Montavilla History Questions Answered: Misaligned Streets

Q – Why are there so many misaligned streets in Montavilla?

A – I understand your puzzlement. I wondered the same thing when I moved to Montavilla. It was confusing. As a driver, I’d have to make two turns instead of driving straight ahead on the same street. As a pedestrian, I could not cross from corner to corner. The map above shows one example of Montavilla’s many jig-joggy streets.

*_{An example of misaligned north-south streets at SE Stark Street. Source: Portland Maps}*

It would be easy to blame this on poor city planning. But it’s not. It’s one of those quirks of history. It’s because of how Montavilla developed, one subdivision at a time. There was no county plan to conform to, and the properties developers purchased were not of a uniform size.

What is now the Montavilla neighborhood was once Indigenous land, and then, with the arrival of Europeans, it became farmland. As the city of Portland grew, more housing was needed. To meet this demand, real estate developers bought up farm properties and created subdivisions.

The earliest subdivision in today’s Montavilla was Mount Tabor Villa Addition—which gave Montavilla its name. It was platted (or planned) in 1889 as a symmetrical grid of blocks divided into lots and streets. Base Line Road (now SE Stark Street) marked the south boundary, and the north boundary ended at the future Glisan Street. Since there were no other subdivisions in the area, street alignment was a non-issue.

*_{Map of Mount Tabor Villa subdivision. Other than Base Line Road (on the left), the developers assigned the street names, as in subsequent subdivisions. Source: Multnomah County SAIL maps}*

In 1891, a new subdivision, Kinzel Park, was created immediately south of Mount Tabor Villa. It, too, is a symmetrical grid of blocks and streets. But the developers did not align the streets with those already established in Mount Tabor Villa and the adjacent subdivision, Mount Tabor Villa Annex of 1890.

*_{1891 Section 5 map showing the Kinzel Park subdivision and other properties. Source: City Auditor Archives}*

Why didn’t the Kinzel Park developers just shift the grid a bit to align with the existing streets in Mt. Tabor Villa? If they had, the subdivision would consist of blocks of varying sizes and two more streets, resulting in reduced profit.

The layout of Mount Tabor Villa and Kinzel Park streets is one example of why some Montavilla streets do not line up. As developers continued subdividing Montavilla, it evolved into a patchwork of 101 tracts–by my count—with more misaligned streets. It’s just surprising that we don’t have even more jogging streets than we do.

~ Patricia Sanders ~

Correction: A previous version of this article referred to jaywalking to indicate crossing out of alignment with street corners. It is not against the law to cross at these intersections. Montavilla News regrets the implication that term implied.

_{Current SAIL Multnomah County map showing Montavilla subdivisions (outlined in red). If you look at the original plat maps on this website, you will find that the original street names were different from today’s street names.}

*_{This Portland Maps view of the Montavilla neighborhood area shows various places where streets do not align.}*

Patricia Sanders

This is part of a new segment at Montavilla News called Montavilla History Questions Answered. If you have questions about Montavilla’s past that you’d like answered, local historian Patricia Sanders will investigate your question. Please email your questions to history@montavilla.net and we may feature it alongside Patricia Sanders’ research in a future post on this page.