Kelly Creek

Gresham was known as the "raspberry picking capital of the world" in the 1920s because of the quality and quantity of the fruit produced by farmers living in its southeast corner. Their legacy lives on in the century-old Craftsman and four-square farmhouses that stand proudly among the more modern homes in the Kelly Creek neighborhood's suburban landscape.

During the early 1900s, William Peterson's family grew raspberries and strawberries on a 30-acre plot of land that surrounded a four-bedroom Craftsman house they built off Powell Valley Road in the Kelly Creek neighborhood's northeast corner. Peterson brought the city's berry farmers together when he formed Gresham Fruit Growers Association in 1914. This set the stage for the city to become one of the state's top raspberry and strawberry production for decades. But Gresham's berry industry collapsed in the 1960s after diseases like the strawberry crinkle virus decimated its crops, competition from California and Mexico increased, and the enforcement of child labor laws wiped out an informal berry bus program that sent school busses full of children to the farms so they could pick fruit for $4 to $8 a day.

The decline of Gresham's berry industry made the sprawling tracts of land like Peterson's berry farm an ideal location for the residential subdivisions that moved into the area in the 1960s and 1970s. These subdivisions filled the Kelly Creek neighborhood with the Ranch-style and split-level houses that were popular at this period. You'll also find a handful of newer subdivisions – complete with winding roads that often end in a cul-de-sac – featuring contemporary houses built in the 1980s and the 1990s. New or old, these houses sit on smaller, 5,000-square-foot to 10,000-square-foot lots that leave room for a driveway, a small front yard with some trees or a couple of bushes, and a back deck where you can relax with the family while eating a bowl of strawberry ice cream. These houses fetch $400,000 to $600,000 regardless of their age or the size of their lots. Sidewalks are common in this neighborhood, and many of its streets are wide enough for on-street parking if you'd rather not put a vehicle in your garage or driveway.

And while this residential neighborhood doesn't have a business district of its own, Kelly Creek is just outside a major shopping area at the intersection of Burnside Road and Powell Boulevard, where you'll find a variety of chain restaurants, department stores, and grocery stores crammed into small shopping centers like the Gresham Village Shopping Mall and the Oregon Trail Center. It's also about three miles from the Historic Downtown Gresham business district, where you'll find smaller restaurants like the Asian Thai Bistro, Boccelli's Ristorante, Nicholas Restaurant, which is known for its Lebanese and Mediterranean cuisine, and Jazzy's Bagels, where you'll find a mural celebrating Gresham's berry picking industry. The downtown business district is also home to the Gresham Theater and the Original Gresham Farmers' Market, where local farmers and berry pickers can sell their wares.

The Kelly Creek neighborhood is also home to the undeveloped Southeast Community Park, a 16.1-acre stretch of rolling fields, trees and wetlands that follow Kelly Creek and offer a stunning view of Mt. Hood. The neighborhood is split between the attendance zones for East Orient Elementary School, which received a B on Niche.com, and Kelly Creek Elementary School, which received a B-. They'll move on to either Gordon Russell Middle School, which was built on Peterson's old berry farm, or West Orient Middle School, which received a B on Niche.com, before wrapping up their K-12 careers at Springwater Trail High School.

Marked only by a couple of murals, Gresham's berry-picking industry has almost completely faded into its past. That's what makes the 100-year-old farmhouses that randomly pop up on the suburban streets of its Kelly Creek neighborhood a treasure and a great place to call home.

Written By

Mac Mclean

Photography Contributed By

Tim Acock

Video By

Timothy Cerva