West Linn is a city in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States. Now a southern suburb within the Portland metropolitan area, West Linn has a history of early development, prompted by the opportunity to harvest energy from nearby Willamette Falls. It was named after U.S. Senator Lewis F. Linn of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, who had advocated the American occupation of Oregon as a counterclaim to the British. As of the 2000 census, the city had a population of 22,261. The 2006 estimate is 24,180 residents.
Prior to settlement by Oregon pioneers, the area which became known as West Linn was the home of ancestors of some of the present-day Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon.
Major Robert Moore was an early settler arriving in 1839—before the Champoeg Meetings—having been the senior member of the first attempt to create an American state in Oregon, the Peoria Party. Sometime after journeying around the Willamette Valley and Columbia Basin, Moore bought title to approx….