Heading south from the Hollywood Transit Center (about midpoint of the Bus 75 line), you travel through diverse neighborhoods and different eras. Some neighborhoods bloom with pride while others are overgrown with apathy.
For generations, a dense forest covered the area west of Mt. Scott. In 1846, that suddenly changed. A fire known as the “Big Burn” removed many of the trees. Pioneering farmers took to the newly unwooded area like moths to a flame. Stakes were claimed and farms, schools and churches were built. Along with some very nice homes.
The 75 bus plows right through the heart of well-endowed Laurelhurst. Few people get off. Most riders stay on and roll south down Cesar Chavez Blvd. Pavement, concrete and thin patches of grass cover up the ground where farms once grew acres of crops and rutted, dirt roads crossed the fields.
You zip by mail boxes and picket fences and then shoot down a hill towards the bottoms of Johnson Creek. It feels like traveling back in time.
Further south down SE 46th Avenue you get the feeling you’re on a back road in a small, country town. You zip by mail boxes and picket fences and then shoot down a hill towards the bottoms of Johnson Creek. It feels like traveling back in time.
Adding to the old-time country feel is Mike’s Drive Inn. This vintage local favorite brings back memories of summer evenings, corndogs, malts, and friends in jean cutoffs. You can smell a lawn newly mowed.
The land in which the 75 travels has been inhabited for something like 12,000 years. We’ve come a long way in those 12 millenniums, but we’re still in the same place.
Photographs by Geoffrey Hiller | Text by Tom Vandel | ©2016 All Rights Reserved
BUS 75: HIDDEN PORTLAND 
“Shoot down a hill towards the bottoms of Johnson Creek.” The photo nails it perfectly. I can feel the tilt, the acceleration, hear the brakes being applied.
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