Forest Grove is a city in Washington County 25 miles west of Portland, Oregon. A missionary settlement founded in the 1840s as West Tuality Plains, the name was selected for the community on January 10, 1851 at a meeting of the trustees of Tualatin Academy (later known as Pacific University). J. Quinn Thornton was the individual who suggested the name. Pacific University has been the most distinctive aspect of the town throughout its history. Originally a small farm town, it is now primarily a bedroom suburb of Portland, filled with families, college students and illegal immigrants. The population was 17,708 at the 2000 census. Estimates in 2004 peg the population at over 19,000.