Welcome to
The First City with the Next Story
Why Oregon City
The End of the Trail is the Start of Your Journey
Here at Willamette Falls, 20 minutes south of Portland, is where the Oregon Trail officially ended and the Pacific Northwest began. From sacred Indigenous fishing grounds to frontier capital and mill town, Oregon City has always been a place of gathering, resilience, and reinvention. The pioneers and visionaries who built this city left behind a downtown you can still walk through today. Now a new generation is writing the next chapter. Come for the history. Stay for the story being written right now.
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First incorporated City west of the Rockies
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Second largest waterfall by volume in the US
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Only vertical street and municipal elevator in North America
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Confluence of the Willamette and Clackamas Rivers
Explore
What's Happening
The Look Back Lecture Series: Where the River Meets the Story
Join six-generation Oregonian and West Linn author Dede Montgomery as she explores the history, stories, and family legacies shaped by…
Oregon City Cemetery Tours
Step back in time at Mountain View Cemetery this October 3rd 2026. Oregon City’s early inhabitants come to life in vignettes near final resting places in an interactive, historic, and sometimes spooky experience featuring live actors portraying early Oregon settlers, founders, and prominent figures in one of the state’s oldest, most scenic graveyards. Hosted by OC Parks & Recreation and OC Heritage Coordinating Committee.
Heritage Holidays
A free, annual community event where visitors can enjoy holiday decorations, period crafts, music, live performances, and costumed docents in…
We acknowledge that Oregon City sits on the traditional homelands and ancestral village sites of the Clackamas, Tumwater and Cascades bands of the Chinook, the Tualatin and Pudding River bands of the Kalapuya, the Northern Molalla, and many other Indigenous peoples. Known historically and culturally as Hyas Tyee Tumwater, the falls next to Oregon City are a sacred gathering place and ancient fishery for regional tribes. We honor the enduring relationship to this land at the confluence of the Willamette and Clackamas Rivers, and their ongoing contributions to the story of this place.
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Dispatches from the Trail
