Silverton Country Historical Society

06/04/2026

🚨 THE CASE OF THE MISSING BICENTENNIAL FLAG: A 50-Year-Old Silverton Mystery! 🚨

Silverton history buffs and community members, we need your help to right a decades-old wrong just in time for a major milestone!

Cast your minds back to July 1976. The nation was celebrating the Bicentennial, and the owners of our local Coast to Coast store generously donated a beautiful, historic Bennington Colony Bicentennial flag to the City of Silverton.

It was proudly raised high above the old police station... but its time in the spotlight was short-lived. Just a couple of weeks later, someone pulled off a daring (and highly illegal) midnight heist and stole it right off the flagpole!

Fast forward to today: July 2026 marks exactly 50 years since that flag was donated to our town.

Whether it was a legendary teenage prank, a spur-of-the-moment dare, or it’s just been sitting in a box in someone's attic or garage for five decades—we want it back, no questions asked!

Let’s bring this piece of 1970s Silverton history home in time for its 50th anniversary. If you know where it is, or if you happen to have it, you can drop it off at the Silverton Country Historical Society museum or even City Hall. We just want the flag safely returned to the community it belongs to.

Help us spread the word, Silverton! Share this post and let’s see if we can solve this 50-year-old mystery together. 🌲❤️

05/08/2026

As so many of our volunteers are mothers and/or have mothers, we will be closed on Sunday, May 10, in their honor.

We are still open tomorrow, Saturday the 9th. Come by and see our lovely display of handmade vintage quilts, lovingly created by Silverton women in the past. 💕

Two quilts made by Josephine Hartman and one by Mary Ruhl Dodds are among the creations on display at the museum

05/07/2026

May 7, 2026 - TONIGHT at 8:00: OPB Art Beat reprises it's Homer Davenport segment from last year. Also available online at OPB.org

04/03/2026

Fifty years ago, we celebrated our Nation's Bicentennial! This year, it's the Semiquincentennial for 250 years! Here's a few reminders from a half century of history:

03/08/2026

03/07/2026

Museum is open for the season! We will be here every Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 4 pm until the middle of November.
New display - a sampling of our collection of quilts. Come see these creations of Silverton history...

02/28/2026

Your Historical Society Museum will be opening for the year starting Saturday, March 7, 2026. We will be open every Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 4 pm until mid-November. We hope you will come visit--we will have lots of new exciting items on display!

Also, please consider helping us keep the museum open on our schedule --we would only need you for one 3-hour shift a month...no experience required. Just a love of Silverton and an appreciation of its history. If you feel you don't know enough, we have lots of resources that help answer questions and actually many displays are self explanatory. And most of us started out learning "on the job" as it were! You can contact us at 503-873-7070 or email at [email protected].

01/17/2026

Great Annual meeting held today at Silverton 50+ Center! As usual we held it on a day that was a perfect “work in your yard” kind of day, but 30 of our good friends decided to spend it with us. Guest speaker was Wendy Stone, President of the Santiam Heritage Foundation based at the Brown House Event Center in Stayton.

01/06/2026

Happy New Year from the Museum, where apparently time stands still……💕

12/09/2025

Museum books make great Christmas gifts!
(Even though we are closed for the winter, we can still help you with your purchases... you can reach us by phone (503-873-7070) email or Messenger)

Norm English has a new book— Where’d it Come From – Where’d it Go? ($35), a photographic history of the local landscape that has disappeared. Still available--The Way it Was—The Way it Is, Vol. 1 ($28) and Vol. 2 ($30) —in a quick reference format, showing several locations in Silverton ….many with historic photos dating to the very early 1900’s, in a side-by-side format to accommodate “then and now” visual comparisons, with descriptive captions for each location. A real “must have” for lovers of Silverton history. We also have They Made it Happen, Silverton, Oregon’s Noteworthy Characters of its First 100 years, 1854-1954 ($18.95) and Ever the Quest, the story behind Silverton’s cultural roots mural, ($18).

More must haves: Gus Frederick’s books, The Annotated Cartoons of Homer Davenport ($20), Timothy Woodbridge Davenport, The Collected Works ($25), The Dollar or the Man? ($20), a recent reprinting of Homer’s 1900 book, and Images of America, Silverton ($21.99)

Also a favorite is Fred A. Parkinson’s book, Selected Works from a Local Historian ($15). This is a collection of articles Fred has written for the Society’s newsletter. It is packed with informative, easy to read Silverton history stories.

From the past: Minnie Engeman’s book, History of Early Schools in Silverton Country, ($10) and her History of Silverton Public Schools ($14). Of course we have copies of Jack Hande’s Silverton Stories From the 1920’s, ‘30’s and ‘40’s, an excellent series of recollections shared by Silvertonians who lived in the times—Five volumes ranging in price from $12-$22. A real collector’s item too, is Jack’s memories of Eugene Field School, ($5).
Also on hand are several books by respected educator, Millie Thayer, Silverton Sampler II by Larry Kassell, and limited offerings on Pratum, Scotts Mills and Wilhoit Springs. And of course, Homer Davenport’s The Country Boy ($12).