150-year-old historic Wilkes House demolished amid preservation efforts in Banks

A 150-year-old historic house came crumbling down Friday, July 5, in Banks, marking the latest chapter in a battle between preservation and development in rural Washington County.

Cars stopped and residents watched on the side of the road as an excavator tore down the historic Wilkes House — a home built by the first permanent Euro-American settlers in the area who trekked the Oregon Trail in 1845.

The site’s fate was left uncertain in the face of development efforts from the city to replace the home on Northwest Cedar Canyon Road with a new water treatment facility for its proposed “westside development,” which would annex 30-acres for commercial and residential use.

In a last-ditch effort to keep the past intact, the Banks Historical Society launched a $20,000 fundraiser a little over a week ago with the goal of transforming the landmark home into a museum and cultural community center, surrounded by a one-acre park and arboretum.

But that dream shattered, alongside the house’s windows, when contractors began demolition work of the house and surrounding vegetation the morning after the Fourth of July.

Jennifer Newton, communications manager for the Banks Historical Society, learned about the proposed site changes last year and has been a part of the recent charge to find an alternative route.

“We've tried to speak with the owners; we've tried to speak with the developers. We've tried everything we can to do all the due diligence we can to show that this house was owned by the first pioneers who settled here,” Newton said through tears. “And it’s being torn down in a matter of minutes. It's heartbreaking. It's absolutely heartbreaking. So little consideration has been done for historic preservation.”

Newton also questioned the urgency to demolish the site, with construction of the water treatment plant not scheduled for several years. Records show that Washington County issued the permit Wednesday, July 3, to construction agency Five Star Building, a company located adjacent to the property.

“None of this had to happen today. The city doesn't take possession for months. The water treatment plant isn't scheduled to be built for five to eight years," she said. "We got some media attention on July 3; the owners applied for a demolition permit on July 3. And they demolished the house on July 5. That's incredibly fast.”

The property is currently owned by North Plains-based Lone Oak Land and Investment Company and Florida-based Wolverine Financial, who agreed to sell the majority of the land to residential developer David Weekley Homes for the Sunset View at West Banks project .

Currently under contract, the city would acquire the Wilkes property soon after , but not as of demolition day.

“The city does not own the property or the Wilkes House and will not own the property until the West-side developer satisfies certain conditions in its Development Agreement and conveys the property to the city,” Banks Mayor Stephanie Jones said in a statement.

Jones, following the demolition, said that the work did not require land use approval from the city. She also said that the property owners did not coordinate with local leaders in this move.

Grappling with designation

Although local historians state the Wilkes House marked a monumental moment in history, the house was not officially registered as a historical site at the local or federal level.

Newton explained how many towns in the area submitted historical designation requests in the 1980s, but proponents never advocated for this particular house to be placed on any registry.

“That's just something that didn't get done when it should have been done,” Newton said. “That particular piece of that acre was technically just outside the city limits until around 2017, so there really wasn't any need to do that.”

But when the city subsequently moved forward with plans to alter the area, Newton said no one bothered to ask if there was anything to preserve.

The historical society paid $900 to ensure that the house was structurally stable last year, and the group inquired about placing the site on the National Registry of Historic Places.

In a response, the Oregon Parks & Recreation Department said the property could meet three out of four eligibility criteria, citing the house’s association with a historical event, the fact that it was owned by a prominent family and how it could contain archeological resources.

While the owners initially suggested moving the house to preserve its history, Newton noted how that could affect the site’s eligibility.

“Once you move a historic home like that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to get a historic landmark designation on it,” Newton said.

Newton also brought up the fact that the small organization did not have the funds to move it on its own, and there was not an identified location for where it would land.

More history may be underground

The dream of saving the Wilkes House has been “reduced to rubble without a cause,” Newton said, but the saga doesn’t end here.

The Atfalati-Kalapuya would take to Dairy Creek to hunt and fish for their summer encampments, and Newton emphasized how the area still needs to be studied for its archaeological significance.

“There was an archeological survey done by another organization for part of the property … just in a surface survey, the archeologists found multiple stone, early tribal tools,” she said.

According to historical society member Laurelen Jabbour, writings from Lincoln E. Wilkes, the grandson of original settlers Peyton and Anna, indicates that his family witnessed the burial of Native Americans near the house.

“We have records of bodies being buried there because the family dug them up by accident when they were putting their garden in, so some of those are probably still on that acre of property, so there very well could be a Native American burial ground there,” Newton said.

Before the house was torn down, the historical society discussed plans to reach out to tribal governments to learn more about the interface between Native Americans and the Wilkes family.

“There are a lot of things we still need to explore, but we're getting in contact with the Tribes of Grand Ronde; we're getting in contact with people at Pacific University,” Newton said when the fundraiser was first announced. “The stories we have are from the people who lived in the house generations later, talking about finding arrowheads in the backyard, but archaeologists found that there were a lot of tools that indicate there could have been a settlement that's much, much older. And the archeologists of that project said that the entire area should be surveyed.”

Looking forward, Newton said the historical society plans to continue to reach out to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde; she also expressed interest in preserving the heritage trees on the property.

The Banks City Council had slated a discussion about the Wilkes House on its agenda for a meeting on Tuesday, July 9, though it is unclear whether that will proceed.

“All we wanted was to put plans on pause until we could get all interested parties together to discuss how the city might use this property when they take possession of it," Newton said. "This could have been stopped if the interested parties wanted it to. Instead of taking responsibility, everyone is deflecting and pointing fingers, and 150-plus years of Oregon Trail pioneer history is now a pile of rubble.”