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Revised 9-27-03

OREGON

    Oregon has been the home to over 126 different tribes of Native Americans.  Among some of the more prominent tribes were the Chinook, Paiute, Modoc and Nez Perce.  They used the wood of the forests for shelter and fished the plentiful streams for salmon and trout and ate of the plentiful grains and wild plants.  

    In 1792, Robert Gray, an American trader, became the first white explorer to sail into the river, which was named Ouragan. Gray renamed the river after his ship the Columbia Rediviva (The Columbia River) .  Captain Cooke charted a portion of the coastline during his search for the great river of the west.  

    Oregon was claimed by Spain, Russia, Great Britain and the United States.  In 1850, he Territorial Legislature of Oregon guaranteed settlers ownership of large tracts of land if they would live on and cultivate them as farm lands for a period of four years.  This was a portion of the territory explored by Lewis and Clark.  They sent back glowing reports of an enormous beaver population.  Based upon these reports, John Jacob Astor founded a fur-trading post at Astoria in 1811. By 1819, Britain and the United States had agreed to occupy the Oregon area jointly.  

      The Oregon Trail, which began in the early 1830s and gradually built through the 1840s, was finally opened and the real push to settle Oregon began.  The Oregon Trail stretched from Independence, Missouri and had its terminus in Oregon City.  This trail was followed by pioneers in oxen-pulled wagons, who were bound for what was touted as "The Garden of Eden."  The trail was through rugged and difficult terrain and 17 people are known to have died along the way.  By 1843, over 900 people had migrated west over this trail.

   People came from all over the world to settle.  Residential ethnicity was a mixture of German, Swedish, English, Norwegian, Russian, Finish, Italian, Danish, Irish, Austrian, Greek and Czechoslovakian as well as those who crossed our own nation to settle.  Oregon became a territory in 1848 and its territory also included all of present Washington and Idaho. In 1853, Washington Territory was separated from Oregon Territory.  Finally, on 14 February1859, Oregon became the thirty-third state in the Union and had shrunk in size to its present boundaries.

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