McMinnville, Oregon

Located in the heart of the Willamette Valley

McMinnville, Oregon is located at the junction of the Yamhill River in the Willamette Valley counties. It lies 35 miles southwest of Portland and 2 hours west of Cannon Beach, Oregon. The city is home to Linfield College and the Evergreen Aviation Museum with a population of about 34,000. Since the 1990s, the majority of the vineyards of the Willamette Valley American Viticultural Area are in the area surrounding McMinnville, thus giving this city a claim to the title of the capital of Oregon’s wine industry.

Willamette Wine Country ©TheDigitalTraveler.com

The Bicycling Wine Tourist: Oregon wine expert Claudia Harrington presents 10 exciting bicycle rides to Organic and Sustainable vineyards that produce some of the finest Oregon Wines available. Featuring Organic and Sustainable Wineries, Claudia Harrington (The Bicycling Wine Tourist) provides the perfect guidebook for Wine Lovers and Bike Riders alike. Click here for more info.

There is always something happening in McMinnville

There is always something going on in McMinnville, no matter what time of year. Downtown McMinnville is a beautiful walkable district with shops, bookstores, breweries, coffee houses, wine tasting rooms, art galleries and restaurants. See activities and events here. From May thru October, the downtown farmers market is fabulous! With a mixture of hotels, wine country retreats, cottages, bed & breakfast inns, downtown lofts and spacious flats, there are many options for places to stay.

McMinnville: William Newby had the vision to create a place of commerce and residence for settlers to the Willamette Valley. Newby named the town after his hometown of McMinnville, Tennessee, and saw plenty of local opportunities on his land, straddling an old Native American trail along what is now Baker Street. Click here for more info.

Evergreen Air and Space Museum

A must-see attraction is the Evergreen Air and Space Museum, an aviation museum where one can explore aircrafts from the turn of the century to modern-day warplanes, displaying military, civilian and spacecraft. First envisioned by Capt. Michael King Smith, son of Evergreen International Aviation founder Delford Smith, the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum is the realization of his dream. You can climb through a World War II B-19 and listen to the past of space exploration. It is hard not to miss the building as a full-scale Boeing 747 rests on top of the roof!

Spruce Goose (owned by Howard Hughes)

Howard Huges and the Spruce Goose: Howard Hughes’ life ambition was to make a significant contribution to the field of aviation development. But the monumental folly of his endeavors on the H-KI Hercules meant that he came to be known and remembered to a great extent for all the wrong reasons. The ‘Spruce Goose’ (a name Hughes detested) became a product of his wild fixation on perfection and scale. Click here for more info.

Two favorites were the SR-71(travels 3 times the sound of speed) and a 1960 Russian MIG fighter plane. The most notable was the H-4 Hercules “Spruce Goose” owned by Howard Hughes. In March 1990, the Disney Corporation, which owned the Spruce Goose, announced that it was closing its exhibit located in Long Beach, California. The Aeroclub of Southern California was notified and they immediately began the search for a new home for the Spruce Goose. In 1992, the Evergreen Museum won the bid with a proposal to build a museum around the aircraft and feature it as a central exhibit. The disassembly of the aircraft began in August 1992. The plane was disassembled and sent by ship up the Pacific Ocean, Columbia River, and Willamette River to Dayton where it was transferred to trucks and driven to Evergreen International Aviation. It arrived in February 1993. For the next eight years, the plane went through detailed restoration. Volunteers removed all the paint, replaced worn parts, and repainted the entire aircraft, among many other tasks. In September 2000, the main aircraft assemblies were complete. The fuselage, wings, and tail were transported across the highway and into the new museum building, still under construction. For the next year, crews spent their time assembling the wings and tail to the fuselage. These were completed in time for the museum’s opening on June 6, 2001. The control surfaces (flaps, ailerons, rudder, and elevators) climb later. The last piece was put into place on December 7, 2001.