06/11/2026
The Banks Historical Society won a 2026 grant from the Cultural Coalition of Washington County (CCWC) — the regranting board of the Oregon Cultural Trust in Washington County. Our project, titled On the Banks of Dairy Creek: A Rural Cultural Heritage Series, began as a four-part program (which has expanded!) to explore cross-cultural and rural heritage in western Washington County. The aim of the grant is to connect residents of all ages to our local history through engaging educational and community presentations.
We kicked off the project with a series of presentations and student activities with the elementary, middle and high schools in Banks. These projects explored four pivotal periods of our community’s history from the 1840s - 1920s.
We have at least two more collaborative projects with the schools slated to take place next fall, and we are also planning some community-wide presentations to bring both our educational components and the students’ projects to the larger community. Stay tuned for more on that!
For this school year, our completed projects included:
• Wilkes and Atfalati: On the Banks of Dairy Creek — 4th Grade Pioneer Day. We connected the schools’ 4th grade studies of the Indigenous people and the Oregon Trail to provide a hyper-local perspective highlighting the experiences of the Wilkes family — Banks’ first Oregon Trail pioneer settlers in 1847 — and their interactions with the Atfalati (aka Tualatin Kalapuya) people who were living along the West Fork of Dairy Creek when they arrived. Included: information, interactive activities, Indigenous artifacts and local foods of the era.
• Wilkes and Atfalati: Views of History — 10th Grade US History. We presented, explored and engaged in class discussion about how history is documented and shared through different lenses: Indigenous, pioneer and how even the pioneer stories differ depending on who is writing the story. We highlighted the Wilkes family’s own stories of their Oregon Trail experiences on the first overland route over Mount Hood 1845, led by Sam Barlow and Joel Palmer, and looked at some key ways their story differs from the more well-known historical accounts.
• Greenville to Banks: A Town on the Move — 6th Grade Engineering. We presented students with a key aspect of Banks history: between 1902 and 1907 the town of Greenville moved many of its buildings two miles up the road to Banks. We explored the historical context of why this happened, took a field trip to view two Banks buildings that were moved (the Moore House and the Legion Hall) and we setup an engineering project: “How would you move an entire building two miles up a road using only the tools and resources available in 1905?” Students worked for several weeks on their projects, creating design mock-ups and explanations for how each of these buildings might have been moved. Projects were shared during World Expo.
• Banks Union High School — We collaborated with high school Fabrication and Design students producing a video commemorating the Banks Union High School. We provided historical information, images and guidance for this student-led project, offering perspective on the historic and cultural significance of the first Union high school in Washington County that brought rural students together to receive a high school education for the first time. The students produced an excellent first cut and the project is slated to continue in the fall.
• Coming Up: two projects about Flora Munford, an early mover and shaker in the community who also took some of the first photographs of Banks in the early days. She later became the first woman on the Banks City Council when the town incorporated in 1920. In the fall we will be collaborating with the high school US History class once more to bring a local perspective to their studies of women’s suffrage, and plans are underway to hold a photography competition and display in Flora’s honor.
MANY THANKS! We would like to thank all of the teachers, administrators and students for partnering with us on our projects this school year, and we’d also like to extend a special thanks to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, who graciously provided us with information and context to help us round out our Wilkes and Atfalati presentations with multiple perspectives.
