Newell Pioneer Village ComplexThe Newell Pioneer Village Complex includes the Mother's Memorial Pioneer Cabin, Butteville School and the original home of Robert Newell. It is the second of the two properties owned and operated by the Oregon State Society, DAR. We invite you to visit Newell Pioneer Village when you are in the Willamette Valley. Visit our pioneer side with a grounds tour from the museum docents; travel back in time with us! Newell Pioneer Village Complex |
Knighton HouseBuilt by Henry Knighton, founder of the City of St. Helens, Oregon, in 1847. By 1850, Henry Knighton had changed the town’s name to St. Helens in recognition of Mount St. Helens, the volcano that dominates the horizon thirty-nine miles to the northeast.
The lumber used to build this house was shipped around Cape Horn from the town of Bath, Maine. |
The American Indian legend of Mount St. Helens
There was a very beautiful native maiden named "Loowit". There were two brothers named "Wy'east" and "Klickitat" (sometimes referenced as "Pahhto"). These two brothers both fell in love with the beautiful maiden, "Loowit". The brothers happened to be the sons of the Great Spirit of the area, known as "Sahale". "Loowit" could not choose between the two brothers, whom she loved. So the brothers fought over her, fiercely. In this fight, the two brothers ended up destroying and burying villages and the surrounding forests in the process. The Great Spirit "Sahale" was furious at his sons. He conceived to separate the brothers, "Wy'east" and "Klickitat", placing "Loowit" between them, for eternity. He smote the three lovers, he erected mighty mountain peaks where one each fell. "Loowit", she was beautiful, her mountain became Mount St. Helens, a beautiful symmetrical cone (prior to her eruption), of dazzling white. She fell in Washington. The Great Spirits' eldest son "Wy'east", who "Sahale" saw as 'lifting his head with pride', fell, and he became a tall mountain, which we know today as Mount Hood, Oregon. The younger son, "Klickitat", wept to see the beautiful maiden "Loowit" wrapped in the cold snow. "Sahale" formed his younger son, so that he bends his head, as he gazes upon "Loowit". He is now known as Mount Adams, Washington. So the legend goes, that the three will never be apart, however, they will never be together, within range of one another, forever. ~Author Unknown |
Captain George Vancouver of the British Royal Navy made the first European documented observation of Mount St. Helens on May 19, 1792.
At Point Lawton, near present-day Seattle, Washington, he was on a mission to map the Puget Sound's inlets. On October 20, 1792, as his ship passed through the mouth of the Columbia River, he named the peak. He named the peak after Alleyne Fitzherbert, a fellow countryman who held the title of Baron St. Helens and was the British Ambassador to Spain at the time. Mount St. Helens became the name that stuck. The United States Board of Geographical Names made official, the name "Mount Saint Helens" in 1902. It is generally abbreviated as "Mount St. Helens".
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