Local residents have several versions of how Fourth Plain, now called Orchards, got its name.

One suggests that in 1846, Dugald McTavish, an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company, explored the land in back of the Vancouver fur trading post. He described finding four "plains," each separated from the next by a band of timber. McTavish probably meant natural changes in the thick woods.

Officials at Fort Vancouver near the Columbia River seem to have numbered their grazing plains from one to six. Others have suggested the name was taken for steps of land up from the river or from flatland separated by east-west ridges.

Eventually, residents wanted a name that would identify them alone. Because of the many fruit trees in the area, they chose the name Orchards in 1904.

Want to guess what was located on Mill Plain?

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