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TUALATIN CENTENNIAL
January 3, 2013
408289.010313TC
408286.010313 TC
Metro-West Realty
has been located
in Tualatin for
over 50 years.
Our three generations
of Realtors have been
a part of the
development and
growth of Tualatin.
We have watched the
city grow from a sleepy
farm town to a thriving
community.
Lee and Peggy
Gensman started the
business in the 60’s
and became actively
involved in all aspects
of civic life.
As the heirs to this
legacy, we are proud of
our business and offer
our service and
expertise in all areas of
Real Estate.
Residential- Farm- Equestrian-
Investment- Commerical sales and
leasing-Urban Neighborhood Specialist
Hablamos Español.
www.metro-westrealty.com
18963 SW 84th Ave
Tualatin, OR 97062
503-692-3050
By SAUNDRA SORENSON
Pamplin Media Group
W
hen Lam Research Com-
pany finalized its merger
with Novellus Systems on
June 4, 2012, the two semi-
conductor manufacturers combined
forces not only to put Tualatin on the
tech map, but also to become Tualatin’s
largest private sector employer.
It’s a far cry from one of Tualatin’s first
true payrolls: the modest sawmill the
Saum couple built in 1879. Or is it? Like
California-based companies Lam and No-
vellus, George and Gertrude Saumwere
recent Oregon transplants who saw a
chance to keep up with the technology of
their day and use it to push their growing
community ahead. George knew that as
Tualatin rapidly grew, construction de-
mands would require lumber that could
most easily be acquired from the Durham
family mill quite a trek away. The Saums’
savvy 80-acre investment, as well as the
installation of a strategically placed dam
and all the accoutrements of a function-
ing lumber mill, guaranteed the Saums a
steady local customer base.
But it wasn’t until nearly a decade later
that Tualatin — by then forging its identi-
ty as a true agricultural community —
would have its central employer. The en-
terprising Smith family had arrived in
1890 and quickly established a thriving
lumber and logging business after buying
and relocating a sawmill from the Savage
family. The resulting Tualatin Mill Co.
was a family-run affair that drew scores
of able-bodied men into town.
Bricks brought trains
Residential planning was on the rise,
area families of means plotted out their
own family subdivisions and there were
so many students, the schoolhouse was
bursting at the seams — all positive eco-
nomic indicators. And John L. Smith, the
true visionary of his clan, was expanding
his business ventures. He boosted his
growing construction company by creat-
ing a brickyard and began work on a
rather ingenious plan to use railroad
technology to acquire brick materials
from further afield.
Sadly, a freak accident robbed Tualatin
of one of its most energetic businessmen:
Perhaps fittingly, John L.. Smith died as
the result of an on-the-job incident. No
other Smith volunteered to take up the
mantle, and the town’s primary employer
dwindled as the Tualatin Mill Co. was
slowly shuttered.
The dog food era
In 1948, a less romantic endeavor of-
fered steady work to Postwar job-seekers
when the Blue Mountain dog food plant
began operations in the city. The facility
accepted frequent deliveries of horse-
meat from a local slaughterhouse owner,
but after a mere four years in existence,
the plant went up for sale. It captured the
whimsy, morbid curiosity, or both of a
Portland-based clothing advertising exec-
utive. Jason Hervin staked his claim on
what would become an olfactory blight in
the middle of town for nearly 40 years.
The Hervin Company hardly improved
its public image when it was sold to Alpo
Food Company in 1986, with Alpo quickly
announcing its plans to cease pet food
production on-site, thereby laying off or
relocating 130 employees. But the public
seemed equally outraged by the Hervin
Company’s announcement that one spe-
cific division of the company would quite
literally be eliminated: Approximately 40
dogs and cats who had been employed as
taste testers would be out of work and
consequently destroyed. (An AP article
published on Dec. 20 of that year stated
the Hervin Company received an over-
whelming number of phone calls from an
outraged public looking to adopt the pink-
slipped pets, so it’s unlikely any of
Hervin’s former four-legged staff were
euthanized.) The plant was closed by 1990
and made way for what is now the Tuala-
tin Commons.
But Tualatin’s industry wasn’t all agri-
culture, lumber and offal: At least one
rock band contributed its share to the lo-
cal economy. Portland band the Kings-
men recorded “Louie, Louie” (an innocu-
A quick look at some
of the city’s more
interesting employers
Tualatin’s ever-changing industry