Dispatches from history: Western Washington County August 2, 1923
Clapshaw, Love, and Hundley are just a handful of the family names scattered throughout this week's edition of Dispatches from History in Banks, Gales creek, Buxton, and beyond from August 2, 1923.
In this column, we take a look back one hundred years ago in western Washington County. This week, the clips come from the Washington County News-Times edition published August 2, 1923. Want more local history? Visit the Banks Historical Society online at�www.bankshistory.org�for Banks-area history, and Friends of Historic Forest Grove, which often works in the Gales Creek area, online at�www.fhfg.org.
1926: A dream of a highway connecting Forest Grove to Tillamook continued. Dilley and Gales Creek feuded over flowers. Bacona, north of Buxton, still had a post office. Step into Forest Grove and Banks-area history from the lens of newspaper archives of the day.
"In the month of October 2025, we serviced 1,194 calls total," writes the Forest Grove Police Department in this month's roundup of stats from September 2025. Read more inside.
A proposed toll road linking Forest Grove and Tillamook faced opposition, but Gales Creek residents would take any road they could get, according to a 1925 newspaper article.
"County Jail Filled to Overflow With Arrests Made" including Ernest Narver, Frank Kearns, Thomas Young, and Roy Kearns, all arrested at Balm Grove on liquor possession charges in Prohibition-era Gales Creek.
People are shooting exploding targets and firing hot lead into dry vegetation in the Tillamook Forest with predictable results: Five wildfires since May. These fires are all preventable, said Acting Forest Grove District Forester Stephanie Beall.
