Goose Hollow is a neighborhood in southwest Portland, Oregon. It acquired its distinctive name through early residents' practice of letting their geese run free in Tanner Creek Gulch and near the wooded ravine in the Tualatin Mountains known as the Tanner Creek Canyon.[2][3] Tanner Creek Gulch was a 20-block-long, 50-foot-deep (15 m) gulch (or hollow) that started around SW 17th and Jefferson and carried the waters of Tanner Creek into Couch Lake (now the site of Old Town/Chinatown and the Pearl District). Over a century ago, Tanner Creek was buried 50 feet (15 m) underground (where it still drains the West Hills), and the Tanner Creek Gulch was filled in.[4] The only remaining part of the hollow is the ravine, Tanner Creek Canyon, carved out by Tanner Creek through which The Sunset Highway carrying US-26 passes and which the Vista Bridge spans, also called the Vista Viaduct.[5]
The historically important Canyon Road connects to Jefferson Street underneath the Vista Bridge and was also called "The Great Plank Road." Canyon Road passed through Tanner Creek Canyon, which is how the road acquired its name. However, in the 1960s the section of Canyon Road that passes through the canyon was elevated (infilled with excavated dirt from Interstate 405's construction) and is now just a section of Highway 26. The Goose Hollow name had gone out of common usage for several decades until former mayor Bud Clark named his pub The Goose Hollow Inn in 1967 in an effort to "rekindle civic regard for the neighborhood."[6] Clark resided in the Goose Hollow neighborhood.
Location
Goose Hollow's contemporary boundary and place names overlaid onto 1879 map
Areas included within the Goose Hollow neighborhood are King's Hill, Vista Ridge, Gander Ridge, and the adjacent flats near the path of Tanner Creek.[8] King's Hill is separated from Vista Ridge by the Tanner Creek Canyon spanned by the Vista Bridge. Vista Ridge (where the Vista Ridge Tunnels are located) is separated from Gander Ridge by Cable Car Canyon.[9] From 1890 to 1905 a steep and enormous trestle bridge passed through this canyon, carrying cable cars up to Portland Heights.[10] The neighborhood boundaries range (north/south) from Burnside Street to the low slopes of the West Hills (officially known as the Tualatin Mountains) and (east/west) from I-405 to Washington Park.
