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History · Gaston

Gaston’s post office opened in 1873, and 31% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: maps from 1941 on and the census since 1920.

1873first post office
0on the National Register
31%homes built before 1940
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Photo: M.O. Stevens · Public domain
Quick answers

How Gaston began

When was Gaston founded?

1873

The Gaston post office opened in 1873, the earliest record of the town by name. Wikidata gives 1911.

First census: 221 in 19202020 census: 676153 years
Founding year: the first Gaston post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Wikidata: 1911.The full story ↓

What stands out about Gaston’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Gaston are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Gaston’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Gaston’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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The story

How Gaston came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Gaston.

Read it all →

The first known inhabitants of the Tualatin Valley were the Atfalati tribe, a subset of the Kalapuya ethnic group. Contact with Europeans in the late 1700s led to the spread of smallpox and other diseases, which devastated the Atfalati population. In 1851, due to population pressures from white settlers, surviving members of the tribe negotiated a treaty with the Oregon Territory ceding their ancestral lands throughout the Tualatin Valley to guarantee a small reservation on the banks of nearby Wapato Lake. This treaty was never ratified, and in the late 1850s, the U.S. government relocated the tribe to the Grand Ronde Reservation.

ChaptersNew high schoolModern expansion

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

By decade

Gaston, decade by decade

Today3 recent
Tillamook Air Museum in Tillamook, Oregon 112018Tillamook Air Museum in Tillamook, Oregon 11Gaston Oregon2009Gaston OregonORMap-doton-Gaston2004ORMap-doton-Gaston
On the map

Gaston on the map, 1941 to 1970

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Gaston. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Gaston on the 1941 USGS mapGaston on the 1956 USGS mapGaston on the 1970 USGS map1941Yamhill sheet · 1:62,500

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Gaston.

People over time

Gaston, census by census

0100200300400500600700192019401960198020002020676

Grew from 221 people in 1920 to 676 in 2020, 3 times over.

11 censuses, 1920–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Gaston’s Wikipedia page.

Questions about Gaston’s history

What year was Gaston founded?

The Gaston post office opened in 1873, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records). Wikidata gives 1911.

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
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Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikimedia Commons (3), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.