Oregon Trivia & Tidbits

Collier Memorial State Park and Logging Museum, near Chiloquin (pop. 716), began in 1945 with a donation of 146 acres of land by brothers Alfred and Andrew Collier, followed by their contribution of antique logging equipment in 1947. Their intent was to show the evolution of logging from the use of felling axes and oxen to chainsaws and diesel trucks. The museum also spotlights the role that railroads played in the timber industry and is among several sites in the state that chronicle Oregon's logging history.

Well-known children's book author Clare Turlay Newberry (1903-1970) was born in Enterprise (pop. 1,895) and studied art at the University of Oregon and the School of Portland Art Museum, as well as in California and Paris, France. Known for her drawings of cats and kittens, four of her books, including Marshmallow and April's Kittens, were designated runners-up for the Caldecott Medal.

Klamath Falls (pop. 19,462) originally was called Linkville after George Nurse founded the town in 1867. He named it after the Link River on whose falls the city is situated. In 1893, citizens renamed their community Klamath Falls-a change ratified by the state Legislature, which incorporated the town in 1905. The area's prosperity was given a considerable boost in 1909 when the Southern Pacific Railroad arrived.

During an annual race in Corvallis (pop. 49,322), teams of contestants pedal human-powered kinetic sculptures through a course that includes clay, sand, water and mud. The engineering marvels have included contraptions such as a flying pink elephant, a slice of cheese and a yellow submarine. The contest is part of the town's da Vinci Days festival, a July celebration of art, science and technology.

In the early 1800s, American Indians of the Northwest were plagued by exposure to white men's diseases. One story says that when traditional ways couldn't cure them, "four Indian wise men from the West" walked from the Oregon territories to St. Louis to seek help, and a contingent from the Methodist church returned to offer aid. Pulpit Rock in the town of The Dalles (pop. 12,156) was the gathering place for those seeking help and spiritual guidance.

Large, colorful murals grace the walls of many buildings in The Dalles (pop. 12,156), graphically relating the region's history. Scenes depict the life of the original American Indian tribes in the area, the Lewis and Clark Expedition that passed through and the pioneers who arrived at the end of the Oregon Trail. The murals were painted by various artists and feature legends describing the illustrations.

Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge features 1,853 coastal islands, rocks and reefs scattered along 320 miles of the state's coast. The offshore rocks and islands harbor thousands of seabirds comprising 13 species. The habitat also is home to harbor seals, northern elephant seals and California sea lions. The best place to view a portion of the refuge is at Coquille Point near Bandon (pop. 2,833).

Oregon's scenic coastline features one of the most spectacular ocean drives in the nation on U.S. Highway 101. Along the coast from Brookings (pop. 5,447) to Astoria (pop. 9,813), a distance of about 350 miles, the state's park system maintains some 85 areas designated for day use or camping. The areas include state parks, recreation sites, natural areas, scenic corridors and state heritage sites, as well as beaches, waysides and picnic areas.

—Madame Marie Dorion, an American Indian of the Sioux Nation, was the only woman on the 1811 Wilson Hunt expedition from Montreal to Oregon. Accompanying her husband Pierre Dorion, who served as an interpreter during the 11-month journey of trappers to the Columbia River, Marie gave birth to a child, survived a brutal winter and her husband's death, and eventually settled with her children in Oregon. She died in 1850 and is buried in Gervais (pop. 2,009).

—Officially founded on Feb. 1, 1842, Willamette University in Salem established the Pacific Northwest's first law school in 1883 and the first school of medicine in 1866-67.

—The ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum in Ashland (pop. 19,522) has hosted more than 150,000 school children since opening in 2002. Its 80-plus interactive exhibits allow children to put themselves inside a soap bubble, propel a model electric train with pedal power, draw in 3-D, and use a paper plane launcher to learn about aerodynamics.

—To celebrate Oregon's 150th birthday-Feb. 14, 2009-a host of activities is taking place in the 33rd state throughout the year. The musical Oregon! Oregon!, A Centennial Fable in Three Acts, composed for the centennial in 1959 by Stan Freberg, has been updated by the 12-member Portland-based orchestra Pink Martini. Founder and director Thomas Lauderdale promises performances at various locations around the state in August and September.

—When two early settlers in the area decided in 1845 to name the town they had established on the Willamette River, they couldn't agree on a name. Asa Lovejoy wanted to name it for his former home in Boston, Mass., and his friend Francis Pettygrove wanted to call it after his former home in Portland, Maine. They agreed on a coin toss, which Pettygrove won, so Portland it became.

—Novelist Ken Kesey (1935-2001), author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion, lived the latter part of his life on a farm in Pleasant Hill in Lane County. During high school in Springfield (pop. 52,864) and later at the University of Oregon, Kesey was a champion wrestler, setting long-standing state records.

–The present Capitol in Salem is the third in the state's history. The first burned in December 1855, destroying a statehouse that had only recently been occupied. Another building served as a temporary Capitol until a new one was built in 1876. That one burned on April 25, 1935. The current Capitol was completed in 1938.

—Activated in 1881, the Tillamook Lighthouse went dark when it was discontinued in 1957. More than a mile off Tillamook Head, the light perched on a craggy rock was pummeled by storms throughout its history. Though dark for more than 50 years, the lighthouse is still there and, for a time, served as a columbarium, a place where human ashes are stored, until closed by the state for failure to comply with regulations.

—Fort Rock, formed by a long-ago volcanic eruption in an ancient shallow lake, now rises like a huge stone fort out of the flatlands of central Oregon's high desert. Hikers can visit the interior basin of the towering, semicircular rock wall, which, in places, is 200 feet high, or climb the wall itself. In the 1860s Ben Holladay, the Stagecoach King, controlled stage lines from the Missouri River to Salt Lake City, Utah, and was one of the largest employers in the United States. Selling the line to Wells Fargo in 1866, he moved to Oregon, ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, and continued amassing his fortune. Bankrupted in the Panic of 1873, he spent his last years embroiled in lawsuits, dying in Portland in 1887.

—The state’s only remaining covered railroad bridge, the Chambers Railroad Covered Bridge, which crosses the Coast Fork of the Willamette River near Cottage Grove (pop. 8,445), was built in 1925 to hold steam engines that pulled logging trains to a nearby sawmill. At 78 feet long and built from hand-hewn trusses, the bridge ceased being used in 1943, when the sawmill burned down.

When Emil Britt was born in 1862, his father, photographer and settler Peter Britt, planted a sequoia tree to mark the occasion. Now more than 200 feet tall, the tree still stands at the historic Britt home site in Jacksonville (pop. 2,235). Peter Britt also was a weather observer, a horticulturalist and a leader in the local fruit industry.

—Named in honor of Saint Sebastian on Jan. 20, 1603, the saint’s feast day and the day the cape was discovered by Spanish navigator Sebastian Vizciano, southern Oregon’s Cape Sebastian rises 720 feet from the Pacific Ocean. The view from the cape’s headland, now part of Cape Sebastian Scenic Corridor, is spectacular, with Hunter’s Cove and Hunter’s Island below and Humbug Mountain visible to the north.

A cave complex near Paisley (pop. 247) has yielded to archeologists samples of what is believed to be the earliest human DNA to be discovered in North America. The genetic evidence found last year in the caves was contained in fossilized excrement called coprolites. The finding suggests the first humans in America arrived 14,300 years ago, or 1,000 years earlier than previous estimates.