Milton Creek, is a waterway in Columbia County, Oregon, United States. It is long, rising in the

Oregon Coast Range The Oregon Coast Range, often called simply the Coast Range and sometimes the Pacific Coast Range, is a mountain range, in the Pacific Coast Ranges Physiographic regions of the world, physiographic region, in the United States, U.S. state of Or ...

and emptying into Scappoose Bay – a slough of

Multnomah Channel The Multnomah Channel is a distributary of the Willamette River. It diverges from the main stem a few miles upstream of the main stem's confluence with the Columbia River in Multnomah County in the U.S. state of Oregon. The channel flows northw ...

– one of the

distributaries A distributary, or a distributary channel is a stream channel that branches off and flows a main stream channel. It is the opposite of a ''tributary'', a stream that flows another stream or river. Distributaries are a result of river bifurca ...

of the

Willamette River The Willamette River ( ) is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward ...

where it enters the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook language, Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin language, Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river headwater ...

. The creek was named for a small settlement that was founded at the mouth of the creek in 1846, but later became Houlton because there was already a post office in Oregon with the name Milton ( Milton-Freewater). Houlton was later absorbed into St. Helens. The creek is home to several fish species, including

steelhead trout Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or Columbia River redband trout (''O. m. gairdneri'', also called redband steelhead). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacif ...

cutthroat trout The cutthroat trout (''Oncorhynchus clarkii'' clade) is a clade of four fish species of the Family (biology), family Salmonidae native to cold-water Tributary, tributaries of the Pacific Ocean, Rocky Mountains, and Great Basin in North America. ...

, and

coho salmon The coho salmon (''Oncorhynchus kisutch;'' Karuk: achvuun) is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family (biology), family and one of the five Pacific salmon species. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon (or "silvers") and is often ...

. Much of the undeveloped portion of the watershed is heavily forested. The upper reaches of Milton Creek receive around of precipitation a year, while the lower elevations closer to the Columbia River see closer to . Portions of Milton Creek have been significantly altered since permanent settlement came to the region for both farming and transporting logs. The lower originally flowed into the Columbia River through Jackass Canyon to the north of the courthouse in St. Helens but was relocated to its present path in 1861. Scappoose Bay and Multnomah Channel was later lined with

levee A levee ( or ), dike (American English), dyke (British English; see American and British English spelling differences#Miscellaneous spelling differences, spelling differences), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is an elevated ridge, natural ...

s to protect from flooding. The Scappoose Bay Watershed Council has undertaken several restoration projects along the creek and other Scappoose Bay tributaries since 2001.

References

{{reflist Tributaries of the Columbia River Columbia County, Oregon