OREGON

The first European to sight Oregon may have been Sir Francis Drake (1540–1596), while he was on a British raiding expedition against the Spanish during the 1500s. Little contact was made during the next 200 years because mariners considered the Oregon coast too treacherous. In 1778, the Englishman Capt. James Cook (1728–1779) explored the Northwest. He named several of the Oregon capes. Explorers seeking sea otter and other furs soon followed. American Robert Gray (1755–1806) discovered the Columbia River in 1792.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition was the first overland exploration of Oregon, reaching the mouth of the Columbia in the winter of 1805. Fur traders employed by New York magnate John Jacob Astor (1763–1848) built a trading post at the mouth of the Columbia and called it Astoria.

The early history of Oregon was marked by competition between Great Britain and the United States for a foothold in the territory. The two countries signed a joint agreement of occupation in 1818. However from 1824 through the early 1840s John McLoughlin (1784–1857), chief official at Vancouver for the British Hudson's Bay Company, was governor in all but name. Protestant missionaries to the Native Americans, however, established a base for future U.S. settlement. The first of these came by wagon train over the famous Oregon Trail during the early 1840s. In 1843 a provisional government was formed, and in 1846 a treaty with Great Britain firmly established the boundary between the United States and Canada. The Oregon Territory was organized in 1848. It was originally much larger than the state as it exists today. Oregon became the 33rd state of the union in 1859.

Oregon's economic progress was slow until the first transcontinental railroad reached the state in 1883. The fur trade dominated the region up until that time. When the railroad was built, fur traders, who were tired of the rigors of their difficult trade, began to settle on farms. They settled particularly in the Tualatin Valley and in a region near present-day Salem. Most were French-Canadians who were married to Indian women. Others came north from the gold fields of California, including a number of Chinese who continued to seek gold in eastern Oregon. They also worked as salmon packers and farmhands but were best known for their role in completing the Oregon Central Railroad and other railroads.

The California Gold Rush of the 1850s provided the first real impetus to economic growth in the Northwest. The city of Portland grew rapidly as gold miners demanded lumber, flour, wheat, and beef. Portland provided easy access for ship captains, and the city built a rudimentary road to the wheat fields of the Tualatin Valley. Oregon's mountains together with the Columbia River blocked any rivals from providing this wheat through other means. Thus an important export market developed, along with the Northwest's first reliable currency, gold dust. Another gold rush in eastern Oregon brought even more prosperity. Sailing vessel and steamship companies prospered during this time.

Oregon also found ready markets for the salmon taken out of the Columbia River. Lumber and paper industries as well as textile mills began to develop along the Columbia and the Willamette rivers.

Much of the economy remained agricultural because railroads and improved roads were slow in coming to Oregon. Wheat was the most important crop, followed by oats and potatoes. Cattle, horses, pigs, and sheep were the most important livestock. Towns such as The Dalles, Princeville, Klamath Falls, and Pendleton arose to serve the farm market. Before the coming of the Pacific Northwest railroad Oregon was essentially a purveyor of raw materials, with few finished goods being produced there.

By the 1890s several railroads crisscrossed Oregon. Raw materials could now flow to the ocean more efficiently and immigration to the region increased. Consumer goods, farm machinery, and construction materials were now readily available from the East to supply the growing farms and cities. Lumbermen and farmers could compete with those in other sections of the country. The Northern Pacific Railroad and the Great Northern Railroad also had vast publicity bureaus that sent pamphlets to the East, encouraging emigration. The railroad also changed economic patterns. The tracks broke up large cattle ranges and helped to destroy the cattle industry. Because wool was easier to transport by rail than beef, local residents soon preferred to raise sheep.

Waterways were also improved during this time, including canals along the Columbia to bypass falls and rapids. Lumbermen benefited from better water transit, from technological developments in their industry, and from the destruction of forests in the Great Lakes region.

During the 1920s Oregonians had to make adjustments as demand for certain materials declined after World War I (1914–1918). Lumber mills also suffered from a lack of supply because wartime cutting had decimated the forests. Congress acted quickly to pass the Clarke-McNary and McSweeney-McNary acts. The acts provided a model for future federal efforts to conserve forests.

Other changes during the 1920s were related to transportation improvements. Shipping continued to increase because of the Panama Canal. The railroads began to lose business as better roads were built. Oregon had created its first highway department in 1913 and built the Columbia River Highway along the river's south bank.

The 1930s saw a downturn in the economy as a depression rocked the country. After the 1929 stock market crash, lumber companies lost most of their markets but slowly regained strength. However the fishing industry never quite recovered from the market collapses which sent many fishermen to the relief rolls. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's (1933–45) New Deal programs, especially the Wagner Act, encouraged union organizing. Portland experienced a crippling strike by the International Longshoremen's Association in 1934. In the spring of 1935 the Sawmill and Timber Workers practically shut down the lumber industry in the Northwest. On a more positive note, the federal government's water conservation efforts during this period resulted in the construction of the Grand Coulee and the Bonneville dams along the Columbia River.

World War II (1939–1945) brought much-needed relief to Oregon's failing economy. Portland shipbuilding in particular was a major beneficiary of wartime contracts. Construction entrepreneur Henry J. Kaiser (1882–1967) was the genius behind Portland's shipbuilding renaissance. He was the primary contractor on the Bonneville Dam project. Kaiser used his many contacts in Washington and with other construction interests to gain government contracts for the so-called Liberty ships. The ships were 441-foot long freighters that kept the Allies supplied throughout the war. Kaiser also built escort aircraft carriers, tankers, and Victory merchant ships.

The postwar years in Oregon were quite prosperous, with manufacturing and service industries expanding. Government was also heavily involved in water and forest conservation in the state. Farming changed drastically with the number of farms declining from 63,125 in 1945 to 36,000 in 1982. Large corporate farms using high technology methods began to dominate the economy. Oregon fisheries declined as the salmon supply became depleted, causing most of the state's canneries to be closed; the federal government rushed to supply fish eggs to hatcheries. The 1980s and 1990s were marked by a continuing debate between loggers and environmentalists over logging in Oregon's rainforests. A 1993 federal law helped prevent commercial exploitation of older forests, home of the threatened spotted owl. Despite attempts to diversify the state's economic base employment in manufacturing outside Portland was still mostly in the lumber and wood products field in the 1980s. This made the state increasingly vulnerable to fluctuations in the housing construction market.

In addition the trend toward conservation of the forests from commercial development continued into the 1990s. The total commercial land base decreased by more than 24 percent since 1945. While federal lands were increasingly being removed from timber-harvesting, private forests took on a more important role. The reforesting required since 1941 and the Forest Practices Act of 1971 helped replenish the timber supply. Timber still provided the largest percentage of shipments by manufacturers in the state.

The principal economic changes in Oregon since World War II have been in the development of the aluminum and electronics industries, as well as in tourism and the services industry. In 1994 unemployment stood at a 25-year low of five percent. Per capita income was over $22,000 in 1997, putting the state's ranking at 27 in the nation.

OREGON

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