No area of Portland, Oregon, played a more important role in street
railway history than Northwest Portland and the neighborhood known as
Slabtown. In 1872, the city's first streetcars passed close to Slabtown
as they headed for a terminus in the North End. Slabtown was also home
to the first streetcar manufacturing factory on the West Coast. In fact,
until locally built streetcars began to be replaced by trolleys from
large national builders in the 1910s, more than half of all rolling
stock was manufactured in shops located at opposite ends of Northwest
Twenty-third Avenue. All streetcars operating on the west side of the
Willamette River, including those used on the seven lines that served
Northwest Portland, were stored in Slabtown. When the end finally came
in 1950, Slabtown residents were riding two of the last three city
lines.