Author's Entries

• Alan Hart (1890-1962)

  Alan L. Hart was an Oregon physician, researcher, and writer and one of the first female-to-male transgender persons to undergo a hysterectomy in the United States and live the remainder of his life as a man. Alberta Lucille Hart was born on October 4, 1890, in Hall’s Summit, Kansas, the …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Benjamin Tanaka (1887-1975)

  Benjamin Tanaka was a prominent physician in Portland’s Japantown in the early twentieth century before he was imprisoned in a federal detention center during World War II. Following the war, he established a successful practice in Ontario, Oregon. Benjamin Masayoshi Tanaka was born on the Island of Hawaii …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Brick House Beautiful

  Brick House Beautiful in Portland was built between 1922 and 1923 as a model home for the Standard Brick & Tile Company. Established in Portland in 1909, the company manufactured brick, tile, terra cotta, plaster, stucco, and other building materials. Initially, the company supplied brick as structural supports for commercial …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Cast iron buildings in Portland

  Portland is home to the second largest collection of cast iron architecture in the United States, just behind New York City’s historic Soho District. Cast iron-fronted buildings were constructed in Portland between the 1850s and 1880s, with a large concentration along the west-side waterfront. Though iron had existed as a …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Clarence Pruitt (1927-2009)

  Clarence Pruitt was the first African American to graduate from and later teach at the University of Oregon Dental School (now the Oregon Health & Science University School of Dentistry). Born on January 17, 1927, in Hot Springs, Arkansas, Pruitt earned a scholarship to Wilberforce University in Ohio, where he …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Clive Charles (1951-2003)

  Clive Charles was a soccer player and coach who left an indelible mark on Oregon soccer culture. He joined the Portland Timbers in 1978 and went on to coach the University of Portland men’s and women’s soccer teams and the U.S. men’s Under-23 National Team. Born on October 3, 1951, …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Dekum Building (Portland)

  The Dekum Building is an eight-story, Richardsonian Romanesque edifice constructed between 1891 and 1892. Frank Dekum commissioned the Portland architectural firm of McCaw & Martin to design the building in 1890. Located at 519 Southwest Third Avenue in Portland, the Dekum Building was listed on the National Register of …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Harriet Lawrence (1883-1974)

  Harriet Jane Lawrence was one of the earliest female pathologists in the United States and the first known woman pathologist in Oregon. She was born in Kingsbury, Maine, on September 13, 1883. At the age of fifteen, she began teaching, walking several miles to the schoolhouse to earn three dollars …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• John Bain (1957-)

  John Bain, a Portland-area youth soccer coach, spent many years in Oregon as a player for the Portland Timbers and as a coach of professional, amateur, and youth soccer teams. His efforts helped to change forever the sport in Oregon, particularly at the youth level. Bain was born on June …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Mackenzie House (Portland)

  The Dr. K.A.J. and Cora Mackenzie House, located at 615 Northwest 20th Avenue in Portland, was constructed in 1892. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996, the house was designed by the firm of McCaw & Martin. Kenneth A.J. Mackenzie (1859-1920), educated at McGill University …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Mary Margaret Goodin Fritsch (1899-1993)

  Margaret Goodin Fritsch was the first woman to graduate from the University of Oregon’s School of Architecture, receiving her degree in 1923. Three years later, she was the first woman to be licensed as an architect in the State of Oregon. She continued in the field of architecture, eventually opening …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Mary Stillwell (1862-1947)

  Mary Stillwell established the first Salvation Army corps in Portland in 1886. Her work led to the opening of the first headquarters for the organization in the Pacific Northwest. Mary Matthews was born to English parents in Corfu, Greece, on January 27, 1862. Her father was in the British army, …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Oregon Plan

  The Oregon Plan, implemented in May 1942, led to the organization of the first Japanese American farm labor camp during World War II. The camp, in Malheur County, housed 350 Japanese Americans who had been incarcerated in Oregon by Executive Order 9066 in the months after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Roscoe De Leur Hemenway (1899-1959)

  Architect Roscoe De Leur Hemenway designed an estimated three hundred buildings. During his lifetime, he became one of the best-known residential architects in Portland. Born in 1899 in Cottage Grove, Hemenway moved to Portland as a teenager and graduated from Washington High School. He attended the University of Oregon …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Salvation Army in Portland

  The first Salvation Army meeting in Portland was held on October 3, 1886, at the corner of Southwest Fifth Avenue and Burnside Street. Captain Mary Stillwell led the open-air worship service and soon after established the first corps in the Pacific Northwest. The region is now comprised of the Salvation …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• Terra Cotta buildings in Portland

  Downtown Portland has an impressive collection of early twentieth-century terra cotta architecture. Architectural terra cotta is a molded brick or block made of fine grain clay; most twentieth-century terra cotta is glazed, while late nineteenth-century terra cotta is unglazed. Portland experienced a building boom in the years following the 1905 …

  Oregon Encyclopedia

• White Cloud Center

  The White Cloud Center in Portland was created in 1975 by the University of Oregon Health Sciences Center (OHSC; now Oregon Health & Sciences University) to engage in mental health research for American Indians and Alaska Natives. The center’s primary objective was to inform culturally appropriate mental health prevention and …

  Oregon Encyclopedia