Lake Grove is a neighborhood of Lake Oswego

Lake Oswego, Oregon

Lake Oswego is a city located primarily in Clackamas County in the U.S. state of Oregon. Small portions of the city are also located in neighboring Multnomah and Washington counties. Located south of Portland surrounding the Oswego Lake, the town was founded in 1847 and incorporated as Oswego in...

, Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, located west of Oswego Lake, south of Mountain Park (another Lake Oswego neighborhood), east of Interstate 5

Interstate 5

Interstate 5 is the main Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific Ocean coastline from Canada to Mexico . It serves some of the largest cities on the U.S...

, and north of Rivergrove

Rivergrove, Oregon

Rivergrove is a city in Clackamas, Oregon, United States. A small portion of the city extends into Washington County. Its name comes from a combination of the Tualatin River, which forms its southern border, and Lake Grove, a community that is now part of Lake Oswego...

.

Lake Grove was plat

Plat

A plat in the U.S. is a map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. Other English-speaking countries generally call such documents a cadastral map or plan....

ted in 1912 as a development on the western end of Oswego Lake, near the railroad line. That line, the Portland, Eugene and Eastern Railway (PE&E), was part of the East Side Local route of the "Red Electric

Red Electric

The Red Electric was an interurban passenger train service operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad in the Willamette Valley of the U.S. state of Oregon from 1914 to 1929. The service got its name from the bright red color of its cars. Despite its short history, among West Coast interurbans it was...

" passenger service beginning in 1914, a service continued by Southern Pacific

Southern Pacific Railroad

The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....

 after it bought PE&E a year later. A stop on that line, Goodin Station, connected the development with Tualatin

Tualatin, Oregon

Tualatin is a city located primarily in Washington County in the U.S. state of Oregon. A small portion of the city is also located in neighboring Clackamas County. It is a southwestern suburb in the Portland Metropolitan Area that is located south of Tigard...

 to the west and Oswego and Portland

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

 to the east and north (the latter two connected using a line now used by the Willamette Shore Trolley

Willamette Shore Trolley

The Willamette Shore Trolley is a heritage railroad or heritage streetcar which operates along the west bank of the Willamette River between Portland and Lake Oswego in Oregon. The right-of-way is owned by group of local-area governments who purchased it in 1988 in order to preserve it intact for...

).

In 1916, Waluga Post Office was established in the area, named after the native American name for Oswego Lake; the post office was renamed Lake Grove in 1923.

A May 1959 vote by residents of Oswego and Lake Grove resulted in the establishment of the city of Lake Oswego.

In the 1960s, Intercity Buses, Inc.

Blue Bus lines (Oregon)

The “Blue Bus” lines was a group of four affiliated privately owned public transportation companies that provided bus transit service in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area in the 1950s and 1960s. The name was unofficial but was in common use in the 1960s, and variations included "Blue Bus...

 provided transit service connecting Lake Grove with downtown Lake Oswego and downtown Portland through neighborhoods on both sides of the lake, until taken over in 1970 by TriMet

TriMet

TriMet, more formally known as the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon, is a public agency that operates mass transit in a region that spans most of the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon...

, which continues to operate bus service through the area today.

As the area developed and the automobile became the dominant mode of transportation, Lake Grove's commercial and residential development continued along (Lower) Boones Ferry Road. That road remains the main artery of Lake Grove, a prominence reinforced by its central role in the Lake Grove Village Center, a Metro

Metro (Oregon regional government)

Metro, formerly known as Metropolitan Service District, is the regional governmental agency for the Oregon portion of the Portland metropolitan area...

 "Town Center" for 21st century land-use and transportation planning purposes.

Besides the town center, Lake Grove's identity is evident in the name of institutions such as Lake Grove Elementary School (which dates back to at least the 1920s), the Lake Grove Neighborhood Association (though parts of the Lake Grove area are within other neighborhood associations such as the Waluga), the Lake Grove Rural Fire District, the Lake Grove Water District and the Lake Grove Post Office serving ZIP code

ZIP Code

ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...

97035. All these elements combined often give Lake Grove the feeling of being a separate town from Lake Oswego. Lake Grove was also part of the inspiration that led to the name of the small city of Rivergrove.

The Lake Grove Elementary School is located in this area, it has the most students and is the largest elementary school in the Lake Oswego School District.

External links

• Lake Grove Village Center from the city of Lake Oswego's official website