Basic HTML Version
18
TUALATIN CENTENNIAL
January 3, 2013
1948
—Winona Grange
sponsored larger youth
group for degree work,
dancing, drama and music.
1951
—Crawfish Festival,
sponsored by VFW, raised
funds for park development.
1954
—The I-5 freeway
cut a swath through Tuala-
tin.
1962
—Columbus Day
Storm’s, 116-miles-per-hour
winds left utter destruction.
1962
—A 15,000-year-old
mastodon was unearthed in
a bog by geology student
John George.
1963
—Old farms sold off
for subdivision.
1965
—Ramada Inn
opened.
1969
—Tertiary Sewage
Treatment Plant built.
1972
—Van Raden donat-
ed estate to city of Tualatin.
1973
—Meridian Park
Hospital opened.
1976
—The old brick store
became Rich’s Kitchen res-
taurant.
1976
— SaarinenWayside
Park opened.
1977
— Stoneridge Park
and Little Woodrose Park
opened.
1978
— Senior Center
opened.
1979
— Lafky Park
opened.
1979
—Tualatin began
getting Bull Run water.
TUALATIN
TIMELINE
Continued from page 15
Continued on page 22
By RAY PITZ
PamplinMedia Group
W
hile the origins of early lawen-
forcement efforts inTualatin
are sketchy, several facts are
clear: The city had no formal
police department with the day-to-day du-
ties of upholding the law undertaken by a
town marshal.
William “Bill” Barngrover was one of
those early town marshals, according to his
daughter, Rita (Barngrover) Conover, and
she has an old Tualatin police chief badge
her father once owned as proof.
Conover said she’s not sure how long her
father served as marshal (his tenure most
likely occurring in the 1930s) and it would
be more than 40 years until the Tualatin Po-
lice Department was formed.
Althoughshecanrecall
little fromher father'sdays
in lawenforcement,
Conoverdoesremember
thathehelped investigate
themurderof aTualatin
resident,whoshebelieves
waskilledalongTualatin-
SherwoodRoad inthe1930s.
“I remember that
(from) when I was a kid,”
she said. “That was a big,
big thing. I don’t think it
was ever solved.”
Later, an author would
write about the murder in
a detective book, she said.
The organizational
structure of Tualatin law
enforcement prior to 1970
appears to have included
volunteer patrols, accord-
ing to an ad hoc police
protection committee that issued a report in
August 1981. However, such patrols no lon-
ger were working effectively as the city
grew larger.
“Finding qualified volunteers proved to
be difficult, and city officials eventually con-
ceded that this type of approach to law en-
forcement had the potential for creating
more problems than it would solve,” accord-
ing to the committee's report.
As a result, the city signed a contract
with theWashington County Sheriff's De-
partment in 1970 to provide police services,
an arrangement that continued until Jan. 1,
1987. That was the date that the newly
formed Tualatin Police Department official-
ly began patrolling a city that had grown to
almost 12,000 residents. SteveWinegar be-
came the department's first chief, sworn in
during ceremonies at the Tualatin-Durham
Senior Center on Dec. 29, 1986.
Earlier this year, during the Tualatin Po-
lice Department's awards and appreciation
ceremony, current Police Chief Kent W.
Barker praisedWinegar and the original
members of that department, likening their
accomplishments to constructing a house.
“It took 12 sworn officers to build a foun-
dation for that home,” Barker said. “We all
know that without a strong foundation, the
house will collapse.”
All those officers, one of whom has since
died, received a special commemorative
badge celebrating the 25th anniversary of
the department.
Winegar recently recalled that when the
new police department was established, of-
ficers worked out of the second floor of the
building where the Tualatin City Council
still meets on Martinazzi Avenue.
In the early 1990s, the department moved
to its second home in space next to what is
now the Hot Seat Sports Bar.
One of the unique challenges Winegar
discovered when he helped create the de-
partment (the former chief had formerly
been one of thoseWashington County depu-
ties who patrolled the city) from scratch
was discovering there was no organized cul-
ture or institutional knowledge to draw
from.
Still, he said he had a great career with a
supportive city manager and city council-
ors. He retired in 2003, and Chief Barker
took over.
Tualatin voters eventually passed a bond
to build a new police headquarters, which
officers have occupied since 2000. The build-
ing's architecture, especially its interior
configuration, is often held up as a state-of-
the-art facility that is often toured by police
from other cities who hope to build a similar
structure, said Barker.
As part of the celebration of Tualatin’s
first 100 years, a new centennial badge will
be issued to officers in 2013.
Crime in Tualatin
Althoughmajor crimes in Tualatin have of-
ten occurred fewand far between, the city
has had its share of themdating back to a
1916 doublemurder involving a 41-year-old
Tualatinwoman and a Portland taxi driver.
According to the book “Tualatin... from the
Beginning” by LoyceMartinazzi andKaren
LafkyNygaard, thewoman (who officials be-
lievewasmurderedwith an 11-pound ham-
mer) and the taxi driver (whowas discovered
in a ditchwith a crushed skull) were front-
page fodder for both the old PortlandOrego-
nian and the Oregon Journal for several
weeks as details of the case emerged. Eventu-
ally, Bennett Thompsonwas convicted of the
murders and sentenced to life in the state
penitentiary.
Meanwhile, former Police Chief Steve
Winegar recalls two terrible crimes that oc-
curred while he was chief. The first oc-
curred in the late 1980s, an execution-type
homicide that occurred at the Baskin Rob-
bins in Tualatin. The suspect in that case is
still in jail.
The second case happened in the 1990s
when the dismembered body of a man was
discovered stuffed in a container in a local
storage facility on McEwan Avenue. That
was a case where his department “solved
the unsolvable,” Winegar said.
Tualatin swore in first police
chief on Dec. 29, 1986
Barngrover helped blaze trail early
on as one of city’s first marshals
Law and order
Tualatin Police
Department by
the numbers
Q
POPULATION:
1987: 11,690;
2012: 26,400
Q
CALLS FOR
SERVICE: 1987:
4,709; 2012:
28,016
Q
TRAFFIC CITA-
TIONS:
1987:
989; 2012:
4,031
Q
MEMBERS:
1987:
12 sworn
officers, one pro-
fessional staff;
2012: 38 sworn
officers, eight
professional staff
PHOTO BY DONALD S. ADAMS
This badge, believed to be from the 1930s,
belonged to Bill Barngrover, the father of Rita
Conover Barngrover and the great-
grandfather of Donald S. Adams, who shot this
photo. Barngrover was an early town marshal,
keeping law and order in Tualatin’s early days.
He would go on to establish two fire
departments.