How Hillsboro broke 100K

The capital of the Silicon Forest rode the tech boom to a major population milestone

In the break between the main course and a healthy serving of pie at the Hillsboro Community Senior Center, 81-year-old Evelyn Hodgins sank her teeth into portions of Hillsboro history few people in town are likely to remember.

"My father played football for Hillsboro High School," she said, proudly. "He was born in 1911, and when they played football, they wore leather helmets. He went through a grade with a big gash where somebody had hit him with a cleat."

Her father's Hillsboro would be nearly unrecognizable today. It was a town of only a few thousand residents, with a rough-and-tumble, wild west feel, she said.

Over the decades, Hillsboro population has exploded. Last month, Portland State University released its annual population estimates pushing Hillsboro over 100,000 residents for the first time. The estimates, which are used as the city of Hillsboro's official population count, will be certified later this month.







Here's a fade from 400 NE Jackson St. in downtown Hillsboro. First photo was likely taken in the 1920s. Second photo was taken yesterday, and several of the houses look almost identical. pic.twitter.com/T5BZjP22Rh — John William Howard (@JowardHoward) December 6, 2017

How did Hillsboro evolve from a small rural outpost to a tech hub at the heart of Oregon's economic engine in 80 years?

The city's growth mirrors the influx of high tech and electronics companies to Hillsboro, which began in the 1950s.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of Hillsboro hovered below 4,000 through the 1940s. When Hodgins' father's came to Hillsboro in the 1920s, his family traveled along what is now Southwest Canyon Road with a team of horses.

"There used to be a wide spot in the road, and they camped there overnight because the cow was tied to the end of the wagon full of hay," she said. "They camped there, then went the rest of the way. Dad remembers that cow walking gingerly over the Hawthorne Bridge."

A century ago, downtown Hillsboro was the center of town. Photos of early Hillsboro — which also went by the names "Columbia," and "East Tualatin Plains" before the 1850s — show a city of timber houses and whitewashed church buildings with the shimmering waters of Jackson Bottom Wetlands in the background.

In those days, there was a livery stable at the western edge of town where horses and livestock could catch a drink before continuing on to Forest Grove or towns lying further into the hills.

"A lot of times people would come from Portland with supplies," said Nita Goodrich, whose family has lived in Hillsboro for decades. "Those that lived further out would stay over."

The company town of Orenco — owned by the Oregon Nature Company — dominated the land east of town, exporting fruit, trees and shrubs across the country. Jones Hospital, which eventually became Tuality Community Hospital, was built in 1920, and development of Hillsboro Airport began in 1928.

Shute Park, Hillsboro's first park, was the site of the annual Happy Days celebration around Independence Day. There was a carnival and parade, and at the heart of the park stood a roller skating pavilion.

"I was probably 10 years old, walking down the railroad tracks, and all of the sudden I was in this carnival," said longtime area resident Dave Carmichael. "I went all around the carnival. After we moved here and I was older, I ended up working in that carnival."

John Davies served as city recorder in the 1970s and as a deputy sheriff in the 1950s.

"I think probably one of the biggest changes is that there were a total of 11 people in the sheriff's office at that time — just 11," said Davies, 87. "The jail was run by one guy, and his wife made sandwiches for anybody who happened to be jailed overnight."

The population remained steady through the 1960s, a period in which Portland shrank in size as surrounding suburbs began to grow. Other suburbs of Portland, including Beaverton, also saw massive growth in the decades following the completion of U.S. 26 in the late 1940s.

Two essential ingredients for large-scale manufacturing are reliable sources of water and electricity — something tech experts say has made the Portland area, and specifically Washington County, a magnet for tech companies.

In Hillsboro, companies like Intel are major utilities customers. Intel is the largest water-user in the city of Hillsboro, according to Water Department spokesperson Lindsay Wochnick. Tech companies have drawn millions of dollars of investment from Portland General Electric in the Hillsboro area, local engineer Eric Rosenberry told the Tribune in May. Data centers, manufacturing firms and other technology businesses have clustered around a handful of massive substations in North Hillsboro.

Electronics company Tektronix opened a campus in Washington County in 1959, marking the beginning of the county's tech roots. Intel built a campus in Aloha, the company's first location in Oregon, in the mid-1970s. The Hawthorn Farm campus opened in 1979.

Between 1960 and 1970, Hillsboro nearly doubled in size, then doubled again the following decade.

Hillsboro's boom continued through the new millennium. Between 1990 and 2000, the city's population grew by nearly 90 percent, exploding from a town of 30,000 people to more than 70,000. The first facility at Intel's Ronler Acres campus opened in 1996, and the era was marked by TriMet's completion of MAX light rail service to downtown Hillsboro in 1998 and the completion of Hillsboro Stadium in 1999.

The Streets of Tanasbourne, a major commercial development, opened in 2004, and city hall — the Hillsboro Civic Center — opened in 2005. Hillsboro's population broke 90,000 in the 2010 census and has inched toward the 100,000 mark each year since.

Over the next decade, city planners expect Hillsboro to see yet another population boom. South Hillsboro, the state's largest housing development under way south of Tualatin Valley Highway, will add 8,000 homes and more than 20,000 new residents to the city over the next decade.

Underground, the city of Hillsboro is part of the most expensive infrastructure project in state history, the Willamette Water Supply pipeline, which plans to pump water from the Willamette River to meet Hillsboro's water needs over the next 50 years.

Last month, TriMet announced plans to expand light rail service to the Washington County Fair Complex and expand the bus route on Southwest Tualatin Valley Highway to a 24-hour schedule, the first all-day, all-night transit route the Portland area has seen in decades.

According to a letter from former Mayor Jerry Willey two years ago, Hillsboro could be home to as many as 140,000 residents by 2035 — and by 2045, according to city spokesperson Patrick Preston, Hillsboro is projecting a population of 156,398.