By the 1890s, Portlanders had fouled their own water supply with sewage. Typhoid followed. Their audacious solution was to reach into the forests below Mount Hood, capture the cold, clear water of Bull Run, and carry it 24 miles into town. Bull Run water helped drive out typhoid and made Portland’s explosive growth possible. Yet pipes and public health are only half the story. Bull Run became Portland’s forbidden forest: closed, fiercely protected, and wrapped in mystery and civic pride. This is the story of a city that built a water system—and of the remote watershed that, in turn, built the city.
Joshua Ward Jeffery is a historian of American culture and religion. He has taught history, Native American studies, and law enforcement at Navajo Technical University in Chinle, Arizona, where he also managed the Navajo Police Training Academy. In a former life, Josh spent ten years working in the Bull Run Watershed, six of them leading Portland’s Watershed Ranger Unit and protecting the watershed from trespass, fire, and environmental degradation.