Oregon routes 211, 214, 219, and 99E also serve the city, as do Union Pacific and Willamette Valley Railway freight rail lines.

Eli C. Cooley, Bradford S. Bonney, George Leisure, and Jean B. Ducharme all established donation land claims on the eastern part of the French Prairie where Woodburn would later be founded.

[6] When Reed began to build a railroad through the area, he decided to run the line through what became Woodburn in anticipation of acquiring the land himself, as he expected Settlemier to default on the mortgage.

[6] Meanwhile, transportation baron Ben Holladay ran his Oregon and California Railroad through what became Woodburn in 1871, at which time Settlemier platted the first four blocks of the town.

[9] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 5.37 square miles (13.91 km2), all of it land.

Woodburn became a destination that accumulated immigrant farmworkers, and was a place where Mexican workers were caught in sweeps during a federal initiative called Operation Wetback, which returned about one million illegal immigrants to Mexico.

Immigration of Mexicans to Woodburn continued to increase through the 1980s, when Latinos made up about 2.5 percent of Oregon's population.

By the early 21st century, 59% of the population of Woodburn was Latino, with a mix of first-generation immigrants and long-term residents.

[18] Woodburn is also home to the largest 55+ retirement community in Oregon[19] with 1510 single family homes, a mobile home park, a private, eighteen hole golf course surrounding a clubhouse with auditorium, swimming pool, fitness center, restaurant, billiards room, crafts room, RV storage, and a variety of social events, clubs and activities.

MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility is on Oregon Route 99E on the outskirts of Woodburn, in which young delinquent and criminal males are incarcerated.

Scenes from the 2007 Hallmark Hall of Fame production The Valley of Light, starring Chris Klein, were filmed in Woodburn.

The World's Berry Center Museum occasionally produces plays by Miracle Theatre.

One of the main reasons this event happened was that the ranchers and merchants recognized the importance of the new bicultural relationship with the increased Hispanic population in the area.

KPCN-LP is a low-power community radio station owned and operated by Oregon's largest farmworker union, los Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN).

The station was built by volunteers from Woodburn and around the country in August 2006 at the tenth Prometheus Radio Project barnraising.

[citation needed] KPCN broadcasts music, news, and public affairs to listeners in Spanish and several indigenous Latin American languages.

The Transit Division of the Woodburn Community Services Department runs the Woodburn Transit System (WTS), which uses small buses during non-holiday weekdays within the city's limits, and the Dial-a-Ride program, which operates paratransit vans for reservation by the elderly and disabled during weekdays within the local area and, for medical appointments, anywhere between Portland and Salem.

[30] Other public bus systems making stops in Woodburn include CARTS (Chemeketa Area Regional Transportation System),[31] administered by Oregon Housing and Associated Services, Inc. (OHAS) in Salem, and CAT (Canby Area Transit), run by the city of Canby.

Stacy Allison (born 1958), a 1976 graduate of Woodburn High School and a 1984 Oregon State University alum, was the first American woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, during her second attempt on September 29, 1988.

[33][34] That same year, when Mayor Nancy Kirksey declared November 17 "Stacy Allison Day," she visited and spoke at several Woodburn venues and attended ceremonies when a street in the city, Stacy Allison Way, was dedicated to her.

[35] Kat Bjelland, of the punk band Babes in Toyland, grew up in Woodburn.

Woodburn-born baseball player Dick Whitman was an outfielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies; the teams played in the 1949 and 1950 World Series, respectively.