What is now Oregon has been home to Indigenous nations for thousands of years. Spanish navigators were among the earliest Europeans to explore its Pacific coast. Juan de Fuca claimed to have voyaged to the Pacific Northwest in 1592, but the account, transmitted by the English merchant Michael Lok, remains disputed. In 1775, Bruno de Heceta sailed along the coast and recorded the first known European description of the entrance to the Columbia River. The Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the lower Columbia River in 1805 and spent the winter of 1805–1806 at Fort Clatsop, near present-day Astoria. In 1811, representatives of John Jacob Astor’sPacific Fur Company established Fort Astoria as a fur-trading post. Under the Treaty of 1818, the United States and the United Kingdom agreed to joint occupation of the Oregon Country, without resolving their competing territorial claims. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 settled their boundary dispute, placing what is now the Oregon on the United States side of the boundary. Congress established the Oregon Territory in 1848, and the State of Oregon was admitted to the United States on February 14, 1859, becoming the 33rd state.
Today, with 4.2 million people over 98,000 square miles (250,000km2), 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 26th 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 (3,429m), 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 U.S. The state is also home to the single largest organism in the world, Armillaria ostoyae, a fungus that runs beneath 2,200 acres (8.9km2) of the Malheur National Forest. (Full article...)
The Camas pocket gopher (Thomomys bulbivorus), also known as the Camas rat or Willamette Valley gopher, is a rodent in the genus Thomomys of the family Geomyidae. First collected in 1829, it is endemic to the Willamette Valley in the northwest part of Oregon in the northwestern United States. It is the largest member of the genus, commonly known as smooth-toothed or western pocket gophers. The herbivorous gopher forages for vegetable and plant matter collected in large, fur-lined, external cheek pouches. Surplus food is hoarded in an extensive system of underground tunnels. The dull brown to lead-gray coat, changes color and texture over the year. The mammal's characteristically large, protuberant incisors are well adapted for use in tunnel construction, particularly in the hard clay soils of the Willamette Valley. The young are born toothless, blind, and hairless. They grow rapidly and are weaned around six weeks of age. The females have four mammary glands. The gophers make chattering sounds with their teeth. Males and females make purring or crooning sounds when together, while the young may make twittering sounds. The Camas pocket gopher is fiercely defensive when cornered, yet may become tame in captivity. While population trends are generally stable, threats to the species' survival include urbanization, habitat conversion for agricultural uses, and active attempts at eradication through trapping and poisons. In addition, it may fall prey to raptors or carnivorous mammals, or become host to a number of parasitic arthropods and worms. Scientists believe that the evolutionary history of the animal was disrupted when the cataclysmic Bretz floods washed over the Willamette Valley at the end of the last ice age. The floods nearly entirely covered the gopher's geographic range, which may have caused a genetic bottleneck as survivors repopulated the region after the waters receded.
Katherine Ann Power (b. January 25, 1949) is an American ex-convict and long-time fugitive, who was placed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted List in 1970, along with her accomplice Susan Edith Saxe, a fellow student at Brandeis University. The two participated in robberies at a Massachusetts National Guard armory and a bank in Brighton, Massachusetts where Boston police officer Walter Schroeder was shot and killed by one of their accomplices. These acts were to support protesting the war in Vietnam. Power remained at large for 23 years. In 1993, Katherine Ann Power negotiated a surrender with authorities and ended 23 years of hiding. Negotiations were carried out through her attorneys Steven Black, a public defender, and Rikki Klieman, a prominent Boston lawyer. On September 15, 1993, she pleaded guilty to two counts of armed robbery and manslaughter in Boston. Power was sentenced to eight to twelve years in prison for the bank robbery, and five years and a $10,000 fine for the National Guard armory crimes. Additionally, judge Robert Banks of Suffolk County Superior Court imposed a probation condition that Power could not profit from her crime. Power appealed this portion of the sentence on First Amendment grounds, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rejected the argument and the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari.
... that an Oregon TV station planned to be off the air for two to four weeks to complete a move—but did not fully return to air for nearly two years?
... that Warren Truitt served as a legislator in Oregon and a judge in Alaska in the 19th century, and as both a legislator and a judge in Idaho in the 20th?
... that Alek Skarlatos, who helped foil a terrorist attack in 2015, became a member of the Oregon House of Representatives nearly a decade later?
Abert Rim, found in Lake County, Oregon, with Abert Lake in the background. Abert Rim is one of the highest fault scarps in the United States. It rises 760 metres (2500 feet) above the valley floor, finishing with a 250-meter (800-foot) sheer-sided basalt cap. It was formed during the Miocene epoch.
Too many Oregonians know the heartbreak of a jobless economic recovery. To create new, high-paying jobs, we need investment in Main Street as well as Wall Street.
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