Tualatin Discovery Challenge Want a fun way to learn more about Tualatin's History? Join in the Tualatin Discovery Challenge here! Compile your own Tualatin Discovery Journal by documenting your discoveries of some of Tualatin's fascinating history. Once completed bring your journal to Tualatin Historical Society at the Tualatin Heritage Center (8700 SW Sweek Drive) by December 1, 2013 for entry to win a $100 gift card from Bridgeport Village and 12 free Regal Theater tickets and other great prizes. A panel of judges will select the most complete electronic or hard-copy journal with the winner announced at the 2013 Starry Nights and Holiday Lights event on Friday, December 6, 2013. Runners-up will receive prizes as well. If you have questions about the Tualatin Discovery Challenge call the Tualatin Heritage Center at 503.885.1926.

The Tualatin Historical Society began in 1986, 27 years ago.  Co-founders Loyce Martinazzi and the late Karen Lafky Nygaard thought their interest in Tualatin's early days might be shared by others.  They were correct.  Early programs, held in the then-new Senior Center and built around a theme--early schools, Oregon Trail settlers, covered bridges--drew good crowds.  Many activities and publications followed, fulfilling the mission "to preserve, promote and interpret the rich and colorful history of Tualatin."

Pictorial calendars were published for the years 1988-199l.  In 1988 the Society held a Diamond Jubilee Ball in Ramada Inn celebrating Tualatin's 75th birthday.  It has sponsored harvest festivals, barn dances, Oregon pioneer days for 4th graders, a Winona Cemetery Stroll at Twilight where 25 early settlers "emerged" from behind their gravestones to tell their story, Tualatin's First Hundred Years, a narrated video of early Tualatin scenes, mini-museums in the Van Raden Center at Crawfish Festivals, tours of historic houses, strawberry festivals and elegant teas at the Sweek House.

The Society has a growing collection of vintage photographs, numbering some 1162 that have been  digitized and several hundred more that remain to be scanned.  In 1990 Society members dismantled the 1875 Hedges House with a plan to re-erect it downtown--the plan came to naught but John Bowles built a charming miniature of the quaint farmhouse for exhibit.  In 1991 the Society helped raise $8,000 to have the collection of mastodon bones assembled by the University of Oregon for a standing display in Tualatin's original library.

In 1994 the Society published Tualatin...From the Beginning, updated in 2004, that tells the history from the ancient mastodon to the upscale Tualatin Commons.  There is an ongoing program of recording oral histories; some are included in the four books in the Tualatin-the-way-It-Was series. Last year it published a Little Red Schoolhouse coloring book.

In 2006 the Society led the fund-raising of $250,000 to move and preserve the 1926 Methodist Church.  It was rolled down the street to a site on Sweek Drive where it is co-operated with the City and serves as the Tualatin Heritage Center.  The opening of the Center is celebrated each February with a program on some aspect of Tualatin's history.  This year's was "Prehistoric Tualatin--Valley of the Giants and Ice-Age Floods."  

A Heritage Garden planted next to the Center holds descendants of flowers and plants from the early settlers, including the Robbins rose that came over the Oregon Trail and hop plants from an early hop yard.  Funds for the garden, $13,000 to date, have been raised by the sale of engraved bricks in the courtyard.

Society membership now totals more than 200.  The Society's board meets on the first Monday of each month and holds monthly programs with guest speakers on the first Wednesday.  Both are at 1:00 pm in the Center, and are open to the public.

Prehistoric Update:

Read the latest article, "ANCIENT GROUND SLOTH JOINS TUALATIN’s PREHISTORIC ANIMALS".

Did you know that...

At the close of the last ice age, a mastodon, perhaps injured or in poor health, died in the area that is now Tualatin?

The Atfalati tribe of the Kalapuya Indians settled in the region, rich with game, fish and natural foods and that many of their artifacts were found by the first homesteaders and later farmers?

Coming by covered wagons over the Oregon Trail, pioneers began arriving in 1850. By 1853, 26 families settled donation land claims and the hamlet was known as Galbreath for the local ferry by that name? Or that Taylor's Ferry was upriver and Brown's Ferry, downriver?

We invite and encourage you to make connections to the past by learning about Tualatin and joining us in our mission.