The Marion County Historical Society was founded in Salem on July 11, 1950, in an unsuccessful effort to save the building that housed Oregon’s first …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Mary Sawtelle, one of the first women in Oregon to earn a medical degree, was born in New York in 1835, the daughter of Benjamin …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Melville Thomas Wire, an ordained minister of the Methodist Church, was a talented artist who successfully combined his work for the church with his avocation …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Norma Paulus was a forward-thinking, practical-minded Republican leader whose efforts to advance women’s rights, environmental protection, public education, and governmental transparency helped cement Oregon’s progressive …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Talk of building a long-distance electric interurban railway south from Portland along the west bank of the Willamette River began in the 1890s. The proposed …

Oregon Encyclopedia

The Oregon Territorial Library was the first publicly funded library in Oregon. It was created by the U.S. Congress under the same act that established …

Oregon Encyclopedia

In the annals of Oregon jurisprudence history, Otto Richard Skopil Jr. was among the most revered and important federal judges to serve in the region. …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Pendleton Woolen Mills opened in 1909 in a defunct woolen mill that had been established in Pendleton in 1896. The town’s efforts to persuade the …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Portland Railway Light & Power (PRLP) was created in 1906 through the consolidation of nearly every transportation and power generation utility between Vancouver, Washington, and …

Oregon Encyclopedia

In 1986, Mixtec farmworker Santiago Ventura Morales was wrongfully convicted of murder at the end of a trial where he was given a Spanish interpreter …

Oregon Encyclopedia