Pacific University and the community in Forest Grove
Pacific University is the reason many people first hear of Forest Grove. This page sticks to facts from the university, the city and reference sources.
The university
Pacific describes itself as a private, nonprofit university with its main campus in Forest Grove and a second campus in Hillsboro. It also lists an MFA in Writing office in Portland, clinics across the Portland metro area, and low-residence and online programs. The university calls itself the only comprehensive university in Washington County and says it has been operating for 175 years, beginning as an orphan school.
How it began
According to Wikipedia, the school grew out of an orphanage that Tabitha Moffatt Brown and Harvey Clark started in Forest Grove in 1847. It became Tualatin Academy in 1848 and was chartered by the territorial legislature on September 29, 1849. The university added its first college classes in 1854. Old College Hall on the campus is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The city around it
The City of Forest Grove runs the library, parks and recreation, and a public events calendar. Wikipedia notes that the town took its name in 1851 when the Tualatin Academy trustees chose it, after a grove of oak trees on what is now the campus.