Tillamook Forest Center

About this museum

The Tillamook Burn of 1933 was one of the most devastating wildfires in Pacific Northwest history, consuming nearly 240, 000 acres of old - growth Douglas fir forest in the Coast Range in just eleven days. What followed, over the next three decades, became one of the most ambitious reforestation efforts in American history: more than 72 million seedlings planted by hand across the burned landscape by generations of Oregon schoolchildren, volunteers, and forestry workers who refused to accept the loss as permanent. The Tillamook Forest Center exists to tell that story - the destruction and the recovery - in one of the most beautifully realized interpretive centers in Oregon's extensive network of public lands facilities. The center sits in the heart of the Tillamook State Forest on the Wilson River, and the surrounding forest is itself the living exhibit: regrown, managed, and evolving, a demonstration of what decades of committed restoration can accomplish. Inside, exhibits cover the natural history of the Coast Range forest ecosystem, the human communities that have depended on it, the fires that transformed it, and the scientific and civic effort to rebuild it. With a 4.8 - star rating from more than 110 visitors, the Tillamook Forest Center consistently earns high marks for both the quality of its exhibits and the experience of simply being in its setting. Entry is free. Located along the Wilson River Highway - Oregon Route 6 - between Portland and the Oregon Coast, the center is a natural stop on one of Oregon's most scenic drives. Combine it with a walk on the Wilson River Trail for a full day in one of the state's great recovered forests.