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...)
Weather Machine is a kinetic sculpture and columnar machine that displays a weather prediction each day at noon. Designed and constructed by Omen Design Group Inc., the approximately 30 feet (9.1 m) tall bronze sculpture was installed in 1988 in the northwest corner of Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon, in the United States. 2,000 people attended its dedication, which was broadcast live nationally from the Square by Today weatherman Willard Scott. The machine cost $60,000. During its daily two-minute sequence, which includes a trumpet fanfare, mist, and flashing lights, the machine displays one of three metal symbols as a prediction of the weather for the following 24-hour period: a sun for clear, sunny weather; a blue heron for drizzle and transitional weather; or a dragon and mist for rainy or stormy weather. The sculpture includes two bronze wind scoops and displays the temperature via vertical colored lights along its stem. The air quality index is also displayed by a light system below the stainless steel globe. Weather predictions are made based on information obtained by Square employees from the National Weather Service and Department of Environmental Quality. Considered a tourist attraction, Weather Machine has been called "bizarre", "eccentric", "playful", "unique", "wacky", "whimsical", "zany" and a "piece of wizardry", and has been compared to a giant scepter.
Bill Hayward (1868–1947) was an American athletic coach in Oregon. Born in Michigan, he grew up in Canada where he was an all-around athlete. He excelled at sprinting, ice hockey, rowing, wrestling, boxing, and played lacrosse on one of the Ottawa Capitals' world championship teams of the 1890s. Hayward began coaching in 1898 as an assistant track coach at Princeton University. He then moved to the University of California before becoming the head track coach at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon where he coached A. C. Gilbert. In 1903, he took the head job at Albany College (now Lewis & Clark College) for one year before becoming the University of Oregon's first permanent track coach. Hayward would stay as coach for 44 years, and during this time he was a coach for six United StatesOlympics teams. At Oregon he coached four track world record holders, six American record holders and nine Olympians. In addition to his track coaching duties, he served as the athletic trainer for Oregon's football team, and coached the men's basketball team from 1903 to 1913 and again in 1917-1918, compiling an overall record of 34-29. The track team's home facility is named Hayward Field in his honor. Hayward was an inaugural inductee to both the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1980 and the University of Oregon Athletic Hall of Fame in 1992. In 2005, he was induced into the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
We don't have the blimp flying around like Goodyear, but we've got something better -- the Les Schwab sign -- and in the Northwest that's more powerful than the blimp.
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