French Prairie

It was named for some of the earliest settlers of that part of the Oregon Country, French Canadian/Métis[1] people who were mostly former employees of the Hudson's Bay Company.

The Pacific Fur Company temporary outpost of Fort Astoria was located at the southern end of French Prairie, North of present-day city of Salem, Oregon.

By 1829, Étienne Lucier was establishing a land claim nearby and starting to settle and retire with the help of its Hudson's Bay Company employer.

By 1836, sixteen Roman Catholic French Canadian settlers representing a group of 77 were petitioning Norbert Provencher, the Bishop of Juliopolis at the Red River Colony (present-day Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) to have a priest sent to them.

For a short time in the 1880s the Oregonian Railway Company had a station named French Prairie about two miles southeast of the city of St.