Migration

The first Volga Germans arrived in Oregon in 1881. They had earlier settled in Barton and Rush Counties in Kansas and arrived in Portland via steamship from San Francisco. In the fall of 1882, most of this group moved on to Eastern Washington where the farmland was better. Those that remained from this first group settled in the village of Blooming, Oregon, a few miles south of the town of Cornelius.

Another group of Volga German families arrived in Portland in 1882. These families had been part of a wagon train headed from Nebraska to Eastern Washington, but when the convoy reached Pendleton, several families decided to head for Portland. This group settled in Portland where a substantial Volga German community grew up in what today is called the Albina neighborhood. In 1891, a group of Volga Germans settled on former forestland near Canby. To this point, the immigrants had been from Protestant colonies along the Volga. However, in 1892, a group of Catholic colonists arrived in Portland from Topeka, Kansas.