Stafford was named by George A. Steel, a prominent Portland pioneer, after his hometown of Stafford, Ohio, in the 1860s.[5] The Stafford School opened in the community in 1892, and the following year the Eastside Electric Railway owned by Steel reached the area.[5] In 1895, the Wanker family moved to the area and bought land where they built a store and tavern, an area later to become Wankers Corner at the intersection of Stafford Road and Borland Road.[5] Wanker is a German surname (pronounced Wonker), but because the word 'wanker' is also a slang term for 'masturbator' in British English, Wankers Corner has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names.[6] The two buildings currently located at Wanker's Corner are the Wanker's Country Store and the Wanker's Corner Saloon and Cafe. It is no longer a recognized community; Stafford Post Office operated from 1878 to 1905. It doesn't consistently appear on maps of Oregon (although the AAA map of Oregon shows it in an inset). The United States Geological Survey classifies Wankers Corner as a "locale": "a place at which there is or was human activity".[7][8]
Parts of the Stafford area were proposed to be added to the Portland area's urban growth boundary in 1995.[5] Eventually 830 acres (3.4 km2) were added, but later removed after a court fight that ended in 2001 at the Oregon Court of Appeals.[5] In November 2006, the residents of Stafford voted 344–30 to form a hamlet, the second Oregon community to do so (after Beavercreek).[10]
