Hold a nugget of Oregon sunstone in your palm, and you will understand why the 1987 Oregon legislature designated it as the official state gemstone. …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Shortly after Samuel Boardman became Oregon’s first director of state parks in 1929, he received a proposal for a park along the north coast. Helen …

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

The Owyhee River, in the southeastern corner of Oregon, is a 280-mile-long tributary of the Snake River. It flows northward from its Nevada headwaters …

Oregon Encyclopedia

The Pacific Fur Company, employee Alexander Ross wrote in 1849, was “an association which promised so much, and accomplished so little.” Historians have since agreed …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA), founded in 1909 by the Portland Art Association as the Museum Art School, was originally part of the Education …

Oregon Encyclopedia

The western or Pacific yew, Taxus brevifolia, belongs to the yew family Taxaceae. It is unusual among evergreen trees with needle-like leaves because its single …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Paul Joseph De Muniz was the first Hispanic Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. He was elected in 2000, after serving ten years on …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Born in Kent, England, in 1886 and trained at the King Charles School of Art, Percy Manser immigrated to Canada in his early twenties. He …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Even before the first large wagon trains traveled the Oregon Trail to the Willamette Valley in the early 1840s, United States citizens who had resettled …

Oregon Encyclopedia