairies, berries and roots abounding in the bums and slashes were glad to stop long before this date.

Sam Barlow, in the summer of 1845 arrived in The Dalles, Oregon from Missouri. He discovered another hazardous portion of the Oregon Trail. The Columbia River! This river must either be crossed twice or rafted down at exorbitant prices. He learned that he could follow an old Indian Trail around the south side of Mount Hood, a route that had not been used by fellow immigrants. The initial Barlow Road was used early in 1846, and was 80 to 90 miles in length. During the first year 145 wagons arrived by this new route, bringing to Oregon, and Sandy, nearly a thousand settlers with their droves of horses and cattle. About the best that could be said for improvements to it were the laurel Hill section, with its 60% drop, was eliminated with switchbacks, and Mr. Revenue put a bridge over the Sandy River, and fording areas were improved. Railroads to California in the 1870's and then to Oregon in the 1880's eliminated most of the travel over the Barlow Road.

Many thousand of hours of research material will be available for you, the visitor, in our new museum, as well as displays from our rich past.