Five Oaks Museum, formerly known as the Washington County Museum, is a history

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

Washington County, Oregon Washington County is one of 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon and part of the Portland metropolitan area. The 2020 census recorded the population as 600,372, making it the second most populous county in the state and most populous "Wash ...

, United States. It is located at the Rock Creek campus of

Portland Community College Portland Community College (PCC) is a public community college in Portland, Oregon. It is the largest post-secondary institution in the state and serves residents in the five-county area of Multnomah, Washington, Yamhill, Clackamas, and Colu ...

(PCC), north of

Beaverton, Oregon Beaverton is a city in Washington County, in the U.S. state of Oregon with a small portion bordering Portland in the Tualatin Valley. The city is among the main cities that make up the Portland metropolitan area. Its population was 97,494 at the ...

. From 2012 to 2017, its public exhibit space was located in downtown

Hillsboro, Oregon Hillsboro ( ) is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and is the county seat of Washington County. Situated in the Tualatin Valley on the west side of the Portland metropolitan area, the city hosts many high-technology companies, ...

, before it was moved back to PCC, its pre-2012 location and where the museum's research facility had already been located. Opened in 1975, the museum is operated by the Washington County Historical Society with a mission of preserving the history of the area. The museum's site at PCC's Rock Creek Campus also includes a research library and is home to the original Washington County Jail built in 1853.Get Out Guide.
OregonLive.com. Retrieved on March 31, 2007.

History

In the 1930s, local historian

Albert E. Tozier Albert E. Tozier (March 7, 1860 – June 27, 1937) was an American newspaper editor and local historian in Oregon. A native of Nebraska, he moved to Oregon as a child with his parents, settling in Hillsboro. His father, Charles T. Tozier, served ...

donated his collection of artifacts, books, maps, and other items to the county historical society.Buan, Carolyn M. ''This Far-Off Sunset Land: A Pictorial History of Washington County, Oregon''. Donning Company Publishers, 1999. p. 15. Beginning in 1939, the artifacts were displayed at Hillsboro's Carnegie Library. In 1956, the Washington County Historical Society was incorporated.Our History.
Washington County Museum. Retrieved on February 29, 2008. In 1962, the society looked at using

Shute Park Shute Park is a municipal park in the city of Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. Acquired in 1906, the park is the oldest park in the city. Located at southeast Tenth and Maple streets along Tualatin Valley Highway, Shute Park includes an aquatic ...

as a possible home for their museum, temporarily moved their collections to the park's pavilion. Then in 1975 the county decided to start a formal

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

museum. From 1975 to 1987, Washington County owned and operated the museum. During that time the museum was in downtown

, at the Heidel Home. Washington County Museum on PCC Rock Creek campus (2018)

In 1982, a new museum was built at the Portland Community College (PCC) campus at Rock Creek, and it opened in January 1983. Then in September 1987 the Washington County Historical Society took over operations at the museum. In 2008, following the hiring of Sam Shogren, the museum began a $1.7 million expansion of the facility to more than double the size of the museum. The museums annual fundraiser featured

Oregon State Beavers The Oregon State Beavers are the athletic teams that represent Oregon State University, located in Corvallis, Oregon. The Beavers compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I ( Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) for c ...

basketball coach Craig Robinson as the master of ceremonies in 2009 and raised around $90,000 for the museum.

2012 move

In 2012, the museum moved into a space at the

Hillsboro Civic Center The Hillsboro Civic Center is a government-built, mixed-use development in downtown Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. The development includes the city hall for the county seat of Washington County, located west of Portland, Oregon. Covering , ...

, in a return to downtown Hillsboro, with the first exhibits at the new location opening in November 2012. The new space covered on the second floor in the commercial portion of the center. After signing a fifteen-year lease, the museum was set to complete $1.5 million in improvements to both the new space and the former location at PCC. At the time of the opening of the Civic Center space, museum officials said a lot of work to prepare the new site for the regular exhibits remained to be undertaken, and that it was likely to be 2014 before all of the exhibits were moved from PCC to downtown Hillsboro, with the then-new space in downtown to be used mainly for temporary, special exhibits in the meantime. One of the first of these was a traveling

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

exhibit of the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...

. The former museum building at PCC underwent renovations in 2014–2015, and continued in use as a repository for the county archives and an historical research facility. After the departure of the exhibit ''Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe'' in May 2013, a new featured exhibit on the history of the development of the Silicon Forest in Washington County was installed, opening in April 2014. An exhibit exploring the history of the Bracero Program was also a featured exhibit. To coincide with the inaugural season of the

Hillsboro Hops The Hillsboro Hops are a Minor League Baseball team in the Pacific Northwest, northwest United States, located in Hillsboro, Oregon, a city in the Portland metropolitan area. The Hops are members of the Northwest League as an affiliate of the Ariz ...

minor league baseball team, the museum opened an exhibit in June 2013 spotlighting the history of baseball in the county. In June 2014 the museum's board and executive director Sam Shogren parted ways according to then board president Betty Atteberry. The director in 2016 was Mark S. Harmon. The museum closed for several weeks in February 2015 to retrofit exhibit walls for seismic upgrades.

2017 move

In September 2017, the museum's board voted to leave the Hillsboro Civic Center location in downtown and move its exhibits back to PCC Rock Creek. The increase in attendance that the 2012 move to downtown Hillsboroa higher-profile, more accessible locationhad been expected to generate failed to materialize. The museum closed permanently at the Hillsboro Civic Center in September and reopened at PCC Rock Creek on October 25, 2017.

2020 rebrand

In January 2020, the Washington County Museum was renamed Five Oaks Museum, in honor of a local historic site.

Details

The museum received 5,000 visitors annually at the PCC Rock Creek campus location's facility.A call to step up, help county history stay alive A call to step up, help county history stay alive. ''

The Oregonian ''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 185 ...

'', June 15, 2006. When located at the Hillsboro Civic Center, the museum operated a small store, selling books about local history, historical toys, and an assortment of other small gift items. The PCC Rock Creek location is the Robert L. Benson Research Library with over 25,000 images, more than 1,400 maps, and over 500 books along with other historical records and newspapers. The Rock Creek location also serves as the collection storage facility housing over 40,000 artifacts and items of historical significance to the County's history, and is open by appointment only. WaCoMinside

Collections, exhibits, programs

On exhibit at the museum's PCC Rock Creek site is the original Washington County Jail built in 1853."The years have changed 'Doing Time'", ''

'', September 9, 2004. This structure was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

from 1986 until 2008. Previously located at the county fairgrounds, the structure was rehabilitated and moved to the museum in 2004. The by

jail A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...

house was originally located inside the museum, but was moved outside when the museum was expanded in 2007. Other artifacts in the collections range from everyday items such as

sewing machine A sewing machine is a machine used to sew fabric and materials together with thread. Sewing machines were invented during the first Industrial Revolution to decrease the amount of manual sewing work performed in clothing companies. Since the inv ...

s, to a wedding dress of a local prominent family. The museum's other exhibits include ''This IS Kalapuya Land'' that focuses on the Native Americans of the area, ''Washington County in a Nutshell'' that features artifacts from throughout the county's history, and a changing exhibit along with visiting collections. Visiting exhibits have included ''Oregon is Indian Country'' from the

Oregon Historical Society The Oregon Historical Society (OHS) is an organization that encourages and promotes the study and understanding of the history of the Oregon Country, within the broader context of U.S. history. Incorporated in 1898, the Society collects, preser ...

, among others. Formerly, the museum hosted an annual

plowing A plough or plow ( US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, iron or ...

event named the Draft Horse Plowing Exhibition to demonstrate farming before mechanized agriculture.Draft Horse Plowing Exhibition, ''

'', May 19, 2006. However, the event has moved to

Champoeg State Park Champoeg ( , historically Horner, John B. (1919). ''Oregon: Her History, Her Great Men, Her Literature''. The J.K. Gill Co.: Portland. p. 398.) is a former town in the U.S. state of Oregon. Now a ghost town, it was an important settlement in the W ...

. Washington County Museum also educates the local community on the history of the county including use of a mobile museum.Education.
Washington County Museum. Retrieved on February 29, 2008.

References

External links

*{{commonscat-inline History museums in Oregon Museums in Washington County, Oregon Museums established in 1975 Historical society museums in Oregon Prison museums in the United States Culture of Hillsboro, Oregon 1975 establishments in Oregon