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The History section of the page "Butteville, Oregon" is incomplete and contains some errors. I would like to submit a replacement, based on research done by Friends of Historic Butteville, and which references our web site, as follows:

Butteville is a community located at the base of the eastern end of La Butte, a small basalt outcropping next to the Willamette River in north French Prairie, within the Willamette Valley. The town, which was platted in the 1840s by members of the Methodist Mission has long been a community location on this stretch of the Willamette River because it is the best natural landing between the Molalla and Yamhill Rivers, it was seasonally used by Native Americans, specifically the Kalapuya, for at least 8.000 years. It became the major riverport upriver from Willamette Falls in the second half of the 19th century.[4] As French-Canadian trappers left their service with the Hudson Bay Companyin the 1830s and 1840s and settled in French Prairie after marrying Kalapuya women they started locating in the Butteville area—as evidenced by French names on the earliest Territorial and Donation Land Claims.[5]

The Methodist Mission plat was never executed, and in 1840 Alexis Aubichon settled what would become the west half of Butteville. The eastern half of Butteville was part of the claim of Joseph Laferte. Both claims were recorded in 1846. The town was one of a string along the Willamette River from St. Paul to Champoeg to Butteville and on to Oregon City until the arrival of stern-wheeler ship traffic in 1851. Within a few years shallow draft stern-wheelers became the major means of transporting agricultural products from French Prairie to market in Oregon City and Portland. Originally the principal crop was wheat, but by the 1880s, hops had become another major agricultural crop. For the next thirty years Butteville was one of the major hop production and shipping towns in Oregon—even hosting its own hop grower’s insurance company.

The 1884 Oregon, Washington & Idaho Gazeteer and Business Listing shows the town had a church, a district school, a postamaster, a shoemaker, a saloon, a wagonmaker, two general stores, two saloons and a Justice of the Peace. It was the central community of the Butteville district of Marion County. Still operating today is the Historic Butteville Store, the oldest continuously operating retail establishment in the State of Oregon. A few late 1800s era homes still survive, as does the Butteville Landing, a right of way down to the river that used to be the access road to Butteville’s docks and warehouses.

Butteville’s role as civic and business hub began to fade with the arrival of the Willamette and Pacific Railway in 1911, which bypassed Butteville and gave rise to the town of Donald. The community began a slow demise to a local agricultural community, and ultimately becoming a community on the edge of the Portland metro area.

For more detail visit the Friends of Historic Butteville website at: www.butteville.org