On July 17, 1856, Washington Territory volunteer soldiers, under the command of Col. Benjamin F. Shaw, swept through a summer village of Walla Walla, …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Located on the Rogue River about thirty miles northwest of Medford, Grants Pass is the county seat of Josephine County. The area’s Mediterranean climate, …

Oregon Encyclopedia

The Willamette Valley, with its temperate climate, wet winters, and arid summers, is an ideal place to grow grass seed. As a result, Oregon …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Early EuroAmericans traveling through north-central Oregon just east of the Deschutes River were amazed by how tall the rye grass was. When a small town …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Portland’s Third Street reinvented itself as The Great Light Way in June 1914 by installing a series of arcaded lights over each intersection from …

Oregon Encyclopedia

The Great Plank Road, constructed in 1856, connected productive agricultural communities in the Tualatin Valley to Portland. Paved with sixteen-foot, three-inch-thick wooden planks, the …

Oregon Encyclopedia

One of the signal immigrations to Oregon came by sea in 1840, years before wagons plied the Oregon Trail. Fifty-one men, women, and children …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Greek immigrants arrived in Portland in the early 1900s, part of the largest immigration from that country to the United States. Roughly 1.5 percent of …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Located between John Day and the Elkhorn Mountains, the Greenhorn Mountains are a low uplift within the Blue Mountains. Their highest point is Vinegar …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Greg Higgins, a prominent figure in the development of Northwest cuisine and a national voice for sustainable dining, was raised in a rural area south …

Oregon Encyclopedia