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Save the Date!!
THS Wine, Food and Silent Auction Fundraiser
Friday, September 12, 6:00 to 9:00pm
Location: Tualatin Heritage Center
$25 per person, 21 and over only
Join us for the Tualatin Historical Society’s annual fund-raising event “Locally grown…preserving the history of Tualatin”. Enjoy the sounds of Island Trio, taste Northwest wines, delicious food, and silent auction, $25 per person. Doors open at 5:30pm. For information, donations and tickets, call 503.885.1926 or email lindy.thc@gmail.com.
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.
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