Washington County is one of 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon and part of the Portland metropolitan area. The 2020 census recorded the population as 600,372, making it the second most populous county in the state and most populous "Washington County" in the United States. Hillsboro is the county seat and largest city, while other major cities include Beaverton, Tigard, Cornelius, Banks, Gaston, Sherwood, North Plains, and Forest Grove, the county's oldest city. Originally named Twality when created in 1843, the Oregon Territorial Legislature renamed it for the nation's first president in 1849 and included the entire northwest corner of Oregon before new counties were created in 1854. The Tualatin River and its drainage basin lie almost entirely within the county, which shares its boundaries with the Tualatin Valley. It is bordered on the west and north by the Northern Oregon Coast Range, on the south by the Chehalem Mountains, and on the north and east by the Tualatin Mountains, or West Hills.
Hillsboro is a city in the U.S. state of Oregon and is the county seat of Washington County. Situated in the Tualatin Valley on the west side of the Portland metropolitan area, the city hosts many high-technology companies, such as Intel, locally known as the Silicon Forest. The population was 106,447 at the 2020 census, making Hillsboro the fifth-most populous city in Oregon.
The Weyerhaeuser Company is an American timberland company which owns nearly 12,400,000 acres of timberlands in the U.S., and manages an additional 14,000,000 acres of timberlands under long-term licenses in Canada. The company has manufactured wood products for over a century. It operates as a real estate investment trust (REIT).
Silicon Forest is a Washington County cluster of high-tech companies located in the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. The term most frequently refers to the industrial corridor between Beaverton and Hillsboro in northwest Oregon. The high-technology industry accounted for 19 percent of Oregon's economy in 2005, and the Silicon Forest name has been applied to the industry throughout the state in such places as Corvallis, Bend, and White City. Nevertheless, the name refers primarily to the Portland metropolitan area, where about 1,500 high-tech firms were located as of 2006.
The Tualatin Valley is a farming and suburban region southwest of Portland, Oregon. The valley is formed by the meandering Tualatin River, a tributary of the Willamette River at the northwest corner of the Willamette Valley, east of the Northern Oregon Coast Range. Most of the valley is located within Washington County, separated from Portland by the Tualatin Mountains. Communities in the Tualatin Valley include Banks, Forest Grove, Cornelius, Hillsboro, Aloha, Beaverton, Sherwood, Tigard, and Tualatin.
Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (LP) is an American building materials manufacturer. The company was founded in 1973 and LP pioneered the U.S. production of oriented strand board (OSB) panels. Currently based in Nashville, Tennessee, LP is the world's largest producer of OSB and manufactures engineered wood building products. LP products are sold to builders and homeowners through building materials distributors and dealers and retail home centers.
Roseburg Forest Products is a privately owned wood–products company based in Springfield, Oregon. Founded in 1936, the company had approximately 3,000 employees and revenues of nearly US$1 billion in 2012. Roseburg Forest Products operates mills throughout Western Oregon, and continues to be held by the founding Ford family.
Teufel Nursery is a family-owned landscaping company based in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1890, the company maintains existing and installs new landscaping for commercial, government, and residential customers. The company has about 200 employees. It was based in Portland until the 1940s, then in the unincorporated Cedar Mill area until 2007. Its headquarters have been in eastern Hillsboro since fall 2011.
The Washington County Courthouse in Hillsboro, Oregon is the courthouse for Washington County, Oregon, in the United States. Washington County was established in 1843 and the first government building was finished in 1852. The current courthouse was built in 1928 with an addition and renovations to the structure in 1972. Currently the building houses courtrooms, the county sheriff's dispatch, staff offices, and the office of the district attorney. The county jail was previously attached to the courthouse.
Chief Kno-Tah was a wooden statue located in Shute Park in Hillsboro in the U.S. state of Oregon. Carved by Peter Wolf Toth, it was the 56th Native American head in his Trail of the Whispering Giants series. The 25-foot (7.6 m) tall, 250,000-pound (110,000 kg) statue was the first of two carved by Toth in Oregon. Completed in 1987, the statue was named in honor of a chief of the local Tualatin Indians. In early 2017, the statue was damaged by a tree blown over in a windstorm. It was ultimately determined to be beyond repair and was removed in June 2017.
Gilchrist State Forest is the sixth and newest state forest in the U.S. state of Oregon. The forest is located in northern Klamath County near the community of Gilchrist and was officially dedicated on June 11, 2010. The forest sits along U.S. Route 97 and is 70,000 acres (28,000 ha) in size.
Shute Park Plaza is a shopping center located in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. Situated along Tualatin Valley Highway, the 18-tenant center takes its name from Shute Park, which is located across the highway. The land the mall sits on was once part of the park, housing a baseball diamond. Shute Park Plaza opened in 1985 at a cost of $6 million.
The News-Times is a weekly newspaper covering the cities of Forest Grove and Hillsboro in the U.S. state of Oregon. Established in 1886 and with coverage focused on Forest Grove for most of its history, the paper only recently added equivalent coverage of the much larger city of Hillsboro, when, in August 2019, publisher Pamplin Media Group launched a separate Hillsboro edition of the News-Times, to replace Pamplin's Hillsboro Tribune. The paper is published on Wednesdays. It is owned by Pamplin Media Group, which owns other community newspapers in the Portland metropolitan area.
Hoffman Construction Company is a privately held construction company founded in 1922 based in Portland, Oregon, United States.
Oregon-Canadian Forest Products, Inc., known as OCFP or simply Oregon-Canadian, is an American lumber product manufacturer headquartered in North Plains in Oregon's Portland metropolitan area. It has been recognized as one of the top 100 private companies in Oregon. They are the largest manufacturer of high-grade Douglas fir lumber in the United States. They are also the only company that makes wood gutters used for the restoration of homes on the East Coast.
Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company was a lumber products company with large sawmills and significant land holdings in Minnesota, Florida, British Columbia, and Central Oregon. The company was formed in 1901 with its headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Beginning in 1915, its main lumber production facility was in Bend, Oregon. For many years, its Bend sawmill was one of the largest lumber producers in the world. In 1969, the company created Brooks Resources to broaden its business base beyond timber production. Brooks-Scanlon's Bend sawmill was closed in 1994. Today, Brooks Resources is the only vestige of the company that is still in business.
Chehalem Ridge Nature Park is a 1,260 acres (510 ha) nature park in the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. Opened in 2021, the park is owned and operated by Metro, the regional government in the Oregon portion of the metro area. This is despite that the park is located outside the regional government's boundary. The park is named after the Chehalem Mountains, where the park is located. The park is located off Dixon Mill Road, east of Gaston between Oregon Route 47 and Oregon Route 219.
The Forest Grove branch is an abandoned railway line in the state of Oregon, in the United States. It was built by the Oregon Electric Railway and ran 19.1 miles (30.7 km) from Garden Home to Forest Grove via Beaverton and Hillsboro. The MAX Blue Line uses part of the right-of-way between Beaverton and Hillsboro.
In Portland, Oregon, Christmas trees have been installed at Pioneer Courthouse Square annually since the public space opened in 1984. The trees have been donated by Stimson Lumber Company since 2002, and are delivered the week of Veterans Day. With some exceptions, the trees are 75-foot-tall Douglas firs, decorated with thousands of multi-colored LED lights.
