Gresham

Gresham is a city in northwestern Oregon, on the east side of the Portland area at the foot of the Cascade Range. On clear days Mount Hood rises over its eastern edge, and the Columbia River Gorge begins a short drive to the north.

The farmland of the area was settled in the 1850s by families who came over the Oregon Trail and the Barlow Road. The village was first known as Camp Ground for the Methodist meetings held there, and it was renamed for Walter Q. Gresham, the postmaster general of the United States, when a post office opened. A railway line and an electric interurban line to Portland reached the town at the start of the 20th century, and Gresham was incorporated in 1905.

Microchip Technology runs a chip factory in Gresham that makes microcontrollers and other semiconductors. Trees and shrubs grown on nursery farms in the east of the county are shipped to garden centers across the western United States.

Main City Park, along Johnson Creek near downtown, has a Japanese garden called Tsuru Island that honors Ebetsu, the sister city of Gresham in Japan. Gresham Butte, an old volcanic cone in the south of the city, is covered in forest crossed by trails. The MAX light rail Blue Line ends at the Cleveland Avenue station downtown and links the city to the center of Portland. Mt. Hood Community College, opened in the 1960s, runs programs in nursing and other trades on its campus at the edge of the city. The Gresham Arts Festival brings painters, potters and musicians to the downtown streets each summer.