An 8-mile regional trail through Tigard's namesake creek and pioneer-era land claim
Fanno Creek Trail, near North Dakota Street, Tigard, OR 97223
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public trail.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved multi-use trail running through Tigard, Beaverton, and unincorporated Washington County
Equipment
Photos OK
The Fanno Creek Trail is a paved multi-use regional trail along the route of Fanno Creek through Tigard, Beaverton, and unincorporated Washington County, Oregon. The trail is currently 8.3 miles in length, with a new segment from the Tigard Library completed in early 2025. The long-range vision, first articulated in 1975, calls for an approximately 15-mile trail running from the Willamette River in southwest Portland to the confluence of Fanno Creek and the Tualatin River.
Fanno Creek and the trail take their name from Augustus Fanno, a Missouri-born pioneer who migrated to Oregon in the 1840s and was granted a donation land claim along the creek in 1847. Fanno was known in the region as the 'Onion King' for his extensive onion farming. He is also credited locally with draining Beaver Lake, which had covered roughly half of the future site of Beaverton; the drainage made the area suitable for permanent agricultural settlement. Hall Boulevard, which crosses the trail near Fanno Creek, was named for Lawrence and Lucy Hall, friends of the Fannos who arrived in 1847 via the Meek Cutoff branch of the Oregon Trail and took up the first 640-acre land claim in what became Tigard.
The trail is administered jointly by the City of Tigard, the Tualatin Hills Park and Recreation District, and partner jurisdictions and is heavily used by commuters and recreational walkers, runners, and cyclists.
Sources
Local tradition collected in Oregon ghost-story compilations describes accounts of paranormal activity along a specific section of the Fanno Creek Trail on the Tigard side, near North Dakota Street and the trail's segment heading toward Beaverton. The accounts describe electronic voice phenomena (EVP) recordings, a physical sensation of being struck in the stomach, and ambient sounds described as growls. The accounts are not consistent in their reporting and are not corroborated in newspaper coverage or in trail-management records.
The Fanno Creek Trail is a heavily used paved trail and a typical urban-recreation amenity. Visitors should treat it as an everyday walking and cycling resource rather than an investigation destination, and should not attempt to use trail segments after the posted hours.
Walk or cycle the 8.3-mile paved Fanno Creek Trail through Tigard, Beaverton, and unincorporated Washington County. The trail is named for Augustus Fanno, who took up a donation land claim along the creek in 1847.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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