Arlington, Gilliam County, Oregon Genealogy

Arlington is a town on the Columbia River in Gilliam County. Originally the name of the town was Alkali. However, when it was incorporated on November 20, 1885, the town businessmen wanted a more appealing name. Since many of the early residents had ancestral roots in Virginia, they chose ""Arlington."" In 1963, the original town was largely destroyed by flooding following the completion of the John Day Dam.

In 1984, Bill Marshall created a map of the old town with an attached key to that map. The buildings are drawn on the map and numbered. The key identifies the name of the business (or businesses), churches, homes, school, public buildings that were on that property. In the case of the businesses, the proprietor is named and a brief memory of the individual.

Arlington holds a strong sense of identity. Descendants from the hundreds of different families whose roots go to Arlington, Oregon might find it interesting to see the layout of the town, where their families bought their groceries, the identity of the pharmacist, where the children attended school and where families attended church. "