Metro archives and special collections

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As a public agency, Metro is committed to promoting accountability and transparency in government, and to preserving its history for the benefit of decision-makers and the public. Explore Metro's archives and special collections with finding aids, oral history transcripts, photographs, publications and more.

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Historical photo of Oregon Zoo construction

Portland Zoological Gardens construction (mid-1950s)

Metro’s first location – 527 SW Hall, Portland, OR (1979-1986)

St. Johns Landfill (November 10, 1972)

Metro Council (circa 1981-83)

Metro Council (circa 1981-1983)

Baby Packy gets weighed (1962)

Blue Lake Park swimmers (circa 1950s)

Metro's second location - 2000 SW First Avenue, Portland, OR (1986-1993)

Metro South Station during the 1996 flood

photo of paper train your staff billboard

"Paper Train Your Office" ad campaign (1990)

photo of Metro Regional Center construction

Metro Regional Center under construction (1991-1993)

Metro Regional Center under construction - 600 NE Grand Avenue, Portland, OR (1991-1993)

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Preserving history

As the only directly-elected regional government in the United States, Metro has helped shape the political, economic, social and built landscape of the Portland metropolitan area since 1979. Working with communities, businesses and leaders across 24 cities and 3 counties, Metro addresses issues related to land use, transportation, garbage and recycling, parks and nature, economic development and cultural amenities.

Learn more about Metro

Metro's archives and special collections preserve the history of the agency for current and future generations. Metro is committed to the proper stewardship of public records and is working to increase public access by identifying, preserving and cataloging historically significant records and adding them to a digital archive.

Mission

Metro Archives and Special Collections is the official repository of records that have enduring value to the agency and the public. The primary mission is to appraise, collect, organize, describe, preserve, and make available records documenting the history of Metro and its predecessor agencies.

Volunteering

Volunteers continue to make invaluable contributions to Metro’s archives and special collections. They have worked on a wide range of tasks, from collection processing, creating finding aids, conducting oral history interviews and digitizing records. The efforts of volunteers and college-level student interns are helping to ensure that the agency’s records remain accessible to future researchers.

Every effort is made to ensure that volunteers are engaged in meaningful work that provides them with a well-rounded experience that is not only personally rewarding, but benefits the agency as well.

Current opportunities

Learn about current archival projects available to volunteers and college students.

Metro Special Collections Volunteer Opportunities205.33 KB Adobe Acrobat PDF Published Feb 22, 2019

For more information, contact Metro records officer at 503-797-1740 or [email protected].

As a regional government, Metro serves three counties and 24 cities. For records not held by Metro, here are links to some of our regional partners:

Counties

Local cities

Other regional partners

Metro history map

Getting started

Oral histories

Finding aids

Copyright

Copyright information related to Metro's records and archives

The records in Metro’s collection have been posted online when either:

permissions are received,
the work is determined to be in the public domain, or
the work can be used under fair use as part of a non-commercial, educational site.

These rights do not extend to the users who are accessing these records. Users will need to determine for themselves if an item is protected by copyright or if it’s in the public domain. If a user discovers an item has copyright or use restrictions, they should follow those restrictions when publishing or distributing the item.

The authors of any materials in Metro’s digital collection can request limited public access to those materials. However, Metro recommends this option be carefully considered. As a public repository, the digital collections are intended to provide long term public access to records.

238.02 KB Adobe Acrobat PDF Published Apr 11, 2023

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Preserving history