UPDATE: 1870s Oregon farmhouse torn down for proposed water treatment facility
As a volunteer with the Banks Historical Society, Jennifer Allen Newton keeps tabs on the happenings in her tiny Oregon town, which has a population of 1,865 at last count and a long, storied history.
Newton, however, and other residents were surprised to learn last year that the 1870s Wilkes House, one of Washington County’s surviving Oregon Trail homes, might be replaced by a city water treatment plant for the proposed 30-acre Sunset View at West Banks residential and commercial development in the city’s annexed westside.
For months, Newton and other members of a newly formed Friends of the Wilkes House have been talking to property owners Lone Oak Land and Investment Company and Wolverine Financial, which have contracted to sell the majority of the land to residential developer David Weekley Homes and deed the Wilkes House property to the city.
The owners have offered to relocate the landmark to save it. Newton said the water treatment plant should be constructed on another site to preserve the historic house and the city’s largest continuous canopy of heritage trees.
“Moving the house would make it extremely difficult to receive historic designation and protection” and lessen grant opportunities for the restoration work, said Newton. She then expressed a bigger concern. “It appears things are being done to the house that may be in preparation for demolition. I don’t know, but it is alarming.”
On Tuesday, July 9, the Banks City Council will discuss the privately owned Wilkes House during a work session that the public can watch in person or online, city manager Jolynn Becker told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
“The city does not own the property or the Wilkes House and will not own the property until the westside developer satisfies certain conditions in its Development Agreement and conveys the property to the city,” stated Mayor Stephanie Jones. “As we understand it, the property owner offered to give the structure to the local historical society for free so long as they move the building to another location. To our knowledge that has not happened.”
In June, the grassroots Friends of the Wilkes House announced the Save the Wilkes House campaign on GoFundMe, hoping to raise money to preserve the historic site as a city park, cultural community center and museum.
“We do not have the financial resources of the city, the property owners or developers, so we are hoping we can forge alliances that will enable us to save this house and heritage trees from demolition and to find another suitable location for the water treatment plant,” said Newton.
The preservation group is not opposed to the city’s westside development project, other than the one-acre Wilkes property, she added.
Newton and others say preserving and restoring the historic landmark would draw in visitors and generate business. The homestead is near the Banks-Vernonia State Trail and the new Salmonberry Trail and Washington County’s future Council Creek Regional Trail.
Portland-based Lower Columbia Research & Archeology services has identified a prehistoric archeological site and artifacts in the area. Time is needed to investigate the archeological importance of the land along Dairy Creek that was used by the Atfalati band of the Kalapuya people as their summer encampment, said Newton. The Atfalati, or Tualatin, were forced onto the Grand Ronde Reservation near McMinnville in 1856.
In 1845, the Wilkes family walked west on the Oregon Trail. Peyton and Anna Wilkes are considered the first permanent European American settlers in the Banks area, according to Newton, who wrote the history book, “Banks: A Town on the Move.”
“The Wilkes family lived harmoniously alongside the Atfalati people,” said Newton, based on oral histories and Native American objects found in the archeological survey.
Jabez Wilkes, the son of Peyton and Anna, lived in the family’s log cabin until in the early 1870s, he built the still-standing house with a gabled roof.
The first funds raised by the Save the Wilkes House campaign will pay for a tree inventory and repay the Banks Historical Society the $900 inspection cost to ensure the almost 155-year-old house is structurally sound. Remaining funds will go directly into securing the house, apply for grant opportunities and begin renovation projects, according to Newton.
As of Wednesday, $2,025 of $20,000 goal has been raised.
— Janet Eastman | 503-294-4072
[email protected] | @janeteastman