Hello Garden Home History Friends,

Thank you to all of you who have responded so nicely to our monthly Updates about Garden Home history. This month its gavels, Extension, parsonage, Community Church, Shattuck and Scholls Ferry names, Mt. St. Helens, and a beaver dam!  We love to hear from you.

Garden Home Extension Group gavels

Garden Home Methodist Church gavels 1955

Thanks to our local Garden Home Extension group for their donation of two vintage gavels to us. Otto Arndt gave these gavels to two mission groups at the old Garden Home Community Church. You may recall that Otto lived across from the church, on Garden Home Road. His daughter also gave us his excellent aerial photos of Garden Home.

The Garden Home Extension Study Group has been meeting for over 55 years. Oregon State University sponsors the Extension Program, which is available through the Land Grant College funds for the State of Oregon. They have sent the year’s curriculum to the organization for the officers to then select those subjects of most interest to the local members.

Four lessons that have been selected by the Garden Home Extension Group for 2021 are:

• The Night Janitor” about our brain as we sleep;
• Medical Cannabis…Benefits & Ill Effects;
• Ireland, Green, Clean, Moist and Windy;
• and (my favorite) It’s All About Me…Writing Your Personal History.

They will also host a summer picnic and an outing. For more information or wish to participate, please call Diana Anderson, 503-992-6946.

Parsonage Consecration at the Garden Home Community Church, August 16, 1953

Old Community Church Parsonage Consecration, August 16, 1953 – cover

Old Community Church Parsonage Consecration, August 16, 1953 – inside

Old Community Methodist Church

This church was located on the south side of Garden Home Road at SW 71^st. The one hundred year old bell that was hung in the belfry there in 1918 now hangs in the grocery store and will be part of the new store. Many churches of this era wanted their ministers to live near nearby and thus worked to fund and develop a parsonage. This is the church program that the Garden Home Community Church used for the Consecration of the Parsonage on Sunday, August 16, 1953. The minister Reverend John Woods and his wife and four children used the new parsonage.

More historic names for local Garden Home streets

Judge Erasmus Shattuck

SW Shattuck Road sign

SW Shattuck Road (north off of Vermont at SW 65^th): Judge Erasmus D. Shattuck was born in 1824 and raised in Vermont. He excelled in school, taught Latin and mathematics and then went on to study law in offices in Atlanta and New York where he passed the bar. With his new wife, Sarah Armstrong, they came to Oregon by boat, via the Isthmus of Panama in 1853.

He entered local politics, education and public life, participating in framing the Constitution of the State of Oregon. As a judge in the Oregon Supreme Court, he also served on the City Council and was an early trustee of the Portland Library. In 1872 he purchased land from the Patton estate “to establish a country estate for his later years.” Shattuck Station was a stop for the Red Electric which was on his property north of Vermont St., associated with a major train wreck in May of 1920, one-hundred years ago. (The Oregon Electric ran through Garden Home.)

Upon his death, Harvey Scott, Morning Oregonian editor, wrote: He is a studious reader, a profound thinker, and an earnest and logical talker. How aspirational!

*Illustrated History of the State of Oregon, Chicago, Lewis Publishing Co. 1893.

*Ancestry. *National Register of Historic Places, under Ole Oleson.

Scholls Ferry Tales book cover

SW Scholls Ferry Road sign

SW Scholls Ferry Road: In 1847, Peter Scholl was an early settler in the area now called Scholls, southwest of Garden Home. He “built a raft of cedar logs and operated it as a ferry across the river. The raft was operated by human power, having been pulled across the river by rope. This later developed to be Scholls Ferry—one of the most prominent ferries on the Tualatin River for many years.” It took the people of Scholls three days to take produce to Portland, traveling in groups of 3 to 5 wagons to cut and dig roadway as needed.

*Scholls Ferry Tales by Margaret Hesse, published by Groner Women’s Club, Scholls, Oregon 1976.

Remember!

Mt St Helens eruption May 18, 1980

Remember the Big Blast 41 years ago, Mt. St. Helens major earthquake May 18, 1980. Killed 57 people.

Discover Garden Home!

Beaver dam at Hideaway Park, April 2021 (photo Kevin Mistler)

Look for the beaver dam on Woods Creek just as you enter Hideaway Park (drive carefully at entrance). Note the chewed trees and backed up water. A tributary of Fanno Creek, Woods Creek, goes under Oleson and merges with Fanno Creek inside the Portland Golf Club. Fanno Creek crosses the Fanno Creek Trail near SW 86^th Ave. We will update you with more information later.

Stay safe and well, from all of our dedicated Board of Directors: Esta Mapes, Sharon Vedder, John and Marie Pacella, Stan and Susan Houseman, Jan Fredrickson, Kevin Mistler and Elaine Shreve. Tom Shreve is our webmaster.

– Elaine

Elaine Shreve