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TUALATIN CENTENNIAL
January 3, 2013
15,000 YEARS AGO
—Cata-
strophic floods scoured the
valley as giantic dams broke
up during the end of the last
Ice Age, creating the Ton-
quin Scablands as well as
leaving rich fertile soil along
the Tualatin River.
15,000 YEARS AGO
—A fe-
male mastodon slipped into
the bog, and its bones were
dug up in 1962.
7,000 YEARS AGO
—Native
people called Atfalatis, a
band of Kalapuya, were in-
habiting the Tualatin area,
gathering bulbs and berries,
hunting and fishing in the
river.
1812
—Native Americans
encountered trappers from
the Pacific Fur Company.
1841
—Charles Wilkes, a
U.S. government scout sur-
veyed the Atfalati, sketching
the people and their cus-
toms.
1850
— Edward Byron and
Zenas Brown sailed around
the Horn and settled in the
Tualatin area.
1850
— Zenas Brown set
up a ferry on his land claim
which connected the Terri-
torial Road from Dayton to
Oregon City.
1850
—The Donation
Land Grant was passed by
TUALATIN
TIMELINE
Continued on page 6
TIMES FILE PHOTO
The mastodon exhibit at the
Tualatin Public Library.
By SAUNDRA SORENSON
Pamplin Media Group
T
ualatin’s decision to incorporate
had little to do with organizing a
local government or establish-
ing a tax base. And the issue of
becoming an incorporated municipality of
Washington County didn’t exactly make
for polite dinner conversation.
The fact that Tualatin’s residents
were so sharply divided on whether to
incorporate came down to one thing:
the drink.
The Temperance movement was in full
swing by 1913, and many in Tualatin iden-
tified as members of the influential Anti-
Saloon League, which was by then a na-
tional political lobbying force to be reck-
oned with. If newspaper clippings and an-
ecdotal evidence are
to be believed, in Tu-
alatin, one wasn’t
pro- or anti-incorpo-
ration. The two sides
of the argument ad-
dressed what were
seen as the sinful ef-
fects of alcohol ver-
sus the benefit of Tu-
alatin generating a li-
quor tax, which it
would as an incorpo-
rated city.
As the debate over
whether to criminal-
ize alcohol raged na-
tionally, a 1904 statewide legal option law
was adopted to allow each county in Ore-
gon to decide whether it would have
“wet” or “dry” status. Incorporated cities
fell under their county’s regulations.
Washington County was, in 1913, a wet
county.
“The Anti-Saloon League did not want
to incorporate because they thought
there would be more liquor sales,” said
Loyce Martinazzi, respected local histori-
an. “They were adamantly opposed to
any consumption of alcohol and thought
it was very corrupt. They were a very an-
gry people.”
The anti-liquor movement was gaining
momentum largely through religious fac-
tions. But as Martinazzi points out, suf-
fragettes had their own grievances: In
1913, the U.S. was seven years away from
Prohibition, and women would have to
wait just as long to gain the right to vote.
“They stayed home when their hus-
bands drank up the house’s income and
they didn’t have a vote” about whether to
incorporate, or on anything else, Martin-
azzi said.
A vocal supporter of incorporation was
city father John L. Smith, an influential
player in Tualatin’s burgeoning logging
and sawmill industries. Smith has been
credited with serving as Tualatin’s first
major employer, and the entrepreneur
pushed for Tualatin’s status as an official
city just as the town was becoming a ma-
jor thoroughfare for two railroad lines be-
tween Portland and Salem. The four-year
high school established in 1910 spoke to
Tualatin’s economic and social stability.
But later that year, Smith, one of incorpo-
ration’s greatest supporters, would be
killed in an on-site accident.
While a 1904 statewide local option law
granted each county of Oregon the right
to decide whether it would have wet or
dry status,” a 1913 revision stipulated
that, “No person shall be permitted to
sell, give, or in any manner dispose of any
spirits, malt, vinous liquors, near beer, or
fermented cider, in this state, outside of
the limits of any incorporated city or
town, etc.”
And so, a vote to incorporate would put
Tualatin at the mercy of Washington
County’s stance on liquor; remaining un-
incorporated meant Tualatin would stay
dry.
But by 1913, state law had also shifted
to allow incorporated cities to tax their li-
quor sales. This might have influenced
the success of a petition that was circulat-
ed throughout Tualatin to put incorpora-
tion on the ballot, collecting a supposed
69 signatures in favor of incorporation.
The petition then “mysteriously” disap-
peared, according to many sources, but
not before the results had been officially
registered.
The July 5, 1913, issue of The Portland
Oregonian recorded a spirited three-
hour argument regarding the petition
in Washington County Court. Commis-
sioner John Nyberg voted with the
County Judge to permit the election to
move ahead. A Sherwood Weekly News-
heet article dated July 23, 1913, an-
nounced Tualatin’s Aug. 18 election to
decide on incorporation, characterizing
it as “launched by the wet forces in that
community with the hopes that by in-
corporating they would be able to get
back the saloon that has been closed
since June 3 on account of the law
passed by the legislation last winter.”
Shortly after, the Argus questioned the
MIA status of the petition, in what was no
doubt the industry-accepted purple prose
style for newspapers of the time:
“Just why it disappeared — just how it
disappeared — and just when it was given
its quietus so far as being in evidence is
concerned, remains enveloped in dark-
ness as jet as the tomb of Elisha, or
whether it took wings and went up in a
chariot of fire, as another solution of its
absence, is mere conjecture,” the article
read.
A response written by the editor of the
Hillsboro Independent Newspaper dem-
onstrated an arguably more modern per-
spective on the issue, explaining that his
publication opposed statewide prohibi-
tion because “prohibition did not prohibit
in states already with a prohibitory law,
and we favored the open saloon rather
than the bootlegger, fake drug store and
joint.”
On Aug. 28, The Argus announced that
the county court had verified election re-
sults that day, with 57 votes for and 47
against incorporation. And so Tualatin
was declared a city.
Thadius Sweek became the first mayor
of what was then fondly referred to as
“the city of two railways” — fitting, as it
was the Sweek family who had sold right
of way on their property to the Portland
and Willamette Valley Railway Company
as it established the first railroad line
through town in 1886.
How liquor and
local politics shaped
the city’s identity
Tualatin’s growing pains
Don’t miss the play
The Tualatin Historical Society is
sponsoring a play depicting the fight
between the Anti-Saloon League and
incorporation enthusiasts, with a cast
that includes some of the characters’
descendants, as well as city officials.
The play was written, cast and di-
rected by Sandry Lafky Carlson and
Loyce Martiniazzi.
The performance will be held Sun-
day, Feb. 17, at 2 p.m. at the Winona
Grange Hall, 8340 S.W. Seneca St., Tu-
alatin. For more information, call 503-
885-1926.
“The Anti-
Saloon League
did not want to
incorporate
because they
thought there
would be more
liquor sales.”
— Loyce Martinazzi,
Local historian