Sweet Home Information

Sweet Home, a city of just over 9,000 residents, is located approximately 30 minutes southeast of Albany and Interstate 5, on the edge of the Cascade Mountains.

Surrounded by lush forests, with two nearby lakes and two rivers in the area, the city offers a small-town, rural, lifestyle while being conveniently close to the usual amenities of several large metropolitan cities such as Eugene, Albany, Corvallis, and Salem.

The forest plays a big part in Sweet Home life, providing jobs and recreational activities for residents and visitors year-round.

More facts about Sweet Home:
* First occupied by white settlers who arrived in 1851, sharing the country with friendly Kalapuyan Indians until 1921 when the last remaining member of that tribe died.

* Built along the edge of the South Santiam River on the site of a prehistoric petrified forest, Sweet Home is known for its treasures of agate, jasper, crystal and minerals. The town took its name from the Sweet Home Valley.

* Sweet Home was incorporated in 1893. The demand for lumber created by World War II helped Sweet Home develop into a booming town. The city experienced additional growth in 1962 and 1966 with the building of the Green Peter and Foster Dams. Sweet Home has since become known as "The Gateway to the Santiam Playground" because of its many recreational opportunities in the valley and its access to waterways.

* Though impacted by the closure of sawmills and logging operations in the 1980s, Sweet Home residents are working to revitalize their community through a variety of means. One of the most obvious is the Oregon Jamboree country music festival, which was created to raise funds to help revitalize the city’s economy.

Efforts to revitalize Sweet Home’s commercial district are under way through SHARE (Sweet Home Active Revitalization Effort), an organization of volunteers dedicated to making a positive changes downtown.