Oregon, tribal leaders applaud ‘rebuilding’ as development takes shape at Willamette Falls

The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde took a significant step Thursday in their decadeslong journey of returning to Willamette Falls.

The tribe broke ground on the infrastructure needed to launch the first phase of tumwata village — a mixed-use development on the 23-acre site of the former Blue Heron Paper Company mill perched atop the falls in Oregon City.

“Today we start rebuilding. Today we lay the foundation of tumwata village and start the process of bringing our people back to the falls,” Grand Ronde Tribal Council Chair Cheryle Kennedy said at Thursday’s ground breaking, surrounded by state, regional and local officials.

For centuries the 40-foot falls on the Willamette were a sacred place for Indigenous people from across the Northwest to gather, trade and fish. When white settlers arrived and industrialized the area, they largely cut off public access to one of the country’s largest waterfalls. Today, the falls still sit nestled between enormous shuttered paper mills on opposite sides of the river.

While regional tribes, including the Grand Ronde, have long hoped to restore access to the falls, those hopes began to take shape in 2011, when the Blue Heron mill closed. The same year, the Grand Ronde, along with several other regional tribes and state and local agencies, formed the Willamette Falls Trust.

For 10 years, the trust worked on the Willamette Falls Legacy Project, a planning effort that included a riverwalk to the falls. Frustrated with a lack of progress, the Grand Ronde withdrew from the Trust in 2022, three years after the tribes purchased the Blue Heron site.

For the past several years, the Grand Ronde have worked on their own public access project at the Blue Heron property and in 2022 named the site tumwata village, referencing a Native name for the falls.

While the Grand Ronde have made progress at the site in recent years — demolishing about half the existing mill buildings on the property — Thursday’s groundbreaking represented a shift toward the positive steps the tribes are now taking to create tumwata.

“This work is for the generations to come,” the Grand Ronde’s Project Manager Ryan Webb said.

Moving forward, Webb explained the project team will begin building out roads for the tumwata site. A main road will come off Highway 99E and run parallel to the river before connecting with Main Street. Webb expects construction of the road to take 12 to 15 months.

From there, the Grand Ronde will begin constructing the first block of tumwata village, which will include two buildings: a multi-use space with retail, office and event space and an apartment building. Construction of the buildings is still likely a year or two out.

Once that phase is complete, the project team will continue working its way south through the property, building out more roads and buildings.

In all, the Grand Ronde plan the village to have retail and office space, housing, cultural spaces, gathering spots, restaurants and a riverwalk to the falls.

“This is about healing and this is about restoration,” Gov. Tina Kotek said at the ground breaking. “Restoration is at the heart of tumwata village. The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde are healing the land.”

Industrial heritage

Beyond the cultural significance for Indigenous people across the region, Willamette Falls played a significant role in Oregon’s industrial development in the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century. In 1873, the Willamette Falls Canal and Locks Company completed the locks on the West Linn side of the falls, which allowed boats to travel safely up and down the river, connecting Portland and the Columbia River with the lower Willamette Valley. A decade and a half later, the Willamette Falls Electric Company, which later became Portland General Electric, developed the country’s first long-distance transmission line, sending power from the falls 14 miles north to Portland.

At the same time, the falls became a hub for the paper industry. The Oregon City Paper Manufacturing Company opened in 1866 on the east side of the river and the Willamette Pulp and Paper Company began operating on the west side in 1889. Though it changed ownership and names several times, the Oregon City mill operated until the closure of Blue Heron in 2011. The mill on the West Linn side also changed names and ownership several times before finally shuttering, likely for good, as the Willamette Falls Paper Company in 2025.

With the decline of the paper industry in recent decades, some community members came to see the old mills as brownfield sites rather than the economic engines they once were.

The Grand Ronde’s village, along with plans for another tribal-led project on the opposite side of the falls, promise a significant shift from that industrial heritage toward a closer connection between the falls and the public.

The Grand Ronde see it as a homecoming.

At the podium on Thursday, Kennedy recalled her great-grandfather. He was chief of the Clackamas tribe and one of the signatories of the Willamette Valley treaty of 1855 that saw the removal of Indigenous people from their ancestral lands. Kennedy said he was watching down over the groundbreaking.

“I know our ancestors are here and watching and their hearts are full as they encourage us to move forward.”