Dairy Creek is the largest Tualatin River tributary. It has a 226 square miles watershed. Its headwaters are located at the start of East Fork Dairy Creek and West Fork Dairy Creek. Its major tributaries are Council Creek and McKay Creek.
In the1840s former Hudson’s Bay Company employees established the community of Centerville next to Dairy Creek. Centerville had a dairy which provided Dairy Creek its name. Butter and cheese from this dairy was sent to Fort Vancouver for export to Russian Alaska.
Sometime after 1869, Dairy Creek was sufficiently cleared for the Steamboat Onward to begin making trips to Dairy Creek Mile 2.0 and possibly to Centerville (Dairy Creek Mile 8.0). Centerville was located about two miles north of Cornelius where Washington County’s first road, the A-1 crossed Dairy Creek.
