Witch Hazel, Oregon

Street in Witch Hazel in December 2016

A small cemetery for the Stewart family dating to 1856 was discovered in Witch Hazel when the land was cleared for development.[3] According to An Illustrated History of the State of Oregon by Harvey K. Hines, the Stewarts lived on "Hazelwitch farm" beginning in 1849.[4] Former Portland mayor Van B. DeLashmutt had a farm there in the 1880s and supposedly named the place for one of his racehorses, however.[2][5] But according to racehorse authority Governor Oswald West, he had never heard of a racehorse named "Witch Hazel".[2] Mayor DeLashmutt did once own a building at Southwest Front and Madison streets in Portland that he called the "Witch Hazel Building".[2] Apparently he liked the name, although the witch-hazel plant, Hamamelis virginiana, is not native to Oregon.[2]

The Portland, Eugene and Eastern Railway had a station at Witch Hazel with the line later becoming part of the Southern Pacific.[6]

DeLashmutt once had the finest string of racehorses in the Pacific Northwest and his racetrack at Witch Hazel was once one of the best racetracks in America.[5] There were two tracks on his Witch Hazel Farm. The main track was a 1 mile (1.6 km) oval used for races. The second, a half-mile (0.80 km) oval was surrounded by sheds.[7]

Witch Hazel post office was established in 1904 and closed in 1905.[2] About 1921, 400 acres (1.6 km²) in Witch Hazel were subdivided for a development called Witch Hazel Little Farms.[8][9] The property was divided into 24 tracts of up to 10 acres (40,000 m²), and by November 1921 ten tracts had been sold.[9][10] By May 1922, the number of tracts had increased to 27, and 24 had been sold.[10] By August 1924, however, the developer was reporting that eight tracts had been sold in the preceding week, and 75 acres (300,000 m²) remained unsold.[8] At that time water, gas, and electricity were all available in the development and construction on three homes had begun.[8] In 1927, dog racing began at a track in Witch Hazel featuring whippets.[11]

In 1999 and 2002, Metro brought 318 acres (1.29 km²) in Witch Hazel into the urban growth boundary.[12] The City of Hillsboro passed a community development plan for the area in February 2004.[12] Once the development is completed, it is estimated that it will house 5,000 people.[13]

In 1859, a school was built in neighboring Reedville and children from the Witch Hazel area attended school at that one-room schoolhouse.[14] The Witch Hazel School District 79 was formed in 1889 and took its 28 students out of the Reedville School District.[14][15] The one-school Witch Hazel district merged back into the Reedville district in 1966.[14]

The current Witch Hazel Elementary School is located in the community on Davis Street at Brookwood Avenue, and is part of the Hillsboro School District.[16] A new building was built in 2003 to replace the old structure located on Tualatin Valley Highway at Brookwood Avenue prior to the re-alignment of Brookwood Avenue and Witch Hazel Road at the highway.[12] The reconstruction of those intersections came in late 2006.[17] In 2009, South Meadows Middle School opened adjacent to the elementary school.[18]

• Description of DeLashmutt farm from the April 5, 1893 Beaverton Chronicle

45.500395°N 122.931214°W / 45.500395; -122.931214