Archives West Finding Aid

Capt. Alexander P. Ankeny was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in 1813. He moved to Oregon in 1850, stopping at the Green River to build a ferry to help emigrants cross. He arrived in Portland in the winter of 1850-1851 and built a house on Oak Street between 1st and 2nd. After a year, he remarried and settled on a farm in Yamhill County. He started a steamboat enterprise in 1860, and was involved in much Columbia River steamboat activity. He commanded the 2nd Company of Yamhill Volunteers in the Indian Wars of 1855-56. In Portland, he built the New Market Theater Block and the Central Block (Front St.) with his partner, A. J. Watson, in 1872. He bought and moved to Sterling Mines, where he lived in the last years of his life. He died in Salem, Oregon in 1891.