At the first Common (City) Council meeting on June 3, 1903, Council Chairman Owen Roberts moved to have an official town seal created and the rest of the Council concurred, approving the very first town motion unanimously.  The original seal featured simple text stating “Town of Milwaukie Oregon” with two stars around the outer circle and the words “Incorporated May 21, 1903” with an embellishment in the center.  In the following decades the word City replaced the word Town while the seal remained the same.

In June 1962, acting on a recommendation from the Milwaukie Junior Chamber of Commerce, the “Jaycees”, the City Council adopted Resolution 25-1962 officially making the Dogwood blossom the City flower and “The Dogwood City of the West” the City nickname.  Since then different versions of the Dogwood blossom have appeared on City stationary, uniforms, and vehicles.

During the 1960’s and 1970’s two variations of the Dogwood blossom were featured, the earlier version was a green drawing of two blossoms and the later a blocked single Dogwood blossom.

By the late 1980’s the black-and-white blocked single Dogwood blossom image was flipped and incorporated into a seal format.

In 1995 the logo was modernized to feature three Dogwood blossoms in rectangles in a horizontal row reflecting the City’s street grid.  Along with this logo, teal became the City’s official color.

In 2008 the City introduced a new circular seal logo featuring a single updated rendering of the Dogwood blossom, and adopted brown and green as official colors.

“The earliest reference [to any location named Milwaukee] was in a 1679 journal of Father Zenobius Membre regarding Indians living at the mouth of the Milleoki River [in today’s Wisconsin]… Strangely enough the Democrats [of Wisconsin] favored the “ie” and the Whigs liked the “ee”.  The Milwaukie Sentinel [of Wisconsin] changed to “ie” in 1841 and reverted back to “ee” in 1846, after Rufus King, a Republican, became the editor.  Milwaukee (Wis.) used “ie” until 1843, as the city’s postmark, but when Josiah Noonan, a Whig, became postmaster the spelling changed for mail to “ee”.  It was changed back when a Democrat took the position and later changed yet again to “ee” in 1861, and has remained… It is believed that [Lot Whitcomb] most likely adopted the spelling [for Milwaukie, Oregon] in use at the time of his visit [to Milwaukee, Wisconsin].”
– Centennial Memories (City of Milwaukie, 2003)

“Spellings of the two Milwaukees [in Wisconsin and Oregon] shifted, and confusion resulted.  There are apocryphal stories that a flyspeck over one “e” settled the issue; that officials of the Oregon and California Railroad insisted upon a certain spelling for their station designation; that a practical joker pulled one on a Milwaukee, Wisconsin newspaper by stealing the “i” type of its rival forced the spelling.  A more logical explanation is that the Post Office Department, conscious of the many mail misdirections, resolved the difficulty by placing in its Directory the designation of Milwaukie for the Oregon city.  Its name seemed destined to remain in its present form.”
– History of Milwaukie, Oregon,byCharles Oluf Olson (Milwaukie Historical Society, 1965)

Milwaukie, Oregon (settled 1847, incorporated 1903)
Suburb in the Portland metro area, pop. 20,291 (2010)

Milwaukee, North Carolina (unincorporated community)
Rural Northampton County, 69 miles southwest of Norfolk, VA

Milwaukee, Pennsylvania (unincorporated community)
Rural Lackawanna County, 9 miles west of Scranton, PA

Presidential visits to Milwaukie…

1888: future President Herbert Hoover, living in Oregon with relatives at Newberg, would often visit his uncle Henry Minthorn’s farm near Milwaukie.

1955: former President Harry and former First Lady Bess Truman visited Clackamas County on a retirement tour.

1960: presidential candidate John F. Kennedy visited State Senator Monroe Sweetland at the Milwaukie Review, met with students at Milwaukie High School, and stopped by several other Main Street businesses.

1968: presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy visited northern Clackamas County on a whistle stop campaign tour.

2008: presidential candidate Barack Obama passed through Milwaukie en route to the Bomber Restaurant in Oak Grove.

Ordinance 125 (1915) outlawed “expectorating”, also known as spitting, on the floor in most public buildings and on sidewalks.  Although it was repealed in 1964, please be courteous to your fellow Milwaukians and don’t spit in public.

Ordinance 161 (1918) laid out in detail how public dances  were to be run and how to apply for a license to operate a dance hall.  The ordinance described proper dancing between males and females and empowered an “Inspector of dance halls”, appointed by the Mayor, to enforce the rules.  The first dance hall license application, considered the same day Ordinance 161 was approved, from M. M. Ringler was approved on a 3-2 vote, with Mayor Snyder casting the tie-breaking vote in favor.  However, the next day, at the request of the U.S. War Department which reported the prevalence of “immoral behavior” at the club, the Ringler dance hall license was rescinded.  Ordinance 161 remained in effect for nearly five decades before being repealed by Ordinance 1070 in 1965.

Resolution 5-1951 sought to promote wholesome and healthy youth activities by establishing a fish preserve for “juveniles under the age of fourteen” along Johnson Creek for the summer of 1951.  No word on which juvenile caught the biggest fish in the creek…

Ordinance 579 (1953) requires “a license from all persons engaged in the business of revealing or attempting to reveal the future events in another’s life”. At the time, it was reported that Milwaukie area fortune tellers of course saw this coming!