It traditionally has been called the Manor Highway.
But it takes a long stretch of the imagination to see Northeast 72nd Avenue as a highway. Narrow and without shoulders, carrying increasingly heavy traffic, the county road cuts through the center of one of Clark County's more historic areas, Manor.

Before the turn of the century, Manor, located about 10 miles north of Vancouver, was a bustling community. It boasted its own school and post office, a general store, blacksmith shop, creamery, Grange, Odd Fellows lodge and the Flatwoods Wide-awake Literary Society.

Little remains of that historic community, except for the Manor Evangelical Church with roots going back to the 1860s. This church was established by a Methodist circuit rider, a Reverend Alexander, whose descendants still live in the area.

The church was constructed in 1901 and serves a congregation of about 100. The denomination has been changed from United Brethren to Evangelical Church of North America, but the congregation has remained the stable over the years.

The pastor is the Rev. Mark Purkey who said growth of the congregation has forced construction of a new, larger church complex next to the historic building, at the northeast corner of the intersection of Northeast 72nd Avenue and Northeast 179th Street.

"We intend eventually to open a Christian school here," Purkey said. "The new sanctuary will have seating for more than 400 people."

Purkey said the foundations are being poured, but further construction must await financing.

The first settler in the district, which was originally called Flatwood, was believed to be J.E. Ricketts. A native of Ohio, Ricketts crossed the plains by covered wagon in 1853. He took a homestead April 3, 1861, at the northeast corner of what is now the intersection of Northeast 72nd Avenue and Northeast 159th Street.

Other settlers followed close behind, and in a few years Flatwood had become a sizeable settlement. Some of the other pioneers were Andrew Sturges, Ira Patterson, William Cross, Matt McClung and Andrew Anderson.

The first Flatwood school was opened in the home of Sarah Dixon in 1867. Mrs. Dixon was paid $60 for teaching the three-month term.

The following year a one-room, log school was built and the Flatwood School District 26 was formed.

Paul Engelking, 75, still lives in the community and remembers attending the little Manor school about 1910.

"It had two rooms when I went there," Engelking said. "It was located at the southeast corner of the intersection."

Engelking said he attended the school for eight years. "I wasn't much of a learner," he admitted. "I was more of a worker."

The area had been called Flatwood because of the level terrain covered with thick timber. Engelking said he, his father and brothers cleared hundreds of acres in the area to open the land up to farming.

"We used a big steam donkey and derrick to pull the stumps, which had been loosened by dynamite," he said. "Then we stacked the stumps in big piles and burned them."

The Manor Grange is the social center of Manor. It dates back to 1939. A predecessor, the Flatwood Grange, was started in the early 1890s.

The Manor post office was founded in August 1892 with James K. Alexander as first postmaster. The post office was closed in 1911.

There has been little building and development in the Manor area in recent years, but residents expect this to change as the subdivisions creep north. Farming remains a major occupation, including several large dairy operations.