Located alongside Highway 217 just south of Beaverton, Fanno Creek meanders its way from Portland's Raleigh Hills southward toward the Tualatin River, a tributary of the Willamette River.
Over the years, the Tualatin Hill Parks and Recreation District has carefully developed the Fanno Creek Regional Trail, a 4.5-mile paved thoroughfare on the city's west side that is popular with joggers, bicyclists, skaters, hikers and bird watchers alike. The trail and creek pass through Greenway Park, an 87-acre preserve of wetland, woodland and landscaped recreational areas. Amenities along the trail and in the park include basketball and tennis courts, a soccer field, a baseball field, six evenly distributed playgrounds, a 9-hole disc golf course, an exercise area, and numerous pedestrian bridges.
According to Virginia Mapes, author of Chakeipi, The Place of the Beaver: The History of Beaverton, Oregon, 1893-1993,
August Fanno arrived in Oregon in 1846. Soon after, his wife and newborn child died in Linn City (a former town across the Willamette River from Oregon City). Fanno left Linn City, following an Indian trail into the Tualatin Plains, where he claimed land on a creek (now Fanno Creek). The trail Fanno followed later became known as the Astoria-Military Road. He chose his claim's location so he could sell produce to travelers on the trail. His first home, made of logs, was built in 1851; the current home, reflecting his agricultural success, was built in 1857. Fanno was a pioneer onion grower in the Tualatin Valley; at the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland, he was proclaimed the "Onion King." The Fanno family farmed onions along the creek until about 1940 when onion maggots decimated their crops.
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