Blame the Traveling Wilburys, but “the end of the line” always seems so far away, perhaps even on a different metaphysical plane. And getting to TriMet’s western terminus, where the bus turns around in Forest Grove, 21 miles east of downtown Portland as the crow flies, certainly takes a while. I feel like I’m halfway to the ocean on this tip of a tiny tendril of the urban growth boundary, so I’m surprised when, standing in the Friends of Historic Forest Grove Museum, I spot a 1926 schedule for the old Red Electric train. A century ago, Forest Grove wasn’t the end of the line at all but a stop on an interurban route from Portland that continued on to Yamhill, Carlton, and McMinnville. A veritable hub!

Today, the town still feels like a hub in some ways: Inside sporting goods store Frye’s Action Athletics, I can buy gear to show my support for the Vernonia Loggers, the Gaston Greyhounds, the Banks Braves, and other schools in surrounding towns, in addition to the local Forest Grove Vikings and Pacific University Boxers. They aren’t pugilists or little dogs, I learn—Boxer was a nickname given to Pacific’s statue of a qilin, the dragonlike mythical creature that became the school’s mascot.

But even in this very well-established urban center (Forest Grove was platted in 1850 and is the oldest incorporated city in Washington County), that edge-of-the-world feeling still creeps in. At least one local I chat up in town feels it, too: He says he hopes TriMet never extends the MAX all the way to Forest Grove, as the bus brings in enough “derelicts” as it is—like me! Thinking of the Red Electric line, I wonder what people thought of the old interurban bringing in not just unsavory Portlanders but those Yamhill rowdies and McMinnville toughs.

My own derelict’s journey this day starts on the MAX, which brings me through blackberry alleys, past park-and-ride lots, and along the backs of apartment complexes and condo clusters where the fall leaves add a pop of color to all the beige. After nearly an hour, I hop off at the Hillsboro Transit Center, the second-to-last stop on the Blue Line, and hop on TriMet’s Bus 57, the frequent-service route that runs from Beaverton Transit Center to Forest Grove. (I could have switched from the MAX to the bus in Beaverton, but the travel time is almost always longer that way.)

The bus leaves the friendly confines of Hillsboro’s urban density and passes through Cornelius on the way to Forest Grove, taking me by tractor dealers, both a Winco and a Wilco, and a Bimart. By the time it drops me in downtown Forest Grove, there’s not a box store in sight, but I could easily check off a whole holiday shopping list within a few blocks. Behind its painted windows on the corner, Guidetti’s Marketplace sells super-cute aprons, bags of fancy pastas with names I’ve never heard and other Italian pantry items, bags of biscotti, and fresh scoops of gelato. North on Main Street, Willow & Ash is gift central, with novelty earrings, a Goonies coloring book, and movie magnets of classics like Carrie, The Breakfast Club, and The NeverEnding Story, while Penney James Boutique traffics in jeans, cozy sweaters, Golden Girls tote bags, and sassy canvas pouches. Just south on Main, Knotty Lamb, a stop on the annual Rose City Yarn Crawl, offers Hide and Hammer rolltop bags, branded “Woolly Wonderland” sweatshirts, books, knit and crochet classes, and a “Knitter’s Year” planner with major international fiber fests already filled in.

Around the corner on 21st, you can get a fancy pen at Green Heron Book Arts and a Bob Ross Happy Little Notebook at A Framer’s Touch, and a Little Free Rock Library next to the American Legion hall offers up tiny works of art. Down an alley off College Way, the Knight Family Outlet is an ever-changing array of whatever its owners happened upon a pallet of. On my visit, I’m tempted by battery-powered heated wool socks, giant Squishmallows, Kirkland-brand ribbon from Costco, kitchenware, and some random camping gear.

I’ll poke my head into all these shops as the day goes on, but my first stop is Pacific Donuts. Its three-inch-diameter, plant-based cake options are sized so a person can try a few different kinds and still have room for a Hulk smoothie (spinach, peaches, and bananas—non-spinach choices also exist). There’s the cinnamon Canela, the blueberry Pacific, the Naked Dude topped with a modest schmear of maple frosting, and more, plus raised and filled options. All are delicious, as are the bagels, caramel pecan cruffins, and fresh-baked loaves down the street at the Slow Rise Bakehouse, where visiting grandparents might pick up an extra pastry to go for their hungry Pacific University student. The college town vibes are even stronger at Telvet Coffee, where I spot someone’s math homework scribbled across a blackboard in an upstairs seating area.

I’m lucky to have come on a Wednesday, when the Friends of Historic Forest Grove Museum is open from 10am to 1pm. It’s open for a few hours on Saturdays, too. In addition to the Red Electric schedule, it houses a logging display, an old pharmacy label dispenser with a lot of poison warnings, old kitchen appliances, a rope bed, a cathode ray tube from Tektronix, and old black-and-white class photos of stern-faced children. I’m entertained that the mannequin sporting a hard hat and overalls and standing over a chainsaw seems to have rather sizable breasts, and also that the women’s bathroom is stocked like a nightclub with fashion tape, hairspray, and mints. But the best freebies on offer here are the brochures for a self-guided walking tour of the Clark and Painter’s Woods National Register Historic Districts just south of downtown. My planned afternoon of just walking around suddenly gets a lot more organized.

Outside the museum, a Little Free Library is packed with paperback romances by one Grace Livingston Hill, though for a moment I mistake the cursive-adorned Bantam editions for L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series. Another jolt of Avonlea awaits me on the walking tour, where a 1905 Queen Anne has “Green Gables” stamped into the sidewalk at its gate. The leafy blocks are packed with homes built by late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century grocers, chiropractors, blacksmiths, bankers, and one man who had “the misfortune to be murdered by his son-in-law,” according to the brochure I picked up at the museum. The Green Gables house introduces me to jerkinhead dormers, swishily capped fairy-tale windows poking out of the roof, and I start fantasizing about clearing my Scrabble rack by adding jer- and -head on either side of after my opponent lays down “kin.” A 1924 home nearby features eyebrow dormers, which look exactly how they sound, and I realize there’s a whole dormer lexicon out there I’ve been missing. The tour includes Craftsman, Vernacular, Foursquare, and Colonial Revival homes, and—in October 2024, at least—plenty of inspired Halloween decorations and a few Princess Leia yard signs asserting that “a woman’s place is in the Resistance.”

My walking tour brings me back downtown in time for the start of Forest Grove’s Adelante Farmers Market, another boon to my having come on a Wednesday. The weekly market, which runs through the end of October (posters around town promise a Día de los Muertos–themed extravaganza for the last one of the year, on October 30), has a good balance of produce, prepared food, and crafts, including one stand selling a giant crocheted octopus and another selling a tiny 3-D-printed octopus. At Maldonado’s Traditional Food, my hand-smushed and freshly cooked pupusa is served on a reusable plate with actual silverware. There’s no room in my tummy for the architectural wonder I see at the Papas831 stand, so I’ll have to make a return trip another Wednesday for its “potato twist,” a near-two-foot spud spiral on a stick. 

I take a breather with a stop at cash-only My Place Tavern, which opened in 1997 but, with its well-loved grill, mirror-lined back bar topped with fake ivy and old steins, and regulars chatting about the Kingdome, feels like it could be as old as some of the historic homes. Across the street, Ridgewalker Brewing offers more beers on tap and more natural light, but it will be closing for good before the end of the year. There are no taps yet at the Red Rooster Saloon, a five-month-old bar hiding behind the pasta-packed Guidetti’s, but I’m told they’re on the way. I’m also told that, as a Forest Grove tourist, I should check out the 72-foot World’s Tallest Barber Pole in nearby Lincoln Park, an homage not to haircutting but to the town’s long history of barbershop quartets. As with the Red Electric, I wasn’t familiar with this part of Forest Grove’s history at all. And like the potato twist, it’s a very vertical feat of engineering I’ll have to come back for another day. It’s time for this derelict to cue up the Traveling Wilburys (a non-barbershop quintet) and hop a bus for the long ride home.