Alvin T. Smith House

Alvin Smith settled on a 643 acres (260 ha) farm on the Tualatin Plains south of what became West Tuality Plains in 1841.[1] He and his wife were the first permanent Euro-American settlers in the area that would later become Forest Grove.[2] An earlier cabin on the property was destroyed in a flood, and their second cabin later became a post office.[1] In 1854, he and his wife Abigail began the construction of a new home.[1] Alvin was a trained carpenter and did the work himself.[2] Construction finished in 1856, and is the second oldest wood-framed building in Forest Grove after Old College Hall at Pacific University.[2] Abigail died in 1858, with Alvin continuing to live in the home with his second wife Jane until 1870.[1] The couple moved to downtown Forest Grove, but continued to own the property.[1]

Alvin died in 1888, and Jane leased the house until around 1920 when she died.[1]

The Alvin T. Smith House was one of only two structures in Forest Grove that were documented for the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) in the 1930s.[3]

The next owner sold the estate to the Zurcher family circa 1940.[1] Alvin T. Smith House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 8, 1974.[4] The house was abandoned around 1990.[1]

In 2002, the Friends of Historic Forest Grove began plans to purchase the home and restore it.[5] The group worked with the Oregon Historic Preservation Office to purchase the property.[1] In 2005, a methamphetamine lab was removed from the basement and the house decontaminated.[1][6] In March 2005, the group purchased the home for $75,000 after raising $175,000, with some of the funds raised through a calendar featuring nude members at the house.[2] Long-term plans call for turning the property into a center for learning about the cultural heritage of the area.[1]

In 2015 the A.T. Smith House was named one of Oregon's Most Endangered Places by Restore Oregon.[7]

Back of home in 1934

The home sits on a 2.2 acres (1 ha) site on the south side of Forest Grove off Oregon Route 47, in what was once the town of Carnation.[2]

Smith House is of a classical Greek Revival design with a side hall floor plan.[8][9] The gabled side serves as the front of the structure.[9] The two-story building includes a basement.[5] The basement consists of stone walls with brick on the top as the foundation.[2] The basement remained cool and was utilized as storage for perishables such as fruit and vegetables.[2]

Above ground, rough-hewn logs were used, as were wooden pegs to hold the timbers in place.[2] Smith hewed the timber by hand using a broad ax.[5] On the main floor there are multiple doors between the same room to allow for church meetings.[2] There were no church buildings in the early days of the community, so religious services were held in private homes.[2] The home has wood floors, with two bedrooms on the second floor.[1] All the windows are partitioned windows.[5] Most of the original structure remains.[2]

Alvin Thompson Smith (1802–1888) was born in Connecticut and moved to the Oregon Country in 1840. The next year he moved to the Tualatin Plains near what became Forest Grove.[10] There he represented the area at the Champoeg Meetings in 1843 and helped support Tualatin Academy and to found Pacific University.[10] Smith was postmaster from 1851 to 1855.[10]

• Friends of Historic Forest Grove