Fairview, Oregon

Fairview is a city in Multnomah County, Oregon, United States. It is located in the Portland metropolitan area north of Gresham and west of Troutdale. The population was 10,424 at the 2020 census.

Members of the Multnomah tribe of Chinookan Indians lived in a village on Sauvie Island by the Columbia River (the future site of Fairview) when the Lewis and Clark Expedition visited the area in 1806. By the 1840s and 1850s, white settlers began hay, grain, and livestock operations in what would become eastern Multnomah County. Railroad tracks extended to the area by the 1890s. As the population grew, it may be assumed that residents began referring to the locale as Fairview because of the pleasing views of the nearby Columbia, the Columbia River Gorge, and Mount Hood, though an alternative testimony explains this name originated from the area's ideal lookout spot for approaching hostile natives. Since another community named Fairview already existed on the Oregon Coast, the community's first post office was named Cleone until the coastal post office closed and the name was transferred to Fairview.

In the mid-1980s, the city attempted to annex a large section of unincorporated territory in eastern Multnomah County. The plan would have created a city of about 120,000 residents, which at the time would have ranked as the second most populous city in Oregon, behind only Portland. In September 1985, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that the attempt was invalid as state law required two cities to start any attempt at consolidation, and only Fairview had initiated this attempt.

A large Fairview employer is Townsend Farms, which operates a berry freezing cannery. In 2020 the company had approximately 350 employees in the region, with 450 seasonal workers; it was the source of a Hepatitis A outbreak in pomegranate seeds in 2013 that infected 127 people in 8 states. The product was recalled under its Townsend Farms brand at Costco and private labeled at Harris Teeter, and later linked to Goknur Foodstuffs Import Export Trading in Turkey by the FDA. The cannery itself had a COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, which may have caused two waves of infections affecting at least 48 people. The cannery did not shut down, and the outbreak spread for weeks before the state was notified. The company has blueberry orchards in Applegate Valley near Grants Pass and Cornelius, as well as others in Oregon and Washington.

On August 31, 2024, a small plane crashed into power transmission lines and a row of townhouses in Fairview setting the row afire, killing two people aboard the plane and one in a townhouse, and causing temporary power outages across eastern Multnomah County. The Cessna 421C was on a maintenance test flight from Troutdale Airport, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) east of the crash site. Flames from the crash destroyed three townhouses and badly damaged three others.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 3.58 square miles (9.27 km²), of which, 3.09 square miles (8.00 km²) is land and 0.49 square miles (1.27 km²) is water.

The area also features the Salish Ponds, two small freshwater lakes popular for fishing and its adjacent hiking trails.

As of the 2020 census, Fairview had a population of 10,424. The median age was 38.0 years. 20.7% of residents were under the age of 18 and 15.9% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 95.2 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 91.6 males age 18 and over.