About the Willamette Heritage Center

The Willamette Heritage Center connects generations by gathering, preserving, and sharing Mid-Willamette Valley history. The fourteen historic structures on site house permanent and changing exhibits, a research library and archive, textile learning center, and rentable event spaces. The five-acre campus is also home to retail shops, art galleries, cooperative artist studios, and offices run by our partner organizations.

The Experience

Early settlement buildings take visitors back to the 1840s, when Euro-American missionaries and immigrants settled in the Mid-Willamette Valley, home of the Kalapuya. The 1841 Jason Lee House and Methodist Parsonage are the oldest standing wooden frame houses in the Pacific Northwest, featured along with the John D. Boon House (1847) and Pleasant Grove Church (1854), built by Oregon Trail immigrants. The 1896 Thomas Kay Woolen Mill, a National Park Service-designated American Treasure, vividly tells the story of industrialization in the Mid-Willamette Valley.

Experience work and life in what was once a leading textile factory in Oregon, the legacy of which is continued today by Pendleton Woolen Mills. Changing exhibitions at the Willamette Heritage Center explore and highlight the rich and diverse cultural heritage of the Mid-Willamette Valley.

Mission and Vision

Mission:

The Willamette Heritage Center connects generations through gathering, preserving, and sharing Mid-Willamette Valley history.

Vision:

We are a place for all to discover, engage, and make history.

Non-Profit Organization

The Willamette Heritage Center (WHC) is a private, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization formed from the merger of the Mission Mill Museum and the Marion County Historical Society. It continues their legacy through a mission to preserve and interpret the history of the Mid-Willamette Valley.

WHC promotes diversity and prohibits discrimination on the basis of age, color, creed, disability, gender identity, national/ethnic origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran/uniform status, and all other classifications protected by law.

WHC is not owned or operated by any government agency and is supported through grant funding, private donations, business operations, and its membership.

Values

Integrity (Truth)

· Adhere to preservation standards

· Pursue high standards of scholarship

· Responsibly utilize and manage resources

Inclusion (Welcome)

· Engage with diverse communities

· Provide educational opportunities to all abilities and ages

· Actively work to eliminate barriers to access our resources

Inspiration (Stimulate)

· Seek out and be responsive to our community

· Share our spaces and collections to foster empathy and critical thinking

· Collaborate and encourage community engagement