Contains more than 5,400 entries of state place names, giving dates when the names were first used, reasons for the choice of names, and insight into the history of each name.

In 1922, the US Forest Service offered one of the largest timber sales in the agency's history, encompassing 890 million board feet of mostly Ponderosa pine timber in the mountains north of Burns, Oregon. Among other requirements, the sale terms required the successful bidder to build and operate 80 miles of common carrier railroad through some of the most remote and undeveloped country in the state. The Fred Herrick Lumber Company and its Malheur

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"Without the efforts of inspiring, brave women of the past, the progressive and individualistic Oregon we know today might not exist. From native tribes and Oregon Trail pioneers to Victorian suffragists and unlikely politicians, strong female leaders give profound meaning to the state motto, alis volat propriis--she flies with her own wings. Writer and activist Julia Ruuttila fought for the rights of the citizens of Vanport, the largely African American...

The story behind the construction of the Oregon scenic highway and the men who made it happen.
When nine-hundred-foot ice age floods carved the Columbia River Gorge through the Cascade Mountains to the sea, little space was left for man to form a highway of his own. It took an artist-poet-engineer extraordinaire to conquer this reluctant piece of real estate and produce the nation's first scenic highway. Meet Sam Hill, the mover and shaker,...

"From a volcanic eruption that created the deepest lake in North America to a freighter wreck that took nine years to clean up, It Happened in Oregon looks at intriguing people and episodes from the history of the Beaver State. Meet Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the affluent leader of an eastern religious sect that attempted to take over a small town in Oregon to establish a spiritual corporate headquarters. Relive the Lewis and Clark Expedition's "Showery...

"The first lookouts were rustic camps on mountaintops, where men and women were stationed to keep an eye out for wildfires. As the importance of fire prevention grew, a lookout construction boom resulted in hundreds of cabins and towers being built on Oregon's high points. When aircraft and cameras became more cost-effective and efficient methods of fire detection, many old lookouts were abandoned or removed. Of the many hundreds of lookouts built...