Description
Early settlement buildings take visitors back to the 1840s, when Euro-American missionaries and immigrants settled in the Mid-Willamette Valley, home to the Kalapuya. The 1841 Jason Lee House and Methodist Parsonage are the oldest standing wooden frame houses in the Pacific Northwest, featured along with the John D. Boon House (1847) and Pleasant Grove Church (1854), built by Oregon Trail immigrants. The 1896 Thomas Kay Woolen Mill, a National Park Service-designated American Treasure, vividly tells the story of industrialization in the Mid-Willamette Valley. Experience work and life in what was once a leading textile factory in Oregon, the legacy of which is continued today by Pendleton Woolen Mills. Changing exhibitions at the Willamette Heritage Center explore and highlight the rich and diverse cultural heritage of the Mid-Willamette Valley.
The Willamette Heritage Center (WHC) is a private, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization formed from the merger of the Mission Mill Museum and the Marion County Historical Society. It continues their legacy through a mission to preserve and interpret the history of the Mid-Willamette Valley.
