OTE - Oregon Travel Experience

During the late 20th Century thousands of Americans left farms, families and friends to trek the Oregon Trail toward new lives in the West. The trail was nearly 2,000 miles across prairies, mountains and parched deserts, and contrary to popular belief, it was not a single set of parallel ruts leading from Missouri to the Willamette Valley. Pioneers, always searching for shortcuts or easier traveling often followed alternative routes, and …

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Jedediah Smith’s explorations in the American West began when he was 21 and lasted until his death at age 32. He crisscrossed the region in search of beaver pelts and new travel routes. His travel journals became a foundation for the first accurate maps of what is now the western United States.

A life of Exploration After three years in the Rocky Mountains, Jedediah Smith led trapping expeditions to California in …

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Creating a Resting Place for All: Mount Union Cemetery is situated on land once belonging to Reuben and Mary Jane Shipley, one of Oregon’s earliest Black pioneer couples. Reuben was born into slavery in Kentucky and was brought to Oregon by his enslaver, Robert Shipley in 1853. In return for driving the family wagon across the continent, Robert granted Reuben his freedom. Reuben worked for Eldridge Hartless and purchased 101 …

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The pass located east of here through the Cascade Range was once called Wiley Pass after Andrew Wiley. Wiley with other Willamette Valley pioneers explored it in 1859 while searching for a route to move their livestock to the grass lands of central Oregon for summer grazing. In 1864 the Willamette Valley and Cascade Mountain Military Wagon Road Company was formed and submitted plans to the U.S. Government for a …

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This area of the Deschutes River has been a river crossing and fishing location for thousands of years. Peter Skene Ogden made note of an Indian camp and bridge when he crossed here in 1826. Early pioneers using the Meek Cutoff to the Barlow Road passed here on their way to The Dalles and the Willamette Valley. John Todd built a bridge in 1860 and in 1868 a post office …

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On Oct. 30th, 1792 off the point in the Columbia River where the Sandy empties its waters the boat crew from the H.M.S. Chatham (Vancouver’s Voyages) were the first white men to sight the snow clad peak which Lt. Wm. R. Broughton named Mt. Hood in honor of Vice Admiral Samuel Lord Hood of the British Navy. He called the stream Barings River. Later in November 1805 Lewis and Clark …

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Richard Sommer & HillCrest Vineyard Oregon’s successful and widely recognized wine industry can be traced to this place, where Richard Sommer first planted Pinot noir grapes in 1961. The Umpqua and Willamette valleys’ climates and topographies are much like those of European wine regions, but most winemakers of the 1960s believed it was impossible to grow fine wines in Oregon. Sommer, however, recognized the significance of sharing latitude with European …

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Philomath College was chartered November 1865 as the United Brethren School for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and California. The name combines two Greek words meaning love of learning. The building’s center structure was completed in September 1867 of bricks made from clay extruded near the building. The center structure is 40 x 60 feet in 2-feet-thick walls. The west wing was completed in 1905; the east wing in 1907. The …

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This location marks a travel corridor for Plateau Tribes moving seasonally from the Columbia River to the Blue Mountains. In 1811, members of the Astor Party under the leadership of Wilson Price Hunt camped here on their way west. They traded with the Cayuse people for horses. The Imatalam Wana (Umatilla River) abounded with beaver and salmon then. Oregon Trail migrations began passing this way in 1841. In 1868, the …

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