The Tualatin Plains are a prairie area in central Washington County,

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Located around the Hillsboro and Forest Grove areas, the plains were first inhabited by the

Atfalati The Atfalati , also known as the Tualatin or Wapato Lake IndiansRobert H. Ruby, John A. Brown & Cary C. Collins, Atfalati, in ''A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest'' (3d ed. 2010, University of Oklahoma Press) are a tribe of the ...

band of the

Kalapuya The Kalapuya are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American ethnic group, people, which had eight independent groups speaking three mutually intelligible dialects. The Kalapuya tribes' traditional homelands were the Willamette Va ...

group of Native Americans. Euro-American settlement began in the 1840s.

Geography

Located in the

Tualatin Valley The Tualatin Valley is a farming and suburban region southwest of Portland, Oregon in the United States. The valley is formed by the meandering Tualatin River, a tributary of the Willamette River at the northwest corner of the Willamette Valley, ...

, the Tualatin Plains are drained by the

Tualatin River The Tualatin River is a tributary of the Willamette River in Oregon in the United States. The river is about long, and it drains a fertile farming region called the Tualatin Valley southwest and west of Portland, Oregon, Portland at the northwes ...

. They are bounded on the north and east by the foothills of

Tualatin Mountains The Tualatin Mountains (also known as the West Hills or Southwest Hills of Portland) are a range on the western border of Multnomah County, Oregon, United States. A spur of the Northern Oregon Coast Range, they separate the Tualatin Basin of Washi ...

, and to the south by the foothills of the

Chehalem Mountains The Chehalem Mountains are a mountain range located in the Willamette Valley in the U.S. state of Oregon. Forming the southern boundary of the Tualatin Valley, the Chehalems are the highest mountains in the Willamette Valley. The range extends fr ...

. On the west the foothills of the

Northern Oregon Coast Range The Northern Oregon Coast Range is the northern section of the Oregon Coast Range, in the Pacific Coast Ranges physiographic region, located in the northwest portion of the state of Oregon, United States. This section of the mountain range, part o ...

define their limit.

History

Native Americans were the first inhabitants the area, subsisting as a hunter-gather society. The Atfalati band, like many of the tribes in the

Willamette Valley The Willamette Valley ( ) is a long valley in Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides: the Cascade Range to the east, ...

, would burn the flat lands of the valley to promote the growth of grasslands.The Tualatin Plains.

Washington County Museum Five Oaks Museum, formerly known as the Washington County Museum, is a history museum in Washington County, Oregon, United States. It is located at the Rock Creek campus of Portland Community College (PCC), north of Beaverton, Oregon. From 2012 t ...

. Retrieved on February 11, 2008. This annual activity promoted easier hunting and seed gathering among other benefits. It also kept much of the land on the valley floor un-forested. By the 1830s diseases decimated the native populations in the region, including the Tualatin Plains.Corning, Howard M. (1989) ''Dictionary of Oregon History''. Binfords & Mort Publishing. p. 113, 190, 250. In the 1830s the

Hudson’s Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...

used some of these fire‐cleared areas to raise crops for use at

Fort Vancouver Fort Vancouver was a 19th century fur trading post that was the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department, located in the Pacific Northwest. Named for Captain George Vancouver, the fort was located on the northern bank of the ...

and in trade. In 1840, former mountain men of the fur trade settled on the north section of the plains. These included George W. Ebbert,

Joseph Meek Joseph Lafayette "Joe" Meek (February 9, 1810 – June 20, 1875) was a pioneer, mountain man, law enforcement official, and politician in the Oregon Country and later Oregon Territory of the United States. A trapper involved in the fur trad ...

, and Caleb Wilkins among others. Congregational minister

Harvey L. Clark Harvey L. Clarke (October 2, 1807 – March 25, 1858) was an educator, missionary, and settler first on the North Tualatin Plains which would become Glencoe, Oregon, and then on the West Tualatin Plains that would become Forest Grove, Oregon. ...

started a missionary school in 1841 just north of East Tualatin Plains, now Hillsboro. The school was soon moved to West Tualatin Plains (now Forest Grove) where in 1847 Clark was joined by

Tabitha Moffatt Brown Tabitha Moffatt Brown (May 1, 1780 – May 4, 1858) was an American pioneer colonist who traveled the Oregon Trail to the Oregon Country. There she assisted in the founding of Tualatin Academy, which would grow to become Pacific University in F ...

, the Mother of Oregon. In 1842, David Hill settled on the east plains, naming the settlement Columbus, which would eventually become Hillsboro. In 1844, some of these early pioneers established a

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

at West Union, the first Baptist church west of the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

. When the

Provisional Government of Oregon The Provisional Government of Oregon was a popularly elected settler government created in the Oregon Country, in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Its formation had been advanced at the Champoeg Meetings since February 17, 1841, a ...

formed in 1843, the Plains were part of the Twality District that was composed of the northwest section of the region, including what would become

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

. After

Clatsop County Clatsop County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 41,072. The county seat is Astoria. The county is named for the Clatsop tribe of Native Americans, who lived along the coast of ...

was drawn from it, the remainder became Twality County in 1845, and Washington County in 1849. At that time Portland was still part of the county, and agricultural goods from the Plains were transported there to be sold. This led to the building of a plank road between the Plains and Portland, known as Canyon Road, which helped to secure Portland as the main port for Oregon.Engeman, Richard
Oregon History Project: Subtopic: Sawn Lumber and Greek Temples: 1850-1870: Town Beginnings.
Oregon Historical Society. Retrieved on February 11, 2008. Later years saw increased settlement and eventual urbanization over much of the landscape. Communities such as North Plains, Beaverton, Reedville, and Cornelius would join Forest Grove and Hillsboro on the Tualatin Plains. In the 1950s growth of an electronics industry focused on

Tektronix Tektronix, Inc., historically widely known as Tek, is an American company best known for manufacturing test and measurement devices such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. Originally an independent ...

would create the foundation for what is known as the

Silicon Forest Silicon is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a Tetravalence, tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member ...

References

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External links

Watershed
Grasslands of Oregon Landforms of Washington County, Oregon Prairies

Geography

History

See also

References

External links