History

The urban renewal project that would ultimately become The Confluence at Troutdale began with cleanup and demolition activities at the former Troutdale sewer treatment plant and former wool pullery facility property located just north of downtown.

The first use of the site was a slaughterhouse and meat packing plant, which operated from the 1890s until 1907. It is credited as one of the chief reasons for the city’s existence. When the slaughterhouse moved to the Kenton neighborhood in Portland in 1907, it caused an economic downturn for Troutdale for more than a decade. A fire in 1915 destroyed part of the original buildings, and the remnants of the slaughterhouse were demolished about a decade later.

The two-story Bissinger & Co. wool pullery building was built in the early 1920s to process the hides of livestock and sheep. In the early 1930s, the company built the 125-fooot tall water tower to ensure a more consistent water supply to the facility. While not operational, the iconic tower still stands and offers a prime opportunity for community branding. After the wool pullery shut down in 1970, a cabinet manufacturing business began operating in the building until 1999.

From 1920 to 1940 the land west and north of the pullery was part of the McGinnis Celery Farm, which resulted in Troutdale being called the Celery Capital of the World. In 1969, the City built a sewage treatment plant in the field between the train tracks and I-84 next to the old pullery. The land has been vacant since the City of Troutdale decommissioned the old plant and opened it's new Water Pollution Control Facility off NW Graham Road in November 2001. 

Cleanup of the resulting brownfield site began in late 2015 and the building was demolished in 2019.

The site is currently home to The Confluence Pop-up Disc Golf Course.

You can watch a time-lapse of the cleanup project in the video below.