OTE - Oregon Travel Experience

During the 18th century, Native American villages occupied the mouths of nearly every stream along this coastline-including here at Siletz Bay. References to great flooding and ground shaking events are recorded in the oral traditions of many Pacific Northwest coastal tribes. These stories include instructions about how to prepare for large flooding events.

On January 26, 1700, the earth shook violently in the throes of a magnitude 9+ earthquake that occurred …

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The 90-ton glacial erratic rock at the top of this 1/4 mile-long trail is a stranger from a distant location- it was transported here thousands of years ago on an iceberg in the wake of a cataclysmic flood.

During the last Ice Age, 13,000-15,500 years ago, a giant glacier dammed the Clark Fork River in what is today southwest Montana and created a huge lake- Glacial Lake Missoula. At 3,000 square …

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Dr. John McLoughlin,1784-1857Chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Vancouver, philanthropist, and founder of Oregon City. The land on the east bank of the Willamette River at the falls was claimed by Dr. McLoughlin and the Hudson’s Bay Co. in 1828-29. First called Willamette Falls, the town was platted in 1842 and was named Oregon City by Dr. McLoughlin. Oregon City was the first incorporated U.S. city west …

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This area, once named tchampuick, the ‘place of yampah’ was the traditional homeland of the Tualatin Kalapuya tribe. Fur trappers first arrived here by canoe in 1811, and they found lush open prairies bordering the Willamette River. In 1830, French-Canadians retiring from the Hudson’s Bay Company and their Indian wives began farms and raised families near here. Champoeg soon became a shipping and commercial center. In 1851, local tribes and …

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Cannon Beach was named after a carronade (a short, smoothbore, cast iron naval cannon) found buried in the sand nearby. The cannon broke free of the USS Shark’s deck during a shipwreck at the mouthof the Columbia River on September 10, 1846. Shortly after the wreck, a USS Shark crewmember learned from Tillamook Indians that part of the ship’s deck washed ashore south of what is now Cannon Beach. Three …

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During the period of Oregon’s Provisional Government (1841-1849), residents traveled by Indian trails, water courses, or on primitive rough-hewn wagon roads etched by emigrant settlers. During the days of the Territorial Government (1849-1859), and long before the State Highway Commission was established in 1914, travel and commercial transportation was often the result of ambitious, enterprising Oregonians such as the Alphonso Boone family of Clackamas County. Alphonso Boone, grandson of frontiersman …

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In October 1861, a group of prospectors in search of the mythical Blue Bucket Mine, made camp on a creek six miles southwest of here. That evening, Henry Griffin discovered gold in the gulch which bears his name. That started a stampede which continued for years. In 1862, Baker County was created and named for Colonel E.D. Baker, U.S. Senator from Oregon. The present town of Baker was an important …

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