Aurora Colony Musical Group. WHC 2007.001.1230
A traveling exhibit from the Aurora Colony Museum
December 6, 2016 – January 3, 2017
In celebration of its 50th birthday (1966-2016), Old Aurora Colony Museum is sharing its successful research and preservation efforts over five decades with a photo-rich traveling exhibit titled “Historic Heartland: the French Prairie Influence on Oregon Statehood”. This seven-paneled interpretive exhibit highlights the story of French Prairie settlers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries whose lives, businesses, and personal relationships helped to shape the history of 1800’s Oregon. This exhibit is a product of the immense amount of preservation and research that the Old Aurora Colony Museum staff, led by Curator Patrick Harris, has conducted over the years. The exhibit also highlights the 160th anniversary of the founding of “Aurora Mills”. Founded in 1856 by German and Swiss immigrants under the leadership of Dr. Wilhelm Keil as the first Christian communal community on the West Coast, Aurora Mills is known today as the town of Aurora in Marion County.
$8,000.00 was raised by the Aurora Colony Historical Society for this special exhibit. Sponsors include the Marion Cultural Development Corporation, Sons and Daughters of Oregon Pioneers, Pape Machinery, the Geer Family, the Helen E. Austin Pioneer Fund,and the Aurora Colony Historical Society.
The Aurora Colony Museum preserves the history of the Aurora Colony, a Christian communal society that existed from 1856 to 1883 made up of nearly 600 people, almost all German and Swiss emigrants. You can learn more about the Aurora Colony and the museum here.
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