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Students in front of Swedeville School, c. 1900 |
History in the News
Swedeville School
By Megan Bruce
The area around St. Vincent’s Hospital, stretching as far west as
the Peterkort corners at Cedar Hills & Barnes, was once called Swedeville.
It was so named because many people of Swedish ancestry settled the
farms in the area. While some residents still refer to the area as
Swedeville,
it no longer officially exists. Many people consider this area to be
part of Cedar Mill, which really has no official “city limits.”
Swedeville School, built in 1888 on Barnes Rd across from what is
now the telephone building, was Tualitan View District 67’s second
schoolhouse. District 67, established in 1884, encompassed the area east
of Cedar Mill in the northeastern part of today’s District 48. In 1949
District 67 merged with Barnes District 57.
The first school in the district was the Log Cabin School, and the
details of this school have been lost to history. When it became
clear that a proper school building was necessary, Swedeville School
was built. The white frame structure had a bell in a belfry that
the teacher would ring at 8:30 to warn students to hurry. The front
door faced Barnes Rd and buggies could pull into the driveway. Schooldays
lasted from 9am- 3pm. There were between 15 and 25 students annually
sharing one room and one teacher.
Grades 1-8 were taught at Swedeville. The eighth grade examinations
and graduation were the pinnacle of most early area student’s educations,
as the only area high school was in Beaverton and few families were
able to spare able hands or the money to get students there.
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Tualatin View School, at the corner of Leahy and
Barnes Road, circa 1930. The building is now used by OCAC |
When the first Tualatin View School was built in 1926 on Leahy Road
just north of Barnes, the Swedeville School was torn down. The old
belfry and bell were moved to the new school. The belfry still stands,
but the bell was stolen in the 1960s and replaced with a new one.
The building is now being used by Oregon College of Art & Craft. The
name was not carried on to the new school, perhaps because of the
number of non-Swedish people who had moved into the area.
Much of the information for this story came from West Tualatin View’s
website at beavton.k12.or.us/west_tv/history/ and from Beaverton District’s
School Days history book. We would like to hear from anyone with information
about the Swedeville area to include in further stories and also in the possible
third edition of Cedar Mill History.
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