William Newby's Mill and the Founding of McMinnville

McMinnville began with a mill and a man from Tennessee. William T. Newby joined the great overland migration of eighteen forty three, one of the first large wagon trains to cross the Oregon Trail, and the following year he claimed land here at the meeting of the north and south forks of the Yamhill River.

For a farming settlement to survive, it needed a way to grind its grain, so in eighteen fifty three Newby built a grist mill near the west end of what is now Third Street. That mill was the making of the town. Newby did not record the plat until eighteen sixty-five.

Farmers from miles around hauled their wheat and oats to Newby's stones, and a settlement gathered around the grinding. In eighteen fifty six Newby platted the townsite and named it after his old hometown, McMinnville, Tennessee. The town incorporated in eighteen seventy-six, and in eighteen eighty-six voters moved the Yamhill County seat here from Lafayette.

The Baptist College of McMinnville opened in eighteen fifty-eight and is now Linfield University. From that single water powered mill grew a county seat, a college town, and eventually the capital of Oregon wine country. More than thirty-four thousand people live here today, and the Evergreen museum shelters Howard Hughes's Spruce Goose flying boat.