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15 Interesting And Fun Facts About Tillamook, Oregon, United States

The city of Tillamook is the county seat of Tillamook County, Oregon, United States. Take a look below for 15 interesting and fun facts about Tillamook, Oregon, United States.

1. The city is located on the southeast end of Tillamook Bay on the Pacific Ocean.

2. The population was 5,231 at the 2020 census.

3. The city is named for the Tillamook people, a Native American tribe speaking a Salishan language who lived in this area until the early 19th century.

4. Anthropologist Franz Boas identifies the Tillamook Native Americans as the southernmost branch of the Coast Salish peoples of the Pacific Northwest.

5. This group was separated geographically from the northern branch by tribes of Chinookan peoples who occupied territory between them.

6. The name Tillamook, he says, is of Chinook origin, and refers to the people of a locality known as Elim or Kelim.

7. They spoke Tillamook, a combination of two dialects. Tillamook culture differed from that of the northern Coast Salish, Boas says, and might have been influenced by tribal cultures to the south, in what is now northern California.

8. Captain Robert Gray first anchored in Tillamook Bay in 1788, marking the first recorded European landing on the Oregon coast. Settlers began arriving in the early 1850s, and Tillamook County was created by the Territorial legislature in 1853.

9. In 1862, the town itself was laid out, and the first post office was opened in 1866. The town was voted to be the county seat in 1873, and Tillamook was officially incorporated as a city in 1891.

10. During World War II, the United States Navy operated a blimp patrol station near the town at Naval Air Station Tillamook. The station was decommissioned in 1948, and the remaining facility now houses the Tillamook Air Museum.

11. Historically, the Tillamook economy has been based primarily on dairy farms. The farmland surrounding the city is used for grazing the milk cattle that supply the Tillamook County Creamery Association’s production of cheese, particularly cheddar, gourmet ice cream and yogurt, and other dairy products.

12. The lumber industry also is experiencing a comeback from the replanting that followed the Tillamook Burn forest fires of the mid-20th century. The burned remains of some of the trees can still be found in the forests surrounding Tillamook.

13. Tillamook also serves tourists on their way to the ocean beaches and as a location for second homes.

14. The Tillamook Air Museum, which features over 15 aircraft, an Exhibit Hall with rare wartime and aviation-themed artifacts, is located just south of the city. It is housed in a wooden WWII blimp hangar that was once a part of Naval Air Station Tillamook.

15. In 1991, illusionist David Copperfield filmed a train car disappearance illusion for a TV special in Hangar B. Its sister hangar (Hangar A) was destroyed by a fire in 1992. The hangars were built with old-growth trees and one can see the huge seamless beams inside the buildings.

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