Aurora Colony Days 2023 Event Program

Dear Residents of Aurora,

This year we celebrate coming together as a community to celebrate our 34th annual Aurora Colony Days! By the time you read this, the band Gold Dust will have kicked off this year’s concerts in the park series on July 12. Concerts will continue each Wednesday through August 2, beginning at 7:00 p.m. Mark your calendars! Our Wednesday night concert series is a great opportunity to enjoy your family, friends, music, and food, as well as meet your neighbors. I hope to see you there.

Colony Days will begin on Friday, August 11 with the biergarten and music at the Old Aurora Colony Museum. Saturday, August 12, sees the return of the Colony Days 5k and kids fun run after the pandemic. Lace up your running shoes and work up your appetite for the pancake breakfast at the Legion Hall. After breakfast, kick back for the parade and enjoy the Car Show and Market in the Park, the Outdoor Antiques Market downtown, the North Marion Community Library book sale, and the Old Aurora Colony Museum. End the night celebrating this year’s achievements with our Colony Days concert in the park. Food booths will be available throughout the day and evening.

If you have attended our City Council meetings, then you will know that I start every meeting asking for affirmations. Recognizing accomplishments, kind deeds, helpful neighbors, good fortune, and expressing gratitude is an important practice. Each year, Colony Days provides us with the opportunity to honor and give affirmations to members of our community for their contributions to our community.

This year, we celebrate our volunteer of the year, Tara Weidman, for her tireless volunteer work on behalf of the community. For over 11 years, Tara gave her time and efforts to the city as a volunteer city councilor, planning commissioner, and parks committee member. If you are fortunate to know Tara, you will know that she loves a good party, she loves Aurora, and she loves Christmas. Her passion and hard work brought us Colony Days past and introduced the Tree Lighting in the Park. Tara is an invaluable team member and this year she passed the baton to open the door for other volunteers. Tara, we miss you on council and are grateful for the time you gave us.

We also celebrate this year’s Aurora Grand Marshals, Helene and Martin Meskers. Many of you may know Helene and Martin from Oregon Flowers. In 1985, Helene and Martin bought bare land in Aurora and started Oregon Flowers in what became the realization of the dream they brought with them when they moved from Holland. Today, the Helene and Martin cultivate quality lilies, tulips, and other beautiful “Flowers Grown with a Dutch Touch...” This year, Helene and Martin helped celebrate Aurora’s mothers with a generous donation of fresh cut tulips from Oregon Flowers. Their family-run-and-operated business is a great partner with Aurora. Thank you, Helene and Martin.

Aurora is a wonderful community, and I consider myself fortunate to do my part in preserving this gemstone for future residents and visitors. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you also for everything you do to make Aurora a great community.

Mayor Brian Asher

TOCANBY&OREGONCITY

2023 EVENTS SCHEDULE

Friday, August 11

Aurora Colony Days Biergarten

Old Aurora Colony Museum Courtyard - 4:30pm to 10:30pm Mark Seymour and Friends Begins at 7:00pm

Saturday, August 12

Pancake Breakfast

American Legion Hall — 7:00am to 11:00am

Aurora Colony Days 5K & Kids 1k Fun Run

15018 2nd St NE — 7:30am to 8:30am

Market in the Park

Aurora City Park, 21074 Main St NE — 8:30am to 4:00pm

Aurora Outdoor Antiques Market

Downtown Aurora — 9:00am to 4:00pm

Aurora Colony Parade — Begins at: 11:00am

Old Aurora Colony Museum

15018 2nd St NE — FREE ADMISSION — 11:00am to 4pm

Aurora Colony Car Show

Aurora City Park, 21074 Main St NE — 12:00pm to 4:00pm

Live music by the Timothy James Band

Celebration in the Park with Best Night Ever

Live Performance at Aurora City Park

21074 Main St. NE - 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Local food and drink vendors

Come boogie down with Portland’s hottest dance band, Best Night Ever!

North Marion Community Library Book Sale

August 11-13 — 9:00am to 4:00pm

Aurora Colony Days

Celebrating Past, Present, Future

Small towns like Aurora often talk about having a sense of community. Look around Aurora today and you’ll see all the markers of a great community – a volunteer-run library, fun shops and wineries, summer music in the parks, a farmers’ market, places of worship, museum events, and Aurora Colony Days activities. But for Aurora, founded as a Christian communal society, the idea of community has a special meaning. Community is in its roots.

The village of Aurora Mills was founded by Dr. William Keil in 1856 as a Utopian community in which members shared their goods and services and worked for the common good.

Keil, who had already established a successful community in Bethel, Missouri, named Aurora after his daughter. He selected the site because it had a sawmill and a grist mill dating to the late 1840s.

About 400 colony members, mostly German and Swiss emigrants, lived with the principle that Christians ought to share labor and property, thus attempting to live the ideal as described in the Book of Acts in the New Testament.

A history of fine crafts and music

Colony members, who were trained in all manner of crafts, gradually built homes and manufactured products such as furniture, baskets and textiles for their personal use.

Cont'd on page 10

Proud to serve the Aurora community

By the mid-1860s, the Aurora Colonists operated a general store. Its register of accounts includes some of Oregon’s most prominent pioneers. A new hotel served the stagecoach and, after the railroad came in 1870, railroad passengers. Food served at this hotel was praised far and wide.

The Aurora brass band was a popular attraction at most every major function in western Oregon and often won first prize in competitions at the state fair. After the death of Dr. Keil in December of 1877, the younger colony members decided to end the communal lifestyle. In 1893, Aurora Mills was incorporated as Aurora.

Aurora builds on its heritage

Aurora’s location on the railroad line continued to make it an important

center for shipping and receiving farm products. The brokering of hops was an especially successful industry until the coming of prohibition.

Descendants of the colony continued to live in the village and helped spur the celebration of Aurora’s centennial in 1956. Edward Miller, the publisher of The Oregonian newspaper delivered front page coverage of the impending event, and several thousand visitors descended on the village for the celebration in July of that year.

Preserving the past for the future

This public interest in Aurora encouraged the interest of historic preservationists, which in turn led to the organization of the Aurora Colony Historical Society in 1963. The city of Aurora took a major step in 1974 to encourage preservation of the remaining colony sites and structures with the establishment of the Aurora National Historic District.

34 years of Colony Days

In conjunction with America’s Bicentennial in 1976, Aurora held a Jubilee celebration. This was revived in 1989 as Aurora Colony Days, which has been held annually since that year. As in the days of old Aurora, the Colony Day celebrations feature good food and

music. Aurora comes together in its own unique spirit of community, with a Friday beer garden followed by Saturday’s parade, hands-on activities for young and old at the museum, and other activities in the park and around town.

Aurora has certainly grown since the first colony members arrived in 1856, but the spirit of community continues.

AUGUST

* Craft Brew Beer * Root Beer Floats

* Music * Wine from Pheasant Run

* Food by Good News BBQ

Mark Seymour & Friends

7PM-10PM

auroracolony.org