OTE - Oregon Travel Experience

John West was a self-made man. A native of Scotland, he settled on the lower ColumbiaRiver near this spot in the early 1850s after trying his luck in the goldfields of California. West built and operated sawmills, ran a general store and post office, built and managed a salmon cannery, developed and improved canning machinery, and exported lumber. He also exported canned salmon around the globe and left his name …

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Wallowa Lake fills a depression that was formerly occupied by a great river of ice that flowed out of the high Wallowa Mountains to the South. This Glacier Reached its greatest size in the late Pleistocene age about 12 to 40 thousand years ago. As it flowed out onto the valley floor, the glacier built great piles of rock debris around its edges, called moraines. When the ice melted away, …

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Southern Oregon is a land of great geographic diversity. Here are the more than 250-million-year-old Klamath Mountains in the south, and to the north and uplifted 50-million-year-old ocean floor and overlying sediments, called “Siletzia” by geologists. To the east is crystal clear crater lake nestled in ancient volcanic Mount Mazama, and beyond it are Basin and Range fault block mountains separated by lakes such as Summer Lake, Lake Abert, and …

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Weary emigrants traveling westward on the Oregon Trail favored a campsite on the near bank of the Umatilla River at this point. On leaving they climbed the same hill the highway now traverses, then recrossed the Umatilla River at Echo 20 hot, dusty miles westerly.In the years 1863-64 at this site a settlement composed of 3 buildings called Middleton, the first County and Circuit Court Sessions were held in Swift …

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Devastating waves called “tsunamis” can strike the Oregon coast at any time. These waves are caused by great undersea earthquakes that occur along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, one of the largest active faults in North America. Tsunamis are dangerous and destructive. They have struck the Oregon coast at 200 to 600 year intervals. For example, about AD 1700, a tsunami caused by an earthquake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone flooded …

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Devastating waves called “tsunamis” can strike the Oregon coast at any time. These waves are caused by great undersea earthquakes that occur along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, one of the largest active faults in North America. Tsunamis are dangerous and destructive. They have struck the Oregon coast at 200 to 600 year intervals. For example, about AD 1700, a tsunami caused by an earthquake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone flooded …

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This pioneer community gateway to the Columbia Gorge was settled in the 1850’s. Cattle herds of early pioneers were driven to the nearby Sandy River from the Dalles while the emigrants rafted their wagons down the Columbia. First known as Sandy, the present name came from fish ponds built by the town’s founder, Captain John Harlow. By the turn of the century railroad and river commerce made Troutdale a noisy …

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In 1943, the African-American 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion was formed. The “Triple Nickles”-as they spelled it-were the first black paratroopers in the segregated US Army during World War II. In 1944-1945, Japan launched incendiary balloon bombs across the Pacific to set US west coast forests ablaze and cause civilian panic. In May 1945, the military ordered the 555th on a classified mission, “Operation Firefly,” to counter this threat, and 300 …

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Formed in 1943, the all-Black 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion was the first opportunity for African American officers and enlisted men to become paratroopers in the segregated US Army during World War II. Balloon Bomb Blazes: In 1944-45, Japan launched balloon bombs eastward across the Pacific to set US west coast forests ablaze and cause civilian panic. In May 1945, the military ordered the “Triple Nickles” on a classified mission, code …

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