Clackamas’s History and Why We’re Proud to Serve the Clackamas Community
The region now known as Clackamas and the surrounding communities belonged to the Clackamas band of the Upper Chinookan people. They established villages along the Willamette, Clackamas and Sandy Rivers and fished, foraged and held ceremonies near Johnson Creek and Indian Rock. Cedar‑plank lodges housed 20–30 people, and salmon runs at Willamette Falls made the tribe prosperous.
Disease devastated the Clackamas population; Lewis and Clark estimated about 1,800 people in 1806, but smallpox and malaria epidemics in 1829–30 reduced their numbers to a mere 88 by 1851. In 1855, the remaining members signed a treaty ceding their lands and were relocated to the Grand Ronde Reservation.
Euro‑American settlers arrived via the Oregon Trail and Donation Land Claim Act, establishing farms and communities around Oregon City and along the Barlow Road. The area that became the unincorporated community of Clackamas served as a crossroads for roads connecting Portland and the agricultural Tualatin Plains.
Today Clackamas is a suburban hub southeast of Portland, home to shopping centers like Clackamas Town Center and residential neighborhoods. Although unincorporated, it has about 7,000 residents and is part of a county renowned for outdoor recreation from Mt. Hood to the Willamette Valley. We’re proud to serve the families and businesses of Clackamas.