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Jessica Rondema

Jessica Rondema was born and raised in California. She moved to Salem to attend Willamette University, graduating in 2007 with a B.A. in Anthropology. Jessica worked at Historic Deepwood Estate and the Historic Elsinore Theatre, and was an intern at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, and with the Salem Multicultural Institute. She worked at the State Library of Oregon for eight years. In 2016, Jessica earned her MBA in Nonprofit Management from Marylhurst University. She currently works at the Oregon Department of Transportation.

Author's Entries

  • Capitol Theater (Salem)

    The Capitol Theater, which opened in 1926, was one of Salem’s finest vaudeville and silent movie houses. Located on State Street, the theater was originally owned by Frank D. Bligh, a Canadian-born businessman. His father, T.G. Bligh, had been the proprietor of numerous theaters and hotels. After his father’s death …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Egyptian Theatre

    The Egyptian is a vaudeville-era theater located at 229 South Broadway in Coos Bay. In 1925, John C. Noble and Robert Marsden Jr. of the Coos Bay Amusement Company commissioned Portland architect Lee Arden Thomas and designer Carl F. Berg to convert the Motor Inn Garage and Service Station …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Nutria

    Nutria, a large, semi-aquatic rodent native to South America, were brought to the United States for their fur in the 1880s. They were introduced to Oregon in the 1930s. Farming nutria fur was marketed as a quick and easy way to make money. When the nutria fur market collapsed in …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Oregon State Penitentiary

    The Oregon State Penitentiary, Oregon's only maximum-security prison, sits on 194 acres of land in the heart of Salem, just north of Mill Creek on State Street. Twenty-two acres of the facility are surrounded by a concrete, twenty-five-foot-high wall that extends fifteen feet into the ground, with ten armed guard …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Reed Opera House

    The Reed Opera House is one of Salem's few remaining large structures from the nineteenth century. Built in 1869-1870 at 189 Liberty Street Northeast, its initial purpose was to house the legislature. Cyrus Adams Reed (1825-1910), Oregon’s adjutant general and member of the legislature, had to alter his vision for …

    Oregon Encyclopedia