Founded in April 1985, the Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (the Northwest Tree-Planters and Farmworkers United) is one of the largest organizations representing Latinas …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Portland's commission form of municipal government, which the city adopted as a progressive innovation in 1913, was a rarity and relic by the twenty-first …

Oregon Encyclopedia

In November 1972, the first Portland Marathon attracted 86 marathoners (and about the same number of "half-marathoners") to a course on Sauvie Island, a flat …

Oregon Encyclopedia

The Portland Symphonic Girlchoir, the city’s first public choir for girls, was launched by the Portland Symphonic Choir in 1989. It was a volatile period …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Reuben Crawford was a leader in Portland's Black community from the 1870s until his death in 1918. A skilled ship caulker, he was a …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Robert William "Bob" Packwood, a prominent United States Senator for twenty-six years, was born in Portland in 1932. He attended the California Institute of Technology …

Oregon Encyclopedia

The final Rogue River War began early on the morning of October 8, 1855, when self-styled volunteers attacked Native people in the Rogue Valley. It …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Sacagawea was a member of the Agaideka (Lemhi) Shoshone, who lived in the upper Salmon River Basin in present-day Idaho. In about 1800, she was …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Poet and suffragist Sara Bard Field lived in Portland in the early part of the twentieth century. Her poetry, her support of women’s suffrage, and …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Sidney I. Lezak was Oregon’s longest-serving U.S. Attorney, holding the position for twenty-one years, under five presidents. He also was known as the “Godfather of …

Oregon Encyclopedia