As the Oregon State Highway Department’s first staff photographer, Ralph Gifford helped popularize the state’s newly built scenic highways. His images will forever be linked …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Robert W. Straub, Oregon’s thirty-first governor, was a plainspoken politician, environmental leader, successful businessman, and innovative state treasurer. As a candidate for governor, he used …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Sebastian C. Adams provides an example of how the Christian missionary zeal of many early Oregon settlers was accompanied by exceptional entreprenurial talents. Adams was …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Wallace House, built in 1812 north of the Kalapuya village of Chemeketa, was the first known building of European-American design in the Willamette Valley. …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Willamette Mission was the first noncommercial agricultural community established in the Willamette Valley by American resettlers, in 1834. The mission became a beachhead …

Oregon Encyclopedia

The Willamette Valley, bounded on the west by the Coast Range and on the east by the Cascades, is the largest river valley in …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Alexander Phimister Proctor, an American sculptor known for monumental bronzes of animals and human figures, placed six major works in Oregon private collections and public …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Arlene Schnitzer was a patron of artists, a philanthropist, and the namesake of the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland. Her financial support and …

Oregon Encyclopedia

From 1905 until the late 1940s, Brooten Baths was a major economic enterprise in an otherwise sparsely settled region of Tillamook County, drawing patients from …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Carl Hall was a Salem artist known for his paintings of the Willamette Valley, the Oregon coast, the female nude, and imagery inspired by …

Oregon Encyclopedia