PDX Christmas - Alpenrose Dairyville

Dairyville is a Western-themed town that families can explore on Sunday afternoons in the summer, but it also opens up around Christmas.

At Christmas there is also Storybook Lane, and we will focus on that next week.

Another big difference at Christmas is that everything is hung with green.

It is mainly displays of how a town might be set up in the past. You can look in the windows of the bank and school and post office.

It is all just a little bit more Christmas-y at that time of year.

Well, maybe some things don't change too much.

One thing I started thinking about is that a large business might function as a little town, with a cash office and postal service.

Alpenrose was a specific part of local dairy history, when all of the dairies were started by Swiss immigrants.

The Oregonian ran an interesting story on that history a few years ago, and there is a link to it posted down at the end of the post.

One emphasis for the Cadonau family was community involvement. Here you are near the Little League field and the velodrome, but Dairyville in itself is a gift to the community, because it is free.

There are ways to spend money. Concessions allow local groups to have fundraisers.

You can have your picture taken with Santa, and you can choose a professional photo package, but you don't need to.

This is another of those places that depends on volunteers, working with local organizations and clubs to do things like run the train displays.

That means hours are limited, and also nothing is particularly flashy.

It is still very charming and sweet.

Cows are never forgotten, being the key to the whole dynasty.

They are never that far away.

For one final glance at the history, on our way out we stopped at the Wagon Museum to look at old trucks for delivering milk.

The display was not very detailed, but there were several vehicles in good condition for viewing.

Not everything was used for milk delivery.

The dairy's history also includes a circus, with a wagon left over from that.

There was also a bell wagon, full of the bells that were awarded to the cows that gave the most milk.

There is enough to look at to be interesting, but none of it should be overwhelming for small children.

There were many steps that could pose accessibility issues, so that should be taken into consideration for your party's needs.

However, even that would not affect everything, including the wagon museum.

Summer and Christmas hours should be checked on the web site's event calendar.

http://alpenrose.com/event-calendar/summer-sundays-in-dairyville-3/
http://alpenrose.com/events/christmas-in-dairyville/
https://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2016/01/alpenrose_dairy_at_100_years_a.html