News - Page 26 of 30 - Oregon Travel Information Council

The Cascadia Earthquake and Tsunami of 1700

Posted on: September 19th, 2011 in Historical Marker Audio Tours, Historical Marker Details |

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 …

Great Basin

Posted on: September 19th, 2011 in Historical Marker Details |

This site marks the northern limit of the Great Basin, a region some six hundred miles long and up to five hundred miles wide. It began forming 17 million years ago as the result of regional uplift and east west stretching by geologic forces that continue today. This stretching created a pattern of north trending mountain ranges separated by broad flat valleys. Precipitation that falls within the Great Basin leaves …

Gray, Captain Robert

Posted on: September 19th, 2011 in Historical Marker Details |

Captain Robert Gray, commanding the sloop Lady Washington, left Boston in October 1787 on a trading voyage to the West Coast of North America, seeking otter furs. To his small crew of about a dozen men, Gray soon added Markus Lopeus, who boarded at the Cape Verde Islands off West Africa. Rounding the tip of South America and sailing north, the Lady Washington traded along the coast, and reached Tillamook …

Grand Ronde Indian Reservation

Posted on: September 19th, 2011 in Historical Marker Details |

Subject:Tells of the forced relocation of inland valley Indians to the Grand Ronde Reservation, their fight for U.S. Government recognition, and their efforts toward economic stability.
Indians inhabited Oregon’s inland valleys for thousands of years before Euro-Americans began to arrive in the late 18th Century. In the early 1780s, and again in the 1830s, diseases spread by seafarers and fur trappers swept through Oregon’s valleys killing most of the native population. …

Glacial Erratics

Posted on: September 19th, 2011 in Historical Marker Audio Tours, Historical Marker Details |

Subject: This fine-grained rock was rafted to this location during catastrophic floods that occurred during the end of the Ice Age.
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 …

Fremont Memorial

Posted on: September 19th, 2011 in Historical Marker Details |

Subject: A memorial to the 1843-44 John Fremont expedition to Oregon and California.
A MEMORIAL TO THE PERSONNEL OF THE SECOND FREMONT EXPLORING EXPEDITION TO OREGON AND NORTH CALIFORNIA.
The reports of this expedition directed the migration of the Western Settlement toward the Oregon Country which hitherto had been merely a rendezvous for trappers. On December 16th, 1843 the expedition while enroute from The Dalles of the Columbia to Sutters Fort on …

Fort Stevens State Park

Posted on: September 19th, 2011 in Historical Marker Details |

Clatsop people controlled trade on this side of the lower Columbia River for generations. Visitors described the Clatsop’s bustling communities. The Hudson’s Bay Company attacked a village here in 1829, believing untrue rumors of Clatsop hostility. Settlers soon began claiming nearby lands. Clatsop chiefs signed a treaty with the U.S. in 1851, reserving land, but the U.S. Senate never ratified the treaty. The 1855 Oregon Coast Treaty was also unratified, …

Fort Rock

Posted on: September 19th, 2011 in Historical Marker Details |

Fort Rock is the remnant of a maar volcano or tuff ring, formed when rising basaltic magma encountered water and exploded violently. The exploded debris—called tuff—fell back to earth around the volcanic vent to form this steep-walled, fort-like ring. Over time, the basin filled with a shallow lake, which breached the south rim of the tuff ring and cut a terrace about 60 feet above the floor of the valley. A State Monument and a National Natural Landmark, Fort Rock is one …

Fort Harney

Posted on: September 19th, 2011 in Historical Marker Details |

Subject: History of the U.S. military post, 1867-1889.
Fort Harney-on the former Malheur Indian Reservation, was named for Gen. Wm. S. Harney. who took command of the Military Department of Oregon, Sept. 13, 1858. The fort was established Aug. 10, 1867, and became a permanent Military Post by order of the President. The Fort Harney Military Reserve of 640 acres was created on Jan. 28, 1876. On Sept. 13, 1882 the President …

First Coastal Expeditions

Posted on: September 19th, 2011 in Historical Marker Details |

Subject: First overland treks in 1826-27 led by Alexander McLeod of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Included French Canadians, such as Michel Laframboise who served as an interpreter, as well as Hawaiians, and Iroquois Indians. These explorations opened this portion of Oregon’s coast to commercial trapping and further exploration.
McLeod’s first expedition camped on the banks of nearby Beaver Creek from June 29 to July 10, 1826. Calling this stream the ‘Nackito River,’ McLeod …