Like many towns in the Willamette Valley, Tigard was originally settled by several families, the most noteworthy of which was the Tigard family, headed by Wilson M. Tigard. Arriving in the area known as East Butte in 1852, the family settled and became involved in organizing and building the East Butte School, a general store (which starting in 1886 housed the area's post office) and a meeting hall, and renamed East Butte to Tigardville. The Evangelical organization built the Emanuel Evangelical Church at the foot of Bull Mountain, south of the Tigard store in 1886. A blacksmith shop was opened in the 1890's by John Gaarde across from the Tigard Store, and in 1896 a new E. Butte school was opened to handle the growth the community was experiencing from an incoming wave of German settlers. The period between 1907 and 1910 marked a rapid acceleration in growth as Main Street blossomed with the construction of several new commercial buildings, Germainia Hall (a two story building featuring a restaraunt, grocery store, dance hall, and rooms to rent), a shop/post office, and a livery stable. Limited telephone service began in 1908. In 1910, the arrival of the [Oregon Electric Railroad]? (OERR) triggered the development of Main Street and pushed Tigardville from being merely a small farming community into a period of growth which would lead to its incorporation as a city in 1961. The town was renamed Tigard by the railroad to distinguish it from the nearby [Wilsonville Oregon]?, and the focus of the town reoriented northeast towards the new rail stop as growth accelerated. 1911 marked the introduction of electricity, as the Tualatin Valley Electric company joined Tigard to a service grid with Sherwood? and Tualatin?. William Ariss built a blacksmith shop on Main Street in 1912 that eventually evolved into a modern service station. In the 1930s the streets and walks of Main Street were finally paved, and another school established to accommodate growth.
While a few small farms remain in the city, for the most part they have been replaced by suburban housing. However, the John Tigard House, constructed by the son of Wilson M. Tigard in 1880 at the corner of Pacific Highway and Gaarde Street, remains, having been saved from demolition in the 1970s by the Tigard Area Historical and Preservation Association. It became registered as a National Historic Place in 1979, and now resides at the corner of SW Canterbury Lane and SW 103rd.
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