In 1836, Lucier and 15 other Catholic settlers petitioned Auxiliary Bishop Norbert Provencher, head of the church in present-day Manitoba, to send a priest to their settlement.

[4] However, the British-owned Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) which owned fur trading concessions in the region, objected to Provencher establishing a Catholic mission in the Willamette Valley.

To appease the HBC, Provencher agreed to move the mission north of the Columbia River into present-day Washington State.

The following year, Reverend Pierre-Jean DeSmet, along with other priests and a contingent of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, arrived in Astoria, Oregon, from Belgium.

[4] In 1846, after the United States and Great Britain settled their borders in the Pacific Northwest, the Vatican elevated the vicariate apostolic to the Archdiocese of Oregon City.

Pope Leo XIII named Bishop Charles John Seghers of Vancouver Island as coadjutor archbishop in Oregon City to assist Blanchet in 1878.

In 1884, Seghers successfully petitioned the Vatican to reappoint him as bishop of Vancouver Island so that he could continue missionary work in Alaska.

To replace Seghers in Oregon City, Leo XiII appointed Bishop William Gross from the Diocese of Savannah as archbishop in 1885.

[18] The archdiocese opened the Christie Home for Orphaned Girls in 1907 and dedicated St. Mary's Church in Mount Angel in 1912.

[19] Following Christie's death in 1926, Pope Pius XI named Auxiliary Bishop Edward Howard from the Diocese of Davenport as the fifth archbishop of Oregon City.

[22] In 1931, Howard led a successful campaign to repeal local zoning ordinances that prohibited the building of churches and parochial schools.

Pope Paul VI appointed Bishop Robert Dwyer from the Diocese of Reno as the second archbishop of Portland in Oregon in 1966.

Auxiliary Bishop William Levada of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles was the next archbishop of Portland in Oregon, named by Pope John Paul II in 1986.

On January 29, 2013, Bishop Alexander Sample was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to be the new Archbishop of Portland in Oregon, succeeding John George Vlazny, whose resignation was accepted at the same time.

[32] In April 2007, the archdiocese announced a settlement with sexual abuse victims and the bankruptcy court had approved a financial plan of reorganization.

[35] On August 6, 2016, World Spark, a retirement home provider run by Portland priest Michael Maslowsky, was forced to surrender documents showing that there had been numerous complaints of sex abuse against vulnerable residents at World Spark's St. Anthony Village elderly home, including some with dementia, between 2009 and 2016.

[38] More settlements were issued in August 2019 when the Archdiocese of Portland agreed to pay nearly $4 million to eight men who said they were sexually abused by Pius Brazaukus in the 1970s and the 1980s.