Leonard “Len” White, a pioneering riverboat captain on the Willamette and Columbia Rivers, was the first to successfully navigate a sternwheeler to Corvallis, …

Oregon Encyclopedia

When Cecil Edwards became Oregon’s first legislative historian in 1976, he told the Statesman Journal that his “insatiable curiosity for gossip, rumors and oddities led …

Oregon Encyclopedia

In 2000, Governor John Kitzhaber named Gerry W. Frank Oregon’s Premier Citizen, reflecting his decades of civic commitment to the State of Oregon. A longtime …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Douglas McKay, a conservative Republican, was governor of Oregon from 1949 through 1952 and U.S. Secretary of the Interior from 1953 to 1956. An affable …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Late in his life, President Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) said the best advice he had ever been given came from Salem Sunday school teacher Jennifer Gray. …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Benjamin Isaac Maxwell was a journalist and historian who recorded much of the obscure history of the Salem area. For many years a columnist with …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Chemawa Indian School has been a leader in organized athletics in the Willamette Valley since the 1890s, winning state titles in football, basketball, track, cross …

Oregon Encyclopedia

George Putnam was the epitome of the fighting editor during the Progressive era in Oregon. His battles with an entrenched political machine in Medford cost …

Oregon Encyclopedia

The Oregon State Hospital (originally called the Oregon State Insane Asylum until 1913) is Oregon’s oldest continuing institution for mental health treatment. Opened in 1883, …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Oregon Black Pioneers, an all-volunteer group founded in Salem in 1993, aims to preserve the rich heritage and culture of Oregon’s African Americans through collections …

Oregon Encyclopedia