Welcome to our website about historic Garden Home. In the People and Places pages, you’ll find over a hundred stories and over a thousand photos of vintage Garden Home and residents attending our events.

Upcoming Events

May 8, 6:30 – 7:00 pm, Garden Home Recreation Center, 7475 SW Oleson Road, free: Thirty-minute slide show presentation about two historic local cemeteries, Crescent Grove Cemetery and the Scholls Ferry Cemetery and some of our notable early pioneers of the area. Learn about Dr. Henry Roe Cloud, once called the “most important living Indian” and his “Mother of the Year” wife. See how cemeteries continue to tell the stories of our families and our histories. Join us to learn about your community!

May 21, 2-3:30 pm, Crescent Grove Cemetery, 9925 SW Greenburg Road (next to Washington Square): Join us for a Sunday afternoon tour of graves of local pioneers and notable names in our early history.  Tigard, Greenburg, Fanno, Denney, and Oleson are just a few of the names. Wear comfortable shoes, bring an umbrella if indicated. Donation of $5 appreciated. You’ll hear wonderful stories of our early history.  Park down by the mausoleum at this beautiful historic Crescent Grove Cemetery.

News

The historic Partlow-Kickbush home on SW 78th Avenue has been demolished to make way for new construction. We don’t have details yet on the new construction.

Thanks to Stan Houseman for an excellent presentation on the history of Rummer homes at our last history project meeting.

Thanks to Washington County Museum for their March display of Garden Home photos and memoribilia. They continue to feature other communities each month. Go visit them in Hillsboro.

New stories on the website

We have a new memoir by Don Krom recounting his experiences living in Garden Home since the 1940s and his recollections of the people and places of Garden Home past.

We have a new story about Dorothy McNamara Bastien and her writing group in Garden Home in the 1940s.

We have a new story about T. E. Hills, a veteran of the US Civil War that lived in Garden Home. T. E. Hills lived in Garden Home from 1908 until his death at age 96 in 1941.

Slightly older stories on the website

We updated the the story about Leona Whitney to include new details about her popular chalkboard messages at the road by the Whitney’s Cannery, now the Old Market Pub.  We also updated the story about the Garden Home Cooperative Cannery to describe how it was first built over in the Progress shopping center and then built in Garden Home for its first birthday. Besides memberships, one of the co-op’s first fund raising events was a school carnival.

Warren Cook contributed an article about the Blue Bus service, owned by the Tualatin Valley Bus Company, that served the Garden Home area prior to acquisition by TriMet in 1970.

1903 Halloween Murder on the Garden Home Road! We previously posted a story about the other Garden Home road discussing how the moniker of Garden Home road used to refer to the route of SW Broadway Drive to SW Patton Road to SW Shattuck Road to SW Oleson Road. We discovered this fact when we stumbled across a story about the 1903 Halloween fatal shooting of Adolph Burkhardt on “the Garden Home road” by Samuel Bauman. This new story is the follow-up describing the details of slaying, the feud between two farmers that precipitated the killing, the mystery about where Adolph Burkhardt was killed, and the subsequent unusual capital murder trial proceedings.

We have a new story about Mr. Lumen H. Nichols, the first postmaster of Garden Home in the 1880s and 1890s. His store and post office are believed to have been on the SE corner of the intersection.

Heart Valve Research in Garden Home A retired engineer, M. Lowell Edwards, continued his lifelong research on valves and pumps by building an artificial heart here in the low industrial building (now Power Plumbing) on the western end of Multnomah Blvd.  He was soon connected to Dr. Albert Starr and began groundbreaking work on heart valves. Your editor received one!

Other News

You are invited to our very active Board meetings which are held the second Monday of most months, 6:30 pm at the Garden Home Recreation Center. We had 5 thirty-minute slide presentations last year from 6:30 to 7 pm. Our Board then meets at 7 pm. We’d love to have anyone interested to work with us.

Our 2016 activities included seven slideshow and speaker presentations:

• February, Tom Shreve presented 1950’s aerial photos of Garden Home
• March, Pat Dignan presented early photos and family life in the Hunt Club area.
• April, Virginia Vanture presented on the Century Homes
• May, Colin Lamb presented on history of early Thriftway, shopping center.
• June, Elaine Shreve slideshow Garden Components and review of History & Garden Tour
• October, Tom Shreve presented 1903 story of Murder on ‘the Garden Home Road’
• November, Tom Shreve presented his favorite photos of Garden Home area.

2016 Events:

• June 4, the History and Garden Tour, done with the Garden Home Gardeners.
• August 13, outdoor Reunion of Garden Home School and Beaverton High students
• Nov. 5, Bell Ringing at Garden Home Market, old church bell
• Dec. 3, Participation in Bazaar, sell handmade ornaments, bookmarks
• Dec. 12, Party at Shreve home.

 

Get your Historic Garden Home t-shirt now for just $14 for small to XL. Larger XXL and XXXL sizes are $17. There is an additional charge of $9 to mail your shirt. They’re fun! Available at the Garden Home Market Place.

Historic Garden Home street signs: We currently have about 35 of the Historic Garden Home street sign toppers in our community. Each sign was purchased by a friend or family member to honor their loved one. Click here to view photos of the signs and for information about sponsoring a sign.

Our generous donors permit us to print and mail this newsletter ($140) for our non-e-mail people and for the Garden Home Recreation Center. We also replace the Historic Garden Home street signs once for signs that disappear, current cost for each sign, $60. With our latest order, we’ll have about 35 signs out in our neighborhoods. We also have website costs, printing, paper, plaques and many other costs of an organization. Donor names are listed on our History Bulletin Board at the Recreation Center. Thank you to all of our donors and to all of our volunteers for their time and skills.