The Last Paper Mill at Willamette Falls Has Closed. Its Machinery Now Overlooks the Falls.

This afternoon at 4 p.m., the Clackamas County Historical Society opens "Making Paper," a free outdoor exhibit at the Museum of the Oregon Territory, 211 Tumwater Drive. It shows authentic machinery from the Crown-Zellerbach historic mill site in West Linn, and it explains how trees were turned into paper beside the falls. The opening falls at an unusual moment in the history of the falls. The mill on the West Linn bank shut down for good in 2024, and the Blue Heron mill on the Oregon City side has been closed since 2011. According to The Oregonian, the Portland General Electric hydroelectric plant is now the last active piece of industry at the falls.

So papermaking at Willamette Falls is finished, and the riverfront it occupied is still fenced off for demolition and cleanup. The first place anyone in Oregon City can stand next to that industry is a museum parking lot on the bluff, years before a public path reaches the water.

Paper at the falls, from 1866 to 2024

The paper story at the falls began on the Oregon City side and failed almost at once. The Oregon Encyclopedia lays out the sequence that followed:

1. 1866. The Oregon City Paper Manufacturing Company opened a pulp and paper mill on the east bank. It was in debt within a year.
2. 1888 to 1889. Investors backed by the Remington family, paper makers from New York, built the Willamette Falls Pulp and Paper Company on the west bank, in what is now West Linn. Its first plant, Mill A, began operating in October 1889. The Crown Paper Company built a mill next door that November.
3. 1908. Willard P. Hawley bought land and water rights across the river in Oregon City and opened the Hawley Pulp and Paper Company.
4. 1914. The two West Linn companies merged as Crown-Willamette, which at its peak ran ten paper machines, each making a different grade of paper.
5. 1928. The Zellerbach Corporation of San Francisco bought Crown-Willamette and reorganized it as Crown Zellerbach.
6. 1947. Crown Zellerbach employees at the falls developed a clay-and-carbonate method for "coated paper," the glossy stock that went to printers across the country.
7. 1986 to 1990. James River Corporation took over Crown Zellerbach in a hostile takeover, and groundwood operations in West Linn ended in 1990. The Mill A grinders were shut off, some with partly ground wood still inside.

The Encyclopedia says that in the 1940s and 1950s Crown Zellerbach was one of Oregon's largest single employers, with about 1,500 people working around-the-clock shifts. It also quotes historian William Welsh: readers in the western states, Honolulu, Alaska or Japan who picked up Time or Life magazine were holding "a product of the West Linn papermill."

After Crown Zellerbach, the West Linn mill changed hands and closed more than once. It reopened as the Willamette Falls Paper Company in November 2019. In 2024, as The Oregonian reported in its September 2026 overview of the falls, that mill closed for good. That closure ended the papermaking the "Making Paper" exhibit describes, and it was recent. The machines on the bluff come from a business that was still running two years ago.

What opens this afternoon

The Historical Society is holding the opening outdoors, in the museum's outdoor exhibit space and parking lot. The program includes a presentation by Clackamas County Commissioner Diana Helm and remarks from other community partners, and the exhibit is presented in partnership with Portland General Electric.

• When: Thursday, October 29, 4 to 5 p.m.
• Where: Museum of the Oregon Territory, 211 Tumwater Drive
• Cost: Free, with refreshments
• Parking: Limited, so carpooling is encouraged

With a little planning you can see the indoor museum on the same visit. The Historical Society lists the museum's hours as Wednesday through Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. If you enter before 4 p.m. with a ticket, you can stay until 4:30. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors, $5 for youth, $5 for veterans with ID, and $25 for a family. The museum overlooks Willamette Falls. Arrive in the early afternoon and you can tour the galleries, look out at the falls and then walk outside for the opening.

The Historical Society's event page doesn't say which machines are on display or whether the outdoor exhibit can be seen outside museum hours. If you plan to come back on a weekend, the Historical Society can tell you.

The riverfront is still years away

Public access to the riverbank where the mills operated is still years off on both sides of the river.

On the Oregon City side, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde are redeveloping the 23-acre former Blue Heron site as tumwata village. Demolition there began in 2021, and the tribe held a groundbreaking in May 2026. In The Oregonian's account, Ryan Webb, the tribe's engineering and community development manager, said crews have recently been finding old underground storage tanks of industrial chemicals. Some of those tanks leaked into the soil around them. Two Environmental Protection Agency grants totaling $4.8 million have helped pay to find and remove the tanks and the contaminated soil. The first planned buildings are a three-story building with retail, office and event space, followed by a five-story residential building with an estimated 85 units. Webb told the paper that ground isn't likely to break on any new building before 2028 at the earliest, and that neither project has been designed or funded yet.

The public path is moving alongside that work. In July, Oregon City announced that it and the Grand Ronde tribe had chosen Maul Foster & Alongi to design the next public riverfront segment at tumwata village. The work is funded by $12.5 million from the state and covers riverfront access, ecological restoration and construction-ready plans. Webb told The Oregonian that the first phase is planned as a 14-foot-wide multiuse path starting at Oregon 99E and leading to an elevated viewpoint over the falls. The path will be extended upriver as the site is redeveloped.

Oregon City Parks and Recreation Director Scott Archer described the stakes in the same Oregonian article:

"People have not been able to access this for well over 100 years, so it's just a really incredible opportunity."

Residents have heard timelines like this before. The public got its first look at a riverwalk design in 2017, and The Oregonian notes it was expected to open about five years later. The original Willamette Falls Legacy Project then stalled, and the riverwalk sat on the shelf until state money came through in 2025.

On the West Linn side, the land under the closed mill belongs to PGE and Belgravia Investments. The Willamette Falls Trust, an intertribal nonprofit led by former Gov. Kate Brown, wants to buy it for a public access site. Brown has said the trust hoped to complete the sale by early 2027. A trust spokesperson told The Oregonian this summer that she could not comment on the ongoing negotiations.

The rest of the fall calendar around the falls

The paper exhibit is the first of several dates this season that bring people to downtown Oregon City and the bluff above it.

The Downtown Oregon City Association and the City are hosting Trick or Treat Main Street, sponsored by Comics Adventure, The Ornament Emporium, TrueBizy Toys & Gifts and Yellow Castle Bricks. Saturday Night Spirits is a Historical Society ghost tour that explores two century-old Oregon City homes. The association has scheduled its Holiday Tree Lighting for December 5, with more details to come.

On any of these days, two downtown stops fit easily. The Oregon City Municipal Elevator is free, and That Oregon Life's October 18 guide lists hours that run to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, which would cover a Saturday evening event. Oregon City Market, the family-owned micro-grocer at 610 Main St. with its entrance on 6th, sells groceries, prepared foods and local drinks. Its posted calendar includes Friday tastings, and October wine and cider club pickups begin today.

If the paper mills are part of your family's story, or you're just curious what has been happening along the river below downtown, I'd be glad to talk it through over coffee in Oregon City. You can learn more about Henry Liu - Main Site and what's happening in the Oregon City neighborhood, and when you're ready, Let's Connect.