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.

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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