Forest Grove, OR

Forest Grove and Pacific University grew around the same oak-covered ground. The Atfalati Kalapuya lived on the Tualatin Plains before Euro-American settlement; their descendants are part of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde. Tualatin Academy received a territorial charter in 1849, and its trustees adopted the name Forest Grove in 1851, apparently for the oaks still standing on campus. The town had been platted the previous year and incorporated in 1872, making it Washington County's oldest city. In 2020, 26,225 people lived within its city limits at the western edge of the Portland metropolitan area. Pacific remains part of the city rather than a detached campus. It offers undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs, while Old College Hall, built in 1850, operates as a museum of university and local history. The university also addresses a harder history: its leaders supported the federal Forest Grove Indian Training School, which operated from 1880 to 1885 before moving to the Salem area.

Around the campus and older neighborhoods, the city recognizes three National Register historic districts—Clark, Walker/Naylor, and Painter's Woods. The farmers market occupies Main Street on Wednesday evenings from May through October, and the annual sidewalk chalk festival assigns participants squares throughout downtown. Forest Grove City Library, established in 1908 as Washington County's first tax-supported public library, offers Spanish-language services, an active teen council, study space, and a Library of Things; offerings documented in 2026 included ESL classes, bilingual storytimes, chess, and technology help. Regional transit does not require first reaching Hillsboro by car: TriMet Line 57 links Forest Grove with Cornelius, Hillsboro, Aloha, and Beaverton every 15 minutes or less for most of the day, seven days a week. These institutions make the historic core a campus town, market site, library destination, and western terminus of a frequent transit corridor.