McIntosh is credited with providing Tillamook dairy farmers with a foolproof recipe for cheddar cheese. Townsend hired Peter Duncan McIntosh, head cheesemaker at a plant in Woodland, Washington, to lead the new factory. Townsend herded several dozen cattle from Portland over the Coast Range to Tillamook so he would have enough cows to supply the milk needed for his factory. Over time, Tillamook acquired a reputation for its dairy products, drawing the attention of Portland entrepreneurs Thaddeus вЂњT.S.вЂќ Townsend and Harry Ogden, who started a cheese factory in Tillamook in 1893. The Morning Star is memorialized today as part of the Tillamook Cheese logo, and a replica is on view at the Tillamook factory.Д¬heese was easier to transport and less perishable than butter, and a few Tillamook-area dairy farmers, including Merriman Foland and Jasper Smith, began making it. For several years, they used the ship to carry butter to markets in Astoria and Portland. After several failed attempts at hiring reliable ocean transport, residents scraped together enough timber and hardware from local shipwrecks to build a small schooner in 1855, which they christened Morning Star. There were few passable roads over the mountains, and reaching Portland markets proved difficult. Some resettlers used the milk to make butter, which they hoped to sell in more populated areas such as Portland. Though the remote, heavily forested area presented many challenges, the mild coastal climate was good for growing grass that could support dairy cattle. Finding that most land in the Willamette Valley had already been homesteaded, some resettlers continued west over the Coast Range and settled near what is now Tillamook Bay. The story of cheese in Tillamook, a small town near Tillamook Bay on the north Oregon Coast, began during the mid-nineteenth century, when thousands of EuroAmericans traveled to the Pacific Northwest over the Oregon Trail. Over a million people visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory each year. For more than a hundred years, generations of dairy farmers and cheesemakers have brought economic prosperity to Tillamook, and their collaboration through the County Creamery Association has built a nationally known brand of cheese and dairy products. TCCA and Olson Kundig are also designing the factory tour experience and adding new interpretive exhibits that tell the over one hundred year history of the factory, its workers, the process of cheese making, the farmer collective that owns the cooperative, and the milk that makes the Tillamook products.For many Oregonians, вЂњTillamookвЂќ and вЂњcheeseвЂќ are inextricably linked. The building was inspired by architecture associated with modern farming and the working dairy structures used by many of the nearly one hundred farm families that comprise the Tillamook co-op.

Olson Kundig worked closely with TCCA to redesign the entire visitor experience to create an environmental extension of the Tillamook brand-from the moment visitors arrive on site, to the moment they leave. The new Visitors Center will comprise of a larger space to enable TCCA to better accommodate their growing number of guests and welcome even more visitors, providing the most comfortable, enjoyable experience possible. Currently, more than 1.3 million people visit each year-as many as 10,000 per day. The number of visitors who visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory has grown significantly over the years. In its place a brand new 38,500 square-foot facility that reflects Tillamook as a world-class dairy brand will be built. Through this project, the existing Visitors Center facility at the Tillamook Cheese Factory will be demolished. вЂњThis project represents a significant investment in our local presence here in Tillamook County and one that we anticipate will attract even more visitors to our area.вЂќ вЂњThis new facility will provide us with an opportunity to bring to life TCCAвЂ™s story in a much more compelling way-from our vital history as a farmer-owned co-op, to our modern day commitment to Dairy Done Right,вЂќ said TCCA President and CEO Patrick Criteser. The Tillamook County Creamery Association (TCCA) has announced that it will undertake a significant project in the coming years to completely redesign and rebuild the Visitors Center at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, the most popular tourist destination on the Oregon Coast.Дesigned by Olson Kundig, TCCA leadership says the new Visitors Center at the companyвЂ™s headquarters in Tillamook will offer a significantly enhanced experience for visitors.

Jerome Tyron (Architecture Staff), Architecture Staff Ming Yuan (Project Architect), Project Architect Marlene Chen (Project Manager), Project Manager

Tillamook cheese factory