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Lowell, Oregon

The Lowell area was settled in the 1850s, and a post office opened in 1880: originally called Cannon, it was renamed Lowell in 1883. According to legend Amos Hyland, a prominent local landowner and co-founder of the Booth Kelly Lumber Company, named the community after his hometown of Lowell, Maine, although records indicate that he was born in Illinois. The railroad arrived in Lowell in 1908, and throughout the first half of the twentieth century sawmills and the logging industry drove the town’s economy. Dexter Reservoir submerged part of Lowell in 1954, and Fall Creek Reservoir inundated outlying livestock, hay, strawberry, corn, and pole bean farms in 1966.