The Historic Fort Steilacoom Association will host an online talk at 1 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025, titled Kalapuyans of the Willamette Valley. Oregon State University Asst. Prof. David G. Lewis, PhD, will talk about what was going on with Native Americans and U.S. settlers during the early days of Oregon.
A note for Lakewood residents: One of the key figures in the history is John Flett. You might know his name from the Flett Creek Wetland across the street from Clover Park Technical College. Flett attempted to farm in Lakewood in 1843 but left for the more fertile Willamette Valley and activities we will hear about Sunday. Then he later returned to Lakewood.
Lewis, PhD, is a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, a descendant of the Takelma, Chinook, Molalla, and Santiam Kalapuya peoples of western Oregon. Lewis, PhD, will share the history of Kalapuyans peoples from contact through settlement to removal to the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation in Oregon.
He will also talk about his new book, Tribal Histories of the Willamette Valley (2023). Here’s how the publisher describes the book: “The Willamette Valley is rich with history—its riverbanks, forests, and mountains home to the tribes of Kalapuya, Chinook, Molalla, and more for thousands of years. This history has been largely unrecorded, incomplete, poorly researched, or partially told.”
“In these stories, enriched by photographs and maps, Oregon Indigenous historian David G. Lewis combines years of researching historical documents and collecting oral stories, highlighting Native perspectives about the history of the Willamette Valley as they experienced it.”
You must register in advance for the talk on Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Q83nqfCKTDyPAI_5AwMbkw
The talk is online. DO NOT GO TO THE FORT BUILDINGS. THIS TALK WILL BE ONLINE ONLY.
Lewis served as the director of the Southwest Oregon Research Project Collection at the UO and was the Culture Department manager of the Grand Ronde Tribe for 8 years and helped design and create the Chachalu Museum. David has a PhD in anthropology from the University of Oregon (2009) and teaches full time in Anthropology and Indigenous Studies at OSU.
This talk is one in a series organized as part of the 175th anniversary of the founding of Fort Steilacoom. The final planned talk, March 16, will be about the history of the Lakewood fort’s sister Army installation, Fort Vancouver. More information at https://historicfortsteilacoom.org/events/
Fort Steilacoom is open for tours on the first Sunday of every month. You can get tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tour-historic-fort-steilacoom-museum-tickets-405453441157. Advertising for the fort is made possible, in part, by a City of Lakewood Lodging Tax Grant.
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