The Irvington Historic District Boundary and Its Historic Justification
A Nomination for a Boundary Decrease affecting the Irvington National Register Historic
District has been filed with the State of Oregon Historic Preservation Office. The intent of this
formal “Nomination” is to provide justification for removing much of the northeast corner from
the District. The basic rationale is that there is no historic association between the “Boundary
Decrease” area and the rest of the Historic District. The ICA Historic Preservation Committee
members have undertaken an extensive review of historic documents and newspaper coverage
from the historic period (1890 to 1948) to assess the validity of the rationale presented in the
nomination (“Boundary Decrease Document”). This research shows that the Boundary Decrease
Document makes a number of inaccurate assertions relative to the development of Irvington, the neighboring Alameda Park tract, and their relationship to the modern Irvington and Alameda neighborhoods as currently recognized by the City of Portland Office of Neighborhood Involvement. This commentary addresses those inaccuracies to show that the actual historic facts do not support separating the subject area from the Irvington Historic District