Oregon has been home to many indigenous nations for thousands of years. The first European traders, explorers, and settlers began exploring what is now Oregon's Pacific coast in the early to mid-16th century. As early as 1564, the Spanish began sending vessels northeast from the Philippines, riding the Kuroshio Current in a sweeping circular route across the northern part of the Pacific. In 1592, Juan de Fuca undertook detailed mapping and studies of ocean currents in the Pacific Northwest, including the Oregon coast as well as the strait now bearing his name. The Lewis and Clark Expedition traversed Oregon in the early 1800s, and the first permanent European settlements in Oregon were established by fur trappers and traders. In 1843, an autonomous government was formed in the Oregon Country, and the Oregon Territory was created in 1848. Oregon became the 33rd state of the U.S. on February 14, 1859.
Today, with 4.2 million people over 98,000 square miles (250,000 km2), Oregon is the ninth largest and 27th most populous U.S. state. The capital, Salem, is the third-most populous city in Oregon, with 175,535 residents. Portland, with 652,503, ranks as the 26th among U.S. cities. The Portland metropolitan area, which includes neighboring counties in Washington, is the 25th largest metro area in the nation, with a population of 2,512,859. Oregon is also one of the most geographically diverse states in the U.S., marked by volcanoes, abundant bodies of water, dense evergreen and mixed forests, as well as high deserts and semi-arid shrublands. At 11,249 feet (3,429 m), Mount Hood is the state's highest point. Oregon's only national park, Crater Lake National Park, comprises the caldera surrounding Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States. The state is also home to the single largest organism in the world, Armillaria ostoyae, a fungus that runs beneath 2,200 acres (8.9 km2) of the Malheur National Forest. (Full article...)
The Astoria Riverfront Trolley is a 3-mile (4.8 km) heritage streetcar line that operates in Astoria, Oregon, United States, using former freight railroad tracks along or near the south bank of the Columbia River, with no overhead line. The service began operating in 1999, using a 1913-built streetcar from San Antonio, Texas. As of 2012, the service was reported as carrying 35,000 to 40,000 passengers per year and has been called a "symbol" and "icon" of Astoria. The line's operation is seasonal, normally during spring break and from May through September. Volunteers from the non-profit Astoria Riverfront Trolley Association (ARTA) operate the service and maintain the streetcar and tracks, but the city of Astoria has provided some funds for certain purchases, including a new carbarn in 2001 and a contribution to the cost of purchasing the streetcar. The car was on loan from San Antonio for the first seven years, but was purchased by ARTA in August 2005. By 2004, the Trolley had become "one of Astoria's most popular features" and "a main attraction in the city of Astoria".
Huw Edwards is a Welsh conductor and the current music director of Portland, Oregon's Columbia Symphony Orchestra and Olympia, Washington's Olympia Symphony Orchestra. Edwards' conducting career began at age seventeen when he became music director of the Maidstone Opera Company in England. He later attended the University of Surrey, where he conducted the college orchestra along with an ensemble that he formed on his own. At age twenty-three, he won a conducting competition which sent him to Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He then held a lecturer position at Northwestern University in Chicago, where he was also a doctoral candidate. Edwards was conductor and music director of the Portland Youth Philharmonic from 1995 to 2002 followed by the Seattle Youth Symphony from 2002 to 2005. He has been music director of the Columbia Symphony Orchestra since 2000 and the Olympia Symphony Orchestra since 2002.
April 18, 1877, former state senate president and the first doctor and teacher in Portland, Ralph Wilcox, commits suicide while at work at the federal court in Portland.
While our common country has been afflicted, and still suffers, from the greatest calamity a people can experience, our own State has been visited by scourges which, though relieved from the horrors of civil war, has resulted in the loss of immense quantities of property, the depriving of many of our citizens of their homes, or the means of support, and seriously crippling, for the present, the Agricultural interests of the State. Indeed, the high waters of December last did more than destroy property, and desolate homes; and many human lives were lost, while attempting to escape the floods, or generously assisting to relieve others from their perils.
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