Oregon Trivia & Tidbits - Page 9

Looking for Oregon trivia? Try our list Oregon little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

The state created the Oregon State Police in 1931 as a rural patrol and to assist local law enforcement agencies. The department’s 95 police officers were charged with enforcing traffic, arson, fire prevention, prohibition and narcotic laws, game and fish codes, and all criminal laws throughout the state.

first appeared: 6/27/2004

About 95 percent of Oregon’s annual 40-million-pound cranberry crop comes from the area around Bandon (pop. 2,833). Charles McFarlin grew the first commercial cranberries in the state in 1885, on vines brought from Massachusetts. He later developed a variety known as McFarlin that is still grown on the West Coast today.

first appeared: 6/20/2004

On Sept. 9, 1942, a Japanese incendiary bomb dropped from a submarine-launched seaplane landed in the forest near Brookings (pop. 5,447). It was intended to create a huge forest fire, but damp weather conditions at the time prevented any major damage. The plane’s pilot, Nobuo Fujita, later visited Oregon as a goodwill ambassador.

first appeared: 6/13/2004

Almost 20 feet tall, the Caveman statue at Grants Pass (pop. 23,003) was created in 1971 to celebrate the town’s link to the nearby Oregon Caves National Monument. The caves inspired the 1922 founding of the Oregon Cavemen of Grants Pass, a group of business boosters who dressed up as cavemen to greet visiting dignitaries—including Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan—and to publicize the area.

first appeared: 6/6/2004

Cottage Grove (pop. 8,445) is featured in three movies: Buster Keaton’s 1927 silent film The General, about a train engine stolen during the Civil War; 1973’s Emperor of the North railroad tale with Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine; and as the site for the homecoming parade scene in the 1978 movie National Lampoon’s Animal House.

first appeared: 5/30/2004

Wallowa County, which includes the city of Wallowa (pop. 869), gains its name from an American Indian word meaning “land of the winding waters.” The county is located in Oregon’s northeastern corner within the Grande Ronde river basin, and includes 53 lakes, plus 3,100 steams that run for a total of 5,600 miles.

first appeared: 5/23/2004

In 1887, Chinese immigrants Lung On and Ing Hay bought a building in John Day (pop. 1,821) and created Kam Wah Chung & Co.—a general store that provided gold miners with supplies and local Chinese workers with a social, religious and medical gathering place. Herbalist “Doc” Hay practiced Chinese medicine there until 1948, while Lung On operated several successful businesses, including eastern Oregon’s first automobile dealership in 1909.

first appeared: 5/16/2004

Planted in 1850, the Hager Grove pear tree near the intersection of Interstate 5 and Highway 22 in Salem is one of Oregon’s oldest. A state Heritage Tree, the pear was part of an orchard planted by the Munkre family, who came to Oregon from Missouri in 1847. In spring, pink-tinged white blossoms line the tree’s branches.

first appeared: 5/9/2004

Donald M. Kerr established the Western Natural History Institute in Bend (pop. 52,029) in 1974, out of a passion for natural history that began when he raised a wolf cub for his high school biology class. The institute evolved into the Oregon High Desert Museum, which opened in 1982 and today is known as The High Desert Museum.

first appeared: 5/2/2004

In 2001, the Gordon House—the only house that architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed in Oregon—was moved 26 miles from Wilsonville (pop. 13,991) to the Oregon Garden at Silverton (pop. 7,414), where it was restored and opened to the public. Conrad and Evelyn Gordon commissioned Wright to design the house, which was built in 1963 as one of his Usonian (modest working-class) homes.

first appeared: 4/25/2004

One of the state’s best-known textile companies, Pendleton Woolen Mills, owes its existence to Thomas Kay, an English weaver who traveled to Oregon in 1863. His three grandsons—Clarence, Roy, and Chauncy Bishop—eventually purchased an idle mill in Pendleton (pop. 16,354) and began the successful business that remains to this day.

first appeared: 4/18/2004

The Painted Hills, in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in eastern Oregon, puts on a spectacular multicolored show as sunlight changes the hills’ colors throughout the day. Moisture in the air at both dawn and dusk, as well as following a rain, brings out the vivid coloration.

first appeared: 4/11/2004

Cooley’s Gardens, a family-run business outside Silverton (pop. 7,414), is one of the world’s largest and oldest producers of bearded iris. The Cooley family began operation in 1928; now more than a million irises bloom in the company’s fields from mid-May through early June. The public is invited to see the spectacle.

first appeared: 4/4/2004

Harney Basin in eastern Oregon marks the northwest corner of the Great Basin desert. While getting only about 6 inches of rain a year, the water is captured in this basin and the area teems with life. Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is in the basin, along with Malheur Lake—one of the nation’s largest freshwater marshes.

first appeared: 3/28/2004

At 11,235 feet above sea level, Mount Hood is a dormant volcano with steam constantly spewing from some areas. Its last minor eruption was in 1907, and scientists believe a significant eruption could occur this century. In a previous issue, we erroneously placed the mountain in Utah.

first appeared: 3/21/2004

The Wallowa Lake Tramway in Joseph (pop. 1,054) offers spectacular views of the Wallowa Mountains, Wallowa Lake, Snake River country, and the Seven Devil Mountains in Idaho. The tram to the top of Mount Howard reaches an elevation of 8,150 feet after a 15-minute ride in an enclosed gondola.

first appeared: 3/21/2004

Britt Festivals in Jacksonville (pop. 2,235) bills itself as the Pacific Northwest’s premiere outdoor summer performing arts festival. Its concerts are held in a naturally formed amphitheater set among ponderosa pines and native madrone trees on the estate of 19th-century photographer Peter Britt.

first appeared: 3/14/2004

Oregon Caves National Monument features a Douglas fir with the largest known girth (41 feet around) in the state, along with caves discovered in 1874 having surfaces of solid marble.

first appeared: 3/7/2004

High above Portland, “The City of Roses,” the International Rose Test Garden features more than 500 varieties of roses—some of which have been cultivated continuously since 1917 when the garden was founded.

first appeared: 2/29/2004

Deady Hall was the first building on campus when the University of Oregon opened in Eugene in 1876, and it still stands today.

first appeared: 2/22/2004

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