Click the title of each marker to see details about the markers.
This division was organized for World War I in 1917 at Camp Greene, North Carolina and was demobilized at Camp Die, New Jersey in 1919. It was reorganized and Federally recognized at Portland, Oregon in 1930. The division was mobilized for World War II 16th September, 1940, and campaigned in Papua, New Guinea, Luzon and the Southern Philippines. It was inactivated in December, 1945 in Japan. The Sunset Division was …
The story began at the Oregon Caves in 1938. After taking a tour, William B. Gruber, an Oregon inventor, met Harold J. Graves, the president of postcard company, Sawyer’s Inc. Graves asked Gruber about the device he carried consisting of two cameras mounted side-by-side on a tripod. Gruber described his work to create a 3D viewing device. That evening, they met in the Oregon Caves Chateau, and their conversation led …
From 1845 to 1849, George Abernethy was the first Provisional Governor of the Oregon Country, which extended from the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains and from California to Northern British Columbia. After arriving in Oregon in 1840 as part of the Methodist Mission at Champoeg, he was involved in a series of meetings that ended in the celebrated May 2, 1843 vote to organize a Provisional Government under the …
Behind you to the east is a steep cliff called Abert Rim, made of many layers of hardened lava flows. This 30-mile-long, 2,500-foot-high, steep cliff is an example of a fault scarp, produced over millennia by great blocks of rock tilting and moving along faults in this region where the earth’s crust is thinning and stretching.
The fault that produced Abert Rim is one of many in the …
In 1860, Abigail Jane Scott Duniway and six other women attended a campaign speech by Col. Edward D. Baker, a U.S. Senate candidate. Their attendance shocked the town of Lafayette, because most people considered it inappropriate for women to take part in any aspect of political life. Age twenty-six at the time, Duniway’s leadership in the act may have been the first of countless steps taken by Oregon’s pioneer of …
American Indians have occupied portions of the northern Great Basin for 10,000 years. The region’s earliest inhabitants lived in caves and camps along the shores of glacial lakes and marshes. This area was the homeland of the “Wada-tika” (wada seed eaters), a band of the Northern Paiute Indians. They often camped near this site between Malheur and Harney lakes called “The Narrows,” and collected seeds from the seepweed (Suaeda sp.) …
Before a network of dams controlled the Columbia River it was often a raging torrent. Here at Wyam Falls, known today as Celilo Falls, a vertical drop of more than 20 feet and sheer basalt bluffs on either shore forced the river into seething, boiling rapids.
From time immemorial this region comprised the fishing grounds of all Indian tribes of the middle Columbia River area. Early Indians speared huge salmon while …
The first emigrant train over the “Southern Route” including more than fifty wagons under the leadership of Captain Levi Scott and David Goff, left the Oregon Trail at Fall Creek or Raft River on the Snake River, August 10, 1846. The Klamath River was crossed eight miles upstream from this sign on October 4, 1846. This trail, roughly 680 miles, took fifty-six days of travel. Captain Scott, leading the second …
Up the hill behind this marker was the home of Jesse Applegate, a captain of the first major wagon train to Oregon in 1843, traveling from Missouri with his brothers Lindsay and Charles. Jesse was a major force behind the Provisional Government of 1845, which held Oregon for the United States until admission as a territory in 1848. As a delegate to Oregon’s Constitutional Convention of 1857, he was a vocal opponent to slavery in Oregon. Jesse also …
Dr. Wilhelm Keil founded here a Christian co-operative colony patterned after his colony at Bethel, Missouri. Musicians of the settlement made it widely famous. After Dr. Keil’s death in 1877 the communal enterprise was dissolved.
Location: Corner of Liberty at 3rd Street, Aurora, OR
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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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Very near here, on a warm spring day in 1945, six people- a woman and five children- were killed by a Japanese “balloon bomb,” or Fugo. The party had arrived for a picnic when they discovered the deflated balloon. While they gathered around the strange device, it exploded. These were the only civilian casualties of the war within the continental US. The bombs were launched 6,000 miles away in japan …
Beacon Rock is a monolith, the core of a young volcano that erupted around 57,000 years ago. It is claimed to be the second largest freestanding monolith in the world. Lewis and Clark named it Beacon Rock in 1805. Native peoples and Lewis and Clark recognized that Beacon Rock marked the last of the rapids on the Columbia River and the beginning of tidal influence from the Pacific Ocean, 150 …
This is Beaver Slough- a resource gathering area and major travel corridor for the Hanis and Miluk people (Coos Bay estuary) and the Athabaskan speaking people (Coquille River). This was once Oregon’s only commercially developed coal region. Euro-Americans settled here in the 1850s. By 1893, the region’s first railroad ran alongside Beaver Slough, transporting coal to a hungry steam-power market. In 1895, 11 Black miners from West Virginia were recruited …
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 …
Many of Oregon’s early transportation routes resulted from the efforts of enterprising pioneers like the Boone family of Clackamas County. In 1846 Alphonso Boone, grandson of Daniel Boone, emigrated to Oregon via the Applegate Trail with his large family. By 1847, using local Tuality Indians as oarsmen, they established Boone’s Ferry near this marker. The thriving community of Boone’s Landing, genesis of Wilsonville, quickly sprang up on the river’s north …
Long before the first pioneer settlers arrived here in the 1840’s, this area was occupied by the ancient Mound Builders and then the Kalapuya Indians. The relative ease of finding food in the valley made the Kalapuya vulnerable to intruders, including other tribes, because they did not need to fight or go very far for food. At the time of Lewis and Clark, about two thousand were distributed in forty …
The US War Department selected 55,000 acres at this location for an infantry training site in 1941. Temporary quarters were constructed, and the site was dedicated as Camp Adair in 1942. Camp Adair was designed to train two divisions at the same time.
The camp was named after Lt. Henry R. Adair, a West Point graduate and Oregon pioneer descendant, killed in 1916 while serving with Gen. John Pershing on a …
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 …
The narrow gorge of Canyon Creek has long served as a travel corridor. Native Americans likely trekked this canyon for thousands of years. Alexander McLeod of the Hudson’s Bay Company provided the first written account of the route in 1829, while traveling from Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River to California’s central valley. The U.S. Exploring Expedition, under Lt. George Emmons, followed the trail in 1841 making scientific observations. In …
After the close of the Sioux and Piute Indian Wars the ranchers of Wyoming and Montana discouraged in their attempts to fatten the Texas Longhorn, turned to Oregon for their cattle. During the spring cattlemen and their cowboys arrived daily from the Rocky Mountain Area to purchase herds which had been assembled around Baker from remote parts of the state. The herds were sometimes six months in making the 1,200 …
Welcome to the Oregon Coast The rugged shore of the Central and Northern Oregon Coast is backed by the Coast Range Mountain, remnants of a chain of volcanic islands that collided with the North American continent some 50 million years ago. The Oregon Coast is notable for its basalt headlands, such as Cape Foulweather and Cape Perpetua, and for a succession of bays, estuaries, and river mouths. Volcanic cliffs alternate …
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 …
The story of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians is a tale of perseverance and strong recovery in the face of great loss. Epidemics and hostilities with miners led to large population declines. The tribe entered into a treaty with the United States in 1853, and ceded nearly 800 square miles for less than three cents an acre. This treaty left them without access to traditional hunting …
Eager to save time on the Oregon Trail, emigrants often attempted shortcuts. Between 1845 and 1854, three wagon trains left this campsite seeking a cutoff to the Willamette Valley
The Meek Cutoff of 1845Frontiersman Stephen Meek persuaded over 1,000 people with 200 wagons to avoid the notorious Blue Mountains, Cayuse Indians, and Columbia River by turning west up the Malheur River into central Oregon. Unable to find water west of Wagontire …
Samuel K. Barlow established a wagon road in 1845-46 from The Dalles across the Cascade Range. Many Oregon Trail emigrants preferred the new road to the perilous Columbia River route, which had claimed many lives. The Barlow Road allowed emigrants to drive wagons to the Willamette Valley for the first time.
By 1848 many overlanders left the Oregon Trail soon after crossing the John Day River on a Cutoff to the …
Courthouse Square Park is a monument to the civic and commercial aspirations of Dayton’s founders, Joel Palmer, his son-in-law Andrew Smith, and Christopher Taylor. Palmer and Taylor, who settled here to farm in 1848, laid out the town site on the banks of the Yamhill River in 1850. Taylor became the first postmaster in 1851. The founders hoped that Dayton would become the county seat of Yamhill County, and planned …
The Oregon Trail crossed the hazardous Deschutes River at this point by floating the prairie schooners and swimming the livestock. An island at the river mouth was often utilized when the water was high and the ford dangerous. Pioneer women and children were frequently ferried across the stream by Native canoe men who made the passage in exchange for bright colored shirts and other trade goods.
Location: East side of Deschutes …
Madame Marie Dorion, a Native American of the Sioux Nation, gained recognition for her endurance and courage in the early American West. As the only woman on the long and difficult Wilson Price Hunt Expedition from Montreal to the wild Oregon Territory, Marie’s strength of character and courage earned her a reputation for bravery.
In 1811, explorer Wilson Hunt hired Pierre Dorion as an interpreter for an expedition seeking an overland …
Water flowed across the high desert country during glacial times carving the Dry River Canyon visible beyond the marker. Near this part of Hwy 20, the canyon deepens from about 20 to 200 feet in less than half a mile. It continues northwest for two miles at depths of 300 to 400 feet before shallowing abruptly and disappearing beneath the basalt of Lava Top Butte that erupted from the north …
This spot was famous in early days as Express Ranch an important relay station on the Umatilla-Boise Basin Stage and Freight Route. It was also a favorite camping place for emigrants and teamsters.
Location: In front of Durkee School
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On January 8, 1806 William Clark and perhaps fourteen of the famous expedition reached a Tillamook village of five cabins on a creek which Captain Clark named Ecola or Whale Creek. Three days earlier, two men sent out from Fort Clatsop to locate a salt making site had brought back whale blubber given them by Beach Indians. Appreciating the welcome addition to the explorers’ diet, Clark set out to find …
A remarkable construction enterprise of its time, the “Eldorado Ditch” carried water for placed mining from the Burnt River above Unity, over Eldorado Pass to Malheur City and the Willow Creek Drainage. Conceived and designed by William H. Packwood and constructed by Chinese labor, the ditch was started in 1863 and by May 1878 was carrying water more than 100 miles. The main ditch was five feet wide at the …
In the first week of January, 1812, a party of trappers and traders, members of the Astor Overland Expedition, crossed the Blue Mountains in this area. Traveling afoot in bitter cold, often waist deep in snow, they were the first white men in this area. The route they traveled to and from St. Louis and Astoria developed into the emigrant route to the Oregon Country later know as the Oregon …
Whether you are a history buff, a naturalist, or a visitor who loves it all, Coos Bay offers something for everyone. Spend the day exploring and you are certain to find something you enjoy!Crossing the BarWhile the natural harbor of Coos Bay has been a shipping hub since the 1850s, the bar at the entrance was a challenge to navigators. Bar pilot Capt. James B. and Sarah Magee built this …
The last camp on the weary journey across the Snake River plains. Here the Oregon Trail left the Snake River and wound overland to the Columbia. Here, camped Wilson Price Hunt, December 23, 1811; Capt. Bonneville, January 10, 1834; Nathaniel J. Wyeth, August 25, 1834; John C. Fremont, October 13, 1843.
Location: 4 miles east of Huntington in Farewell Bend State Park
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Alexander R. McLeod led the first overland expeditions to Oregon’s central and southern coast between 1826-27. McLeod, a Chief Trader for the Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Vancouver, sought furs and trading opportunities with tribes such as the Tillamook, Umpqua, Coos, and Coquille. Local tribes also provided information, canoes, and other assistance.
The McLeod expeditions included French Canadians, such as Michel Laframboise who served as an interpreter, as well as Hawaiians, …
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 restored to the public domain all …
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 ut a terrace about 60 feet abobe the floor of the …
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, …
The Fremont Memorial Marker was two-sided, which makes the final results doubly impressive!
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 …
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 …
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. The opening of the Oregon Trail in the 1840s incr4eased pressure to remove the remaining Indians from their homelands.In 1856, the U.S. Government created the …
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 …
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 …
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 …
SUNDAY, JUNE 14, 1903A flash flood swept down on Heppner, and caught residents unaware, killing hundreds and destroying nearly the entire town. A cloudburst hit in Balm Fork Canyon, south of Heppner. The rushing waters tore down the narrow canyon, picking up haystacks, chicken pens and livestock and piled it all up behind a steam laundry that straddled the canyon near the edge of town. This very effective dam held …
La Grande was the first town permanently settled in Northeastern Oregon. Daniel Chaplin laid out the original ‘Old Town’ in spring of 1862 and Ben Brown built the first house, a log cabin, alongside the Oregon Trail at the corner of B Avenue and Cedar Street.
As the prime lands of western Oregon were settled, and then gold was discovered in eastern Oregon, a reverse migration used the Oregon Trail from …
La Grande was the first town permanently settled in Northeastern Oregon. Daniel Chaplin laid out the original “Old Town” in spring of 1862 and Ben Brown built the first house, a log cabin, alongside the Oregon Trail at the corner of B Avenue and Cedar Street.
As the prime lands of western Oregon were settled, and then gold was discovered in eastern Oregon, a reverse migration used the Oregon Trail from …
A strategic site for communication, trade, and travel: Where this marker now stands, the villages of Kie-mes-itc on this side (Hanis Coos people) and El-ka-titc on the spit to the west (Miluk people), were close enough to call across the bay for a canoe ride-hence the translation of El-ka-titc, “Hollering Place.” Coos Bay has been a trade and transportation center for thousands of years.
Camp Cast-a-way: In 1852, the chartered schooner …
This region is the homeland of the “Wadatika” (wada seed eaters), a nomadic band of Northern Paiute Indians. Today, the descendents of these people are known as the Burns Paiute.
Armed conflicts between ranchers and the “Wadatika”, during the late 1800s, led President Ulysses S. Grant to create the 1.8 million-acre Malheur Reservation in 1872. Pressure from settlers opened portions of the reservation to grazing and settlement by 1876.
Denied access to …
This portion of the southwest Oregon is homeland to the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians. They thrived here for thousands of years before contact with Euro-Americans. Living in plank-house villages, they followed a seasonal round of resource use. Moving from summer camas meadows and salmon fisheries along the rivers to the high country, they picked huckleberries and hunted for deer in the fall. By late fall they returned to …
An ancient trail passed through here as part of an extensive Indian trade network linking peoples of the Northern Great Basin and Columbia Plateau to those living west of the Cascades. Obsidian, bear grass, and slaves were transported over these trails to major trading locations along the Columbia River in exchange for dried salmon, smelt, sturgeon and decorative sea shells. The long established route was later used by Peter Skene …
Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, a contingent of Japanese I-Class submarines sailed from Yokosuka via the Marshall Islands to take up positions off Hawaii and the coast of North America. Five of these vessels carried midget two-man submarines and 11 carried aircraft.
Early on the morning of September 9, 1942, the Japanese submarine I-25 surfaced off Brookings. The crew quickly assembled a specially designed seaplane, and within a few …
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 …
Joel Perkins was 23 years old when he and several relatives traveled the Oregon Trail from Indiana in 1844. He quickly settled a land claim and, in December 1846, established the town of Lafayette, which the Oregon Provisional Government recognized as Yamhill County’s first county seat. Perkins made himself the town’s clerk, and when he officially platted it in 1849, he donated a full block to be used as the …
The Pioneer Road here detoured the Columbia River Rapids and Mount Hood to the Willamette Valley. The road at first followed an old Indian trail. The later name was Barlow Road. Travel was difficult. Wagons were snubbed to trees by ropes or held back by drags of cut trees. Early travelers named the hill from the resemblance of native leaves to laurel.
Location: 2 miles west of Government Camp
Learn More: Visit …
Early Oregon Trail emigrants crested the south flank of Flagstaff Hill and, with the Blue Mountains looming to the west, saw a solitary tree in the valley below. Called l’arbre seul (the lone tree) by French-Canadian fur trappers, this large tree, possibly ponderosa pine or Douglas-fir, towered majestically above the floor of Baker Valley about three miles northwest of this marker.
For many years–perhaps centuries–the Lone Tree served as a landmark …
Beginning in 1843, thousands of Oregon Trail emigrants trekked through this region toward new lives in the West. This epic journey indelibly etched the landscape with wagon ruts, such as those near by. When Henry Griffin, a prospector from California, discovered gold eight miles southwest of present-day Baker City in 1861, the emigration pattern changed radically. Eastern Oregon quickly became a destination for gold-seekers and settlers-many arrived from the Willamette …
One of the Oregon Country’s most picturesque fur-traders, Thomas McKay, is buried near Scappoose. He was a daring leader, famous storyteller and could drive a nail with a rifle ball. A Canadian, he arrived with Astorians as a teenage boy; served with North West Company, became a clerk with the Hudson’s Bay Company, established a grist mill at Champoeg. Alexander McKay, a victim of the Tonquin Massacre was his father …
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 …
First known as Lee’s Encampment, from establishment of a Troop Camp by Major H.A.G. Lee in 1844. A.B. and Harvey Meacham operated famous “Mountain House” here which gave the town its present name. In later years a famous railroad eating house. “The Log Cabin,” became nationally known under the supervision of Grandma Munra, a well-known pioneer figure.
On July 3, 1923, reporters noted Meacham was capitol of the U.S. for a …
This marks the land claim of Joseph L. Meek, famed and unlettered “mountain man,” who arrived in 1840 after driving from Fort Hall to Walla in the first wagon on that part of the Oregon Trail. He was a founder of the Provisional Government; served as the first sheriff, the first marshal, the first census taker. He carried word of the Whitman Massacre to Washington D.C., where President Polk, whose …
In 1846, Oregon Trail pioneers Richard Howard (originally from Ohio), his wife Cynthia (of Kentucky), and their six children, staked a 640-acre Donation Land Claim around the oxbow of Milk Creek. That claim led to the founding of Mulino, and provided a livelihood for three generations of the Howard family.
Howard’s Grist Mill Within a few years of the Howards’ arrival, water-powered industrial development and a successful milling business had transformed …
James W. Nesmith, born in New Brunswick, Canada on July 23, 1820, was among the first emigrants to trek the Oregon Trail in 1843. He filed a land claim near present day Monmouth in 1844, and the following year took part in the formation of Oregon’s Provisional Government. Nesmith was elected to the Territorial Legislature in 1847, and was instrumental in the formation of Polk County.In 1853, Nesmith was appointed …
Wallowa Valley, located within the ancestral homelands of the Joseph Band Nez Perce, was included in the expansive Nez Perce reservation established by the Treaty of 1855. Upon discovery of gold in the region, the U.S. reduced the size of the reservation in 1863. Ordered to Leave Home: The Joseph Band held on until 1877 when, under pressure from increasing White settlement, they were ordered to abandon their homeland. Violent …
Peter Skene Ogden, leading a party of Hudson’s Bay Company trappers, camped near here on October 10, 1828. On this Ogden’s fifth and final expedition into the “Snake Country,” he started on September 22, from Fort Nez Perce (Walla Walla). From here, passing Alvord Lake, he went south to the Humboldt River and thence last to Great Salt Lake, first reached by him on his initial expedition of 1824. Retracing …
This park is named for Peter Skene Ogden, 1793-1854. In the fall of 1825, Ogden led a Hudson’s Bay Company trapping party on the first recorded journey into Central Oregon, crossing the country to the north and east into the Crooked River Valley not far above here. He was in the vicinity again in 1826 bound for the Harney Basin and the Klamath Region where he discovered Mount Shasta. Ogden …
Oregon City – supply point for pioneer emigrants was first located as a claim by Dr. John McLoughlin in 1829. The first provisional legislature of the Oregon Country was held here in 1843 and land and tax laws formulated. Oregon City was the capital of the Oregon Territory from 1845-1852. The first Protestant church (Methodist) west of the Rocky Mountains was dedicated in 1844 and the first newspaper (Oregon Spectator) …
Oregon City – once known as Willamette Falls – was early the site of an Indian salmon fishing village. The Falls furnished the power for a lumber mill which began operation in 1842, a flour mill in 1844, a woolen mill in 1864, and the first paper mill in the Pacific Northwest in 1867. The first long distance commercial electric power transmission in the United States was from Oregon City …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Native peoples have resided along this river since time immemorial. These lands have provided a bountiful life and a highway for extensive trade and travel. In the 1700s, European and American seafarers began plying the Pacific coast, seeking commerce, mapping, and claiming places. In October 1792, HMS Chatham entered this river. Lieutenant W.R. Broughton, ship captain, led the party in small boats upriver to this point. His party traded with …
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 …
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 …
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 …
The Coos Bay dune field is one of ten different sand dune sheets spreading across half of the Oregon coast. The Coos Bay dune field, directly across the bay in front of you, is the southern end of a 60-mile-long dunes sheet that runs north to Florence. How and when did these dunes form?Layers of a Dune “Sandwich” The Coos Bay dunes consist of layers of ever-changing sand deposits on …
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 …
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 …
The Oregon Coast boasts forested headlands, towering dunes of sand, and sparkling lakes and rivers. From the Columbia River south to Bandon, the picturesque coastline is bordered to the east by the peaks of the Coast Range Mountains. These peaks are the remnants of a chain of volcanic islands that collided with the North American continent some 50 million years ago. The rugged southernmost section of the coast is quite …
Aircraft proved their military worth during World War I — initially for observation purposes, and later for the support of ground troops and bombing. When the United States entered the war in 1917, air supremacy was hotly contested and airplane production was vital to the war effort.
Early airplanes were constructed of linen stretched over a wood framework. Because of its light weight, flexibility and strength, Sitka spruce was the wood …
This highway is reverently dedicated to Oregon’s sons. Members of the 41st division, both living and dead, who wore the Sunset emblem and offered their all in complete devotion to the cause of world peace.
Location: South side of US 26, 3/10 of a mile from junction with OR 53
Learn More: Visit Oregon Encyclopedia
Weary Oregon Trail emigrants, eager to ease travel or gain mileage, often attempted cutoffs and shortcuts. While many of these alternate routes proved successful, others did not–they became roads to ruin for some and the end of the trail for others.
In 1853, Elijah Elliott, a Willamette Valley settler, convinced over 1,000 people to attempt a shortcut over the Cascade Range. Following Meek’s route to Harney Valley, Elliott’s party diverged around …
Life Comes from the Land and Water Here stood the Hanis Coos village of Qaimisiich. Hanis Coos, and their Miluk Coos neighbors to the south, lived along Coos Bay, south to the Coquille River, and east to the Coast Range. Experts in a sustainable life, the Coos people hunted, fished, and gathered here for many centuries. They traded with other tribes to obtain goods they could not find locally, such …
The John Day River (called Walla Walla- little river) area was the original homeland to several tribal villages. Tákspas was the principal village of the lower John Day River, whose people, the Tákspaslama, became enrolled in the Warm Springs and Umatilla tribes. The tribes settled this area due to the wealth of water, salmon, eels, plant foods, and game.
A Rush of Newcomers: The discovery of gold at Canyon Creek in …
Oregon’s Historic Tillamook Forest Fire of 1933 spread over 240,000 acres of forest land, fires in 1939 and 1945 brought the total to 355,000 acres. Over 13 billion board feet of timber were killed. Devastation by these disastrous fires aroused Oregon voters to approve a bond issue for reforestation and protection of the burned area. Access roads were built and hazardous snags have been felled to improve forest protection. Many …
Trees on 240,000 acres were killed in 1933 in one of the Nation’s worst forest fires which started four miles northeast of this point. Later fires extended the burn to 355,000 acres-to more than 13 billion board feet of timber. This area is now being reforested with Douglas Fir, spruce, cedar and hemlock. With effective protection a new forest will in a few decades be ready to harvest on “The …
Dwight Huss, an automobile engineer from Detroit, made automotive history here June 20, 1905 when his car, “Old Scout,” became the first documented car to cross the Cascade Mountains from east to west. Huss was competing in America’s First Transcontinental Automobile Race against Percy McGargle, which departed New York City on May 8, 1905 in separate 7-Horsepower, 1904 Oldsmobile Curved-Dash Runabouts. “Old Scout” was also the fastest automobile to travel …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
This is Oregon’s largest body of water, about 90,000 acres. Indians inhabiting its shores (“People of the Lake”) lived well on wild fowl, fish and wocus seeds. The first known white visitors (1825-26) were Hudson’s Bay trappers under Tom McKay and Finan McDonald. In 1846, while exploring here, John C. Fremont received news of the war with Mexico, which caused him to hasten around the northern end and back to …
Within a year of the US entering World War II, more than 160,000 people moved to Portland- a city of only 360,000 – to work in Home Front industries. Industrialist Henry Kaiser’s three shipyards employed the most workers. To house his employees and their families, Kaiser persuaded the US Maritime Commission in 1942 to fund the nation’s largest public housing project. Within 10 months, Kaiser had built an entire community …
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, …
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 …
Was the site of an Indian salmon fishing village. The falls furnished the power for a lumber mill which began operation in 1842, a flour mill in 1844, a woolen mill in 1864 and the first paper mill in the Pacific Northwest in 1867. The first long-distance commercial electric power transmission in the United States was from this area in the City of Portland in 1889.
Location: West Linn View …
WILLAMETTE FALLS LOCKS still in use below this point-were opened on New Years Day, 1873, when the steamer Maria Wilkins became the first vessel to navigate up the west end of Willamette Falls. Farming and shipping interests had long sought to eliminate expensive portages around this age-old bar to navigation 26 miles above the mouth of the river. The initial project was completed by the Willamette Falls Canal and Locks …
Willamette Post was established in December 1813, on a knoll just east of here, by the Montreal-based North West Company, close to the Kalapuyan village of Champeog. The two-room log cabin, also called Fort Kalapuya, was a place for trade and a depot for fur-trapping and hunting expeditions supplying the North West Company’s Fort George near the mouth of the Columbia River. The post was still standing in the late …
This short trail leads to the Willamette Stone, the surveyor’s monument that is the point of origin for all public land surveys in Oregon and Washington. The landmark was established on June 4, 1851 by John B. Preston, Oregon’s first Surveyor General.
With increasing settlement and passage of the Donation Land Claim Act, the Oregon Territory desperately needed to extend the Public Land Survey System of 1785 that divided public lands …
A Pacific Railroad Survey party searching for a practicable route for a railroad to connect the Sacramento Valley with the Columbia River passed near this point bound north on August 20, 1855. Lieutenant R.S. Williamson headed the party with 2nd Lieutenant Henry I. Abbot second in command. Among the officers in the Army escort were Lieutenant Phil S. Sheridan and Lieutenant George Crook. Dr. J.S. Newberry was the Chief Scientist …
The old Yaquina Bay Llighthouse established in 1871 is the earliest aid to navigation standing within the range of the first recorded landfall made from a ship to the shores of the Pacific Northwest. Captain James Cook made this landfall on March 7, 1778. At noon he named Cape Foulweather. On account of the heavy weather he was compelled to stand out at sea at night and only approach the …
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