Welcome to Tillamook County Oregon Genealogy Research

 My name is Bob Jenkins and I created this website to provide genealogy
 information and links to genealogy information  to assist people in researching
 their Tillamook County Oregon ancestors.

 I would appreciate any contribution that you would like to make  to this site:
 biographies, obituaries, birth, marriage, death info,  grave info, photographs....etc
 
 

Tillamook County, Oregon

Tillamook County’s story begins with the Tillamook people, a Coast Salish–speaking nation whose villages lined the bays, rivers, and coastal lowlands of Oregon’s North Coast. Their economy centered on fishing, shellfish gathering, hunting, and trade networks that connected coastal and inland tribes. Epidemics in the early 1800s greatly reduced their population, but their cultural presence remains central to the region’s identity.

American settlement increased in the 1850s, when small groups of pioneers reached the isolated coastal valleys by way of rugged trails through the Coast Range. Early communities formed around Tillamook Bay, where fertile bottomlands supported dairy farms and the surrounding forests supplied timber for local use and export. The county’s remoteness meant that early settlers relied heavily on coastal schooners for supplies, communication, and trade.

Tillamook County was officially established in 1853, carved from the western portion of Clatsop County. The town of Tillamook became the county seat and a hub for early land claims, probate records, and pioneer family activity. As the dairy industry expanded, cooperative creameries and cheese factories — most famously the Tillamook County Creamery Association, founded in 1909 — shaped the county’s agricultural identity.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries brought logging camps, sawmills, railroads, and fishing communities, creating new towns and employment centers across the county. Events such as the Tillamook Burn (a series of major forest fires between 1933 and 1951) reshaped the landscape and generated extensive government, land, and reforestation records valuable to researchers.

Today, Tillamook County reflects a blend of Indigenous heritage, pioneer settlement, maritime and timber industries, and long‑standing dairy traditions. Its land claims, church registers, school records, cemetery listings, coastal community histories, and early newspaper archives provide rich resources for tracing families who built life along Oregon’s North Coast.