"Over the Scholls Highway from its junction with the Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, OR10, approximately three miles west of Hillsdale, southwesterly via Progress and Kinton to its junction with the Hillsboro-Silverton Highway, OR219, at Scholls."
~ ODOT, Descriptions of US and Oregon Routes, March 2007
OR-210 was designated at the inception of the Oregon state route numbering system in 1935 along the Scholls Highway #143 between the small communities of Scholls and Raleigh Hills. Known as Scholls Ferry Rd., it passed through small communities such as Groners Corner, Kinton, Hiteon, Robinson, Progress, and Whitford before ending at OR-10 between Beaverton and Hillsdale at what is now Raleigh Hills. For the most part, the route remained unchanged until around 1990, when OR-210 and Scholls Ferry Rd. were rerouted onto Old Scholls Ferry Rd., creating what is now known as Barrows Rd. Curiously enough, the Scholls Highway #143 remained on Barrows Rd., despite signs each way clearly showing OR-210 on Scholls Ferry Rd.
The most amazing thing about OR-210 is its incredible shrinking state maintenance jurisdiction. Up until sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s, the entire route was under state jurisdiction. At some point two decades ago, the portion between Hall Blvd. (Beaverton-Tualatin Highway #141, now OR-141) and OR-10 (Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway #40) was turned over to Beaverton for city jurisdiction. Then, the aforementioned shift of OR-210 onto the "New" Scholls Ferry Rd. occurred, resulting in a gap of state maintenance in SW Beaverton. Most recently around 2003, the southern 9 miles of the Scholls Highway was turned over to Washington County and respective city maintenance between Scholls and a railroad crossing near OR-217. The result? Only fifty-seven hundredths of a mile of OR-210 is still under state maintenance, less than five percent. OR-210 is marked much better between Scholls and Beaverton than north of Scholls; aside from signage along Hall Blvd. and Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy., the only remnant of state maintenance along the section in between those roads is a lone MILE 12 marker along OR-210 northbound. Only state-maintained roads seem to acknowledge OR-210 north of Hall Blvd.
In my opinion, the Scholls Highway should be completely dropped from state mainenance, seeing as how all it does is connect OR-217 to Hall Blvd., but OR-210 should be kept along its entire route because it connects Beaverton to rural Washington County farm country and other destinations, such as Newberg.
What was OR-210 between 1935 and the late 1980's is still almost completely intact and is shown in red. OR-210 was moved off of this portion when Scholls Ferry Rd. was rerouted, changing what was Scholls Ferry Rd. into Barrows Rd. The state maintenance, however, remained on Barrows Rd. until sometime around 2003. A short section of Barrows Rd. was moved to a T-intersection at its western end before its removal from the state system. However, you can still tell a road used to be there by looking at the telephone poles that hug the old alignment.
Another former section of OR-210, called Old Scholls Ferry Rd., is shown in green. Now, this section is a little tricker to pin a date on. Topographic maps from 1984 imply that OR-210 runs across the green section, but ODOT Straight Line charts I have obtained show that the current routing existed in 1982, as well as maps I have from the 1970's and earlier (topographic maps are apparently notoriously inaccurate when it comes to route designations). A 1941 Shell map of Oregon seems to show the alignment over the green section (it is too zoomed-out to know for sure), so I would say that this alignment was bypassed by the 1950's.
MILES 1-4: Along this section, you can find instances of OR-210's former state-maintained glory, mostly in the form of rare old-style mileposts. Also, upon entering Kinton (at about MILE 4) you can still see an older ODOT town marking sign assembly (a little green sign with "Kinton" on it with an OR-210 reassurance shield immediately below). There ain't much else there.
MILE 12: There is a lone MILE 12 marker near OR-210's northern terminus, the only ODOT milemarker on this section of former Scholls Highway #143. It is also interesting to note that the only ODOT mileposts along all of OR-210 appear on sections not state-maintained.
