Lost & Found on Portland’s Preble Street: One Half Mile Spanning 250+ Years of Urban History

May 2025 will likely mark the last springtime for the Preble Chapel which has anchored the northwestern corner of Preble Street and Cumberland Avenue for 175 years.

The imminent demolition of this Portland landmark (created between 1850-1851 to house a pioneering social reform movement to assist working class Portlanders) by its very stewards provides an opportunity for all Portlanders to ponder deeply the entire length of our historic Preble Street corridor from its start at Monument Square down to the water’s edge at Back Cove.

What can Preble Street’s development over time tell us about the creative destruction of 19th and 20th Century urbanism (and now further re-makings in our 21st Century) and how these fits and starts helped make modern Portland? Packed with stories along its every block, Preble Street is a critical Portland pathway that ties our community’s history together from its colonial township era to our very present day, showcasing the power of environmentalism and architecture to define place, space and people.

Please join us to learn how the citizens of Portland, from the rich to the poor, worked to create what we see today along Preble Street. And also consider what was lost (the things we no longer can see), and will be yet lost in the near future, along this historic thoroughfare and how “preservation” and “progress” operates selectively over time in the ongoing push and pull of our commerce and community-building. From elite mansions, skyscrapers and hotels to homeless services, from train stations and trolleys to the auto age of interstates and drive-thrus, from grand theaters to provisioning food markets, Preble Street’s history serves as a panorama of Portland’s evolution that few take time to consider but will be glad they did!