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 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 (8.9 km2) of the Malheur National Forest. (Full article...)
The Quest, sometimes referred to as Saturday Night at the Y or Three Groins in the Fountain, is an outdoor marble sculpture and fountain designed by Count Alexander von Svoboda, located in Portland, Oregon in the United States. The sculpture, carved in Italy from a single 200-ton block of white Pentelicmarble quarried in Greece, was commissioned by Georgia-Pacific in 1967 and installed in front of the Georgia-Pacific Building (now Standard Insurance Center, pictured) in 1970. It depicts five nude figures, including three females, one male and one child. According to the artist, the subjects represent man's eternal search for brotherhood and enlightenment. As of 1990, The Quest was considered Portland's largest single piece of white sculptured marble. The abstract, figurative sculpture was surveyed by the Smithsonian Institution's "Save Outdoor Sculpture!" program in 1994 and underwent minor repairs. It has received mixed reviews. One critic appreciated how its flowing lines contrasted with the "stark" pillars of the adjacent building, and called the marble "impressive". Another writer for The Oregonian wrote of her and others' dislike for the sculpture, saying it serves as a "free sex-education lesson" for schoolchildren.
... that the only remaining artifact in the ghost town of Fremont, Oregon, is a juniper stump notched with steps that women travelers used to mount horses in a modest fashion?
... that when Oregon journalist Larry Smyth was asked who he thought would win presidential elections, he invariably replied "the man who gets the most votes"?
I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead; Too-Hool-Hool-Suit is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men (Ollacut) is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food; no one knows where they are - perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more against the white man forever.
— Chief Joseph, speech in surrendering to General Nelson Appleton Miles after evading a pursuit nearly to Canada in 1877 (historical evidence points to the author being Charles Erskine Scott Wood).
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