TUALATIN -- Some cities tout their wineries or roses to attract tourist attention. Members of the

and other regional partners are taking a road less traveled, suggesting an "Ice Age Tourism Plan" that would capitalize on a 14,000-year-old

skeleton and connect the city's geologic and paleontological landmarks with new exhibits and trails.

Promoting tourism would mark a new direction for Tualatin, but historical society President Yvonne Addington pointed to a simple reason for pursuing it:

"To show people what we do have here," Addington said. "It's right under their feet."

The best-known piece of Tualatin's collection took a long, strange path to its home in the

.

In the early 1960s, two

students unearthed the dark bones of a mastodon from a swampy field in Tualatin. The astonishing find followed earlier, smaller discoveries in the same area.

The ancient skeleton wound up on display at PSU, where Addington, then Tualatin's city administrator, saw it a few years later. Then she noticed the label: "Tigard Mastodon."

Addington made sure the label was corrected. Soon after, she accepted the nearly half-complete skeleton on behalf of the city. The significant piece of the city's natural history languished in storage in Tualatin, then at the

, before returning to the city for display in the early 1990s.

Two decades later, Addington still is trying to bring attention to Tualatin's history, helping push the ambitious plan to make Tualatin a tourist destination -- an identity the city never has held or even pursued.

Numerous other bone and rock discoveries have revealed prehistoric fingerprints around Tualatin. That's in large part due to the region's geography, channeling the

that inundated the area near the end of the last ice age, some 15,000 to 18,000 years ago.

"Tualatin is a place where the water came through every time there was a flood," said

, a Portland State geology professor who lives in Tualatin. "In each flood, the waters would go in (and) fill up the Tualatin Valley right over Tualatin."

The result was a unique trail of rock and sediment, Burns said -- much of it left near what's now

Fred Meyer (where the mastodon skeleton was also found) and the Tonquin scablands near southwest Tualatin.

"This is an intersection of water going in and the water going out during the Missoula Floods," Burns said.

The trick, Tualatin Historical Society volunteers say, is making that part of Tualatin's identity. Among the projects they've floated are a local trail system connecting and identifying significant archaeological sites -- to correspond with a larger trail planned by the

-- or a branding effort to highlight Tualatin's prehistory. The ultimate prize, according to Addington, would be establishing a natural history museum in Tualatin.

But it will take more than one group to make any of that happen, said Larry McClure, director of the

and a past historical society president.

"It is a bigger thing. It's a large concept," McClure said. "We're just a piece of that bigger picture."

Hoping to get the effort moving, organizers already have reached out to regional partners such as the city, the

and the

among others. A county grant helped the historical society hire a tourism expert last year. A second grant from the

netted another $27,500 for the project earlier this month.

Supporters presented the concept to the

in April. They met good reviews, even as specific details and goals remain to be worked out.

"The general idea of increasing tourism is a positive thing that the council is going to be supportive of," said Community Services Director Paul Hennon.

The city hasn't committed funding or staff to the ice age plan but has collaborated through meetings with organizers, Hennon said. The city has hosted historical talks and presentations in the past that drew plenty of public interest, he said.

Supporters of the Ice Age Tourism Plan recognize they'll need to cast a wide net of contacts and support to get the effort off the ground, McClure said. They'll also need money; before the latest award, McClure said he'll be among those writing other grant applications.

"It's going to take time," he said. "We're certainly not going to get it through donations and bake sales."

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