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Portland received its most important stimulus of growth about 1850, from the farm trade of Tualatin Valley. The highway of that trade was the Canyon Road. Pioneers have pointed out that this road was the avenue that brought to Portland the leading market of the pioneers by enabling them to haul their goods to and from Portland easier than to and from Linnton, Saint Helens, Linn City (opposite Oregon City), Springville (near Linnton), Milton (near Saint Helens) or Willamette (below Clackamas Rapids.) As that period preceded railroad transportation some two decades, river transportation was highly valuable. The easiest route to navigation for the Tualatin farmers was the Canyon Road, and Portland, which had been founded in 1843–45, made good use of that route in the ensuing five years. A missionary settlement had started near Forest Grove in 1840 and a farm community was growing there.

The Canyon Road, along its present route through the hills, appears to have been opened in 1849. Joseph S. Smith, pioneer of 1847, and well known in early Oregon affairs, wrote in The Oregonian of July 13, 1884, that the road was first opened in the Autumn of 1849. Ed. C. Ross, also a pioneer of 1847, still living at Portland, says that this road was first surveyed by his stepfather, Israel Mitchell, in 1848. Mr. Ross adverted to the earlier and more difficult road, which was built by Francis W. Pettygrove, ascending the hills, and dating probably from 1845, afterwards called the Mountain Road, and then the Mount Zion or Carter Hill Road. This latter road is described in the diary of Elizabeth Dixon, wife of Cornelius Smith, and, afterwards, of Joseph C. Geer, all pioneers of 1847, printed by the Oregon Pioneer Association in its Transactions of 1907. The description is of February 24, 1848, and shows the road to have been very hilly and difficult of travel.

The first big public enterprise at Portland was the improvement of the Canyon Road, so that farmers would come to this village, in preference to its rivals, for trade. This enterprise