Originally incorporated as the Oregon General Electric Company, the name was changed on June 7, 1902, just prior to taking over the Portland City & Oregon Railway Company. Fred S. Morris held interests in both companies, so their eventual merger is not really surprising.
By design or accident, the company ended up operating all of the standard gauge lines of the time, inheriting the Hawthorne, Mount Scott and Oregon City (then running through Sellwood) lines and constructing the Cazadero line to reach the site for its proposed hydroelectric dam on the Clackamas River (the Richmond and Woodstock lines weren’t regauged until 1910). The standard gauge Troutdale line was built in 1907, when the OWP&R was an operating division of the PRL&P.
Although the OWP&R merged into the PRL&P in June 1906, it continued to operate under the old name as a separate standard gauge division that retained more liberal freight-carrying rules than the city lines for a number of years.
| Years of Operation: | December 7, 1901 (first incorporated as the Oregon General Electric Co.)– June 7, 1902 (reincorporated OWP&R Co.)– June 30, 1906 (merged into PRL&P) | | --- | --- | | Preceded By: | ‣ | | Succeeded By: | ‣ |