About the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center
The End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive & Visitor Information Center stands at 1726 Washington Street in Oregon City, the western terminus of the Oregon Trail, where emigrants who had crossed two thousand miles of plains and mountains filed their land claims and spread out into the Willamette Valley. The center is run by Clackamas Heritage Partners, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is to preserve the heritage, educate the public, and interpret the history of the Oregon Trail, Clackamas County, and Oregon City. Its stated aim is to tell the diverse and authentic stories of the people whose lives were shaped by the westward migration, including the region's first peoples.
Admission covers the Interpretive Center, where interpreters guide visitors through historic artifacts, covered wagons, and a theater that shows the center's two films, Oregon's First People and Bound for Oregon. Hands-on activities include candle dipping, doll making, and journaling. The surrounding grounds are free: a Miniature Overland Trail, trail maps and interpretive displays, the Master Gardeners' Pioneer Garden, the Peace Tree, historic markers, and Abernethy Green, an Oregon City park that hosts Concerts in the Park and the Oregon City Arts Festival. The Heritage Garden and a visitor center with a gift shop round out the site.
Programs include fall and spring school field trips, homeschool family days, group tours for tour operators and seniors, cemetery tours, a lecture series, and facility rentals. The organization and the City of Oregon City have launched a planning and conceptual design process for the site's future and are gathering public input through surveys.
Collections and Research Services
The center is primarily an interpretive museum rather than an archive, but it maintains a research room inside the Interpretive Center, included with admission, and a reference library housing Oregon Collection titles from the Oregon City Public Library. A staff historian is on the interpretive team and can be reached through the front desk. For descendants of overland emigrants, the most useful records are provisional-government and donation land claim files, which are held by state and federal archives rather than here; our guide to free family history research explains how to find them, and how to find where someone is buried is a good companion to the center's cemetery tours.
Planning Your Visit
The center is open Monday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and closed January 1, the fourth Thursday of November, December 24-25, and December 31; hours can change for weather, and the website posts notices and a live weather camera. Admission is $17 for adults 18-64, $15 for youth 4-17, seniors 65 and over, and veterans, $5 for up to four people with an EBT or SNAP card through Museums4All, and free for children 3 and under. Free admission days are Oregon Statehood Day (February 14), Juneteenth, the International Day of Peace (September 21), and Heritage Holidays (December 5). Clackamas County library cardholders can borrow a free cultural pass. Tickets are sold online and on site. The site is just off Interstate 205; call the front desk at (503) 657-9336 ext. 117 or see historicoregoncity.org for group pricing and reservations.
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