Author's Entries

• Bailey Gatzert

  Built when racing was popular among passenger steamboats, the stately Bailey Gatzert was a contender. It was one of the most famous Columbia River excursion boats and was commemorated with a song and a stamp.Seattle’s John Holland shipyard built the 177.3-foot-long, 560-ton sternwheeler in 1890 with wide decks and …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Gazelle Disaster

  The worst steamboat accident on the Willamette River happened on April 8, 1854, in Canemah, just above the Willamette Falls (now part of Oregon City). At seven o'clock in the morning, workers were loading freight onto the Gazelle when the vessel's two boilers exploded, killing twenty-four of the …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Grace Wick (1888-1958)

  Grace Wick was a political gadfly in Portland, where she was an activist against the New Deal. While she had once been involved in mainstream politics as a supporter and friendly acquantaince of Democratic Governor Walter M. Pierce, the Great Depression crushed her economically, and she was increasingly …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Guild's Lake

  Today, the curve of St. Helens Road in northwest Portland skirts the edge of a shoreline that no longer exists, leaving a visual echo of a riparian marsh once located there. The crescent-shaped marsh, known as Guild's Lake, was likely an oxbow cutoff of the Willamette River formed by changes …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• James H. Wilbur (1811-1887)

  Known as Father Wilbur, the energetic and determined Rev. James Harvey Wilbur was a leader in Oregon’s early Methodist community. He established a number of Methodist institutions in Oregon and later moved to the Yakama Indian Reservation, where he spent twenty years as missionary and Indian agent. Contemporaries described Wilbur …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Lafayette Pence (1857-1923)

  Lafayette “Lafe" Pence was a rascally sojourner to Portland who consistently made headlines during his time in the city, from 1904 and 1907. A skilled, if bombastic speaker, he was best known locally for using giant hydraulic mining hoses to sluice hills into Guild’s Lake in Northwest Portland. A …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Macleay Park

  Portlanders have long valued Macleay Park, in Portland’s northwest hills, as a wild oasis close to the city’s core. The nearly 140-acre park has deep ravines shaded by large Douglas-fir and western red cedar trees. Macleay Park also contains the lower portion of Balch Creek, which has a small …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Montgomery Ward/Park Building

  The Montgomery Ward building in northwest Portland was a hallmark of modern industrial design when it opened on January 1, 1921. Built with fireproof, steel-reinforced concrete to be light and airy, the nine-story building housed a branch of Montgomery Ward & Company until 1982. The building, at 2701 Northwest Vaughn …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Mount Tabor Park

  Southeast Portland's 196-acre Mount Tabor Park sits on an extinct volcanic butte, one of thirty-two cinder cones in a thirteen-mile radius. The park offers visitors a forest-like setting and panoramic views of the city. Mount Tabor Park dates to 1894, when the city built two open reservoirs on land …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Oregon Pony

  The first steam locomotive in the Pacific Northwest—the "Oregon Pony"—was used in the early 1860s to portage steamboat passengers and goods past the Cascade Rapids, a rocky and turbulent stretch of the Columbia River now drowned by Bonneville Dam. Steamboats provided transportation on the Columbia between Portland and mining …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Oregon State symbols

  Oregon has a number of officially designated symbols, ranging from those that are essential to the state government, such as the seal and flag, to some that some may consider superfluous, including the state dance and gemstone. Legislators and proponents of state symbols have argued that there is an economic …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• SOLVE (SOLV)

  Since its founding in 1969, SOLVE (formerly SOLV) has worked to clean up litter in Oregon. In recent years, the nonprofit group has expanded its mandate to include broader community and environmental goals. To better reflect that change, SOLVE dropped the words “Stop Oregon Litter and Vandalism” from its name …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Sagebrush Symphony

  The Sagebrush Symphony Orchestra of Harney County was a bright spot of musical education for rural children in southeastern Oregon in the years before World War I. Talented music teacher and violinist Mary V. Dodge moved to Burns around 1910, and, according to student Anne Shannon Monroe, soon began playing …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Valley Migrant League

  From 1965 until 1974, the Valley Migrant League (VML) helped Oregon migrant farm workers and former farm workers attain a better life through education and social services. As part of the federal War on Poverty, the VML was a private, nonprofit organization that was instrumental in establishing a strong Mexican …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Women's Land Army

  In 1942, after many men in Oregon had left the workforce to fight in World War II, thousands of women joined a different kind of army to work on Oregon farms. Farmers in Oregon had faced labor shortages during the summer of 1941 and expected the problem to be more …

  Oregon Encyclopedia