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 United States. 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...)
The Camas pocket gopher (Thomomys bulbivorus), also known as the Camas rat or Willamette Valley gopher, is a rodent in the genus Thomomys of the family Geomyidae. First collected in 1829, it is endemic to the Willamette Valley in the northwest part of Oregon in the northwestern United States. It is the largest member of the genus, commonly known as smooth-toothed or western pocket gophers. The herbivorous gopher forages for vegetable and plant matter collected in large, fur-lined, external cheek pouches. Surplus food is hoarded in an extensive system of underground tunnels. The dull brown to lead-gray coat, changes color and texture over the year. The mammal's characteristically large, protuberant incisors are well adapted for use in tunnel construction, particularly in the hard clay soils of the Willamette Valley. The young are born toothless, blind, and hairless. They grow rapidly and are weaned around six weeks of age. The females have four mammary glands. The gophers make chattering sounds with their teeth. Males and females make purring or crooning sounds when together, while the young may make twittering sounds. The Camas pocket gopher is fiercely defensive when cornered, yet may become tame in captivity. While population trends are generally stable, threats to the species' survival include urbanization, habitat conversion for agricultural uses, and active attempts at eradication through trapping and poisons. In addition, it may fall prey to raptors or carnivorous mammals, or become host to a number of parasitic arthropods and worms. Scientists believe that the evolutionary history of the animal was disrupted when the cataclysmic Bretz floods washed over the Willamette Valley at the end of the last ice age. The floods nearly entirely covered the gopher's geographic range, which may have caused a genetic bottleneck as survivors repopulated the region after the waters receded.
Bill Walton (born November 5, 1952) is a former Americanbasketballplayer and current televisionsportscaster. Walton was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame on May 10, 1993. He was born in La Mesa, California and played college basketball for John Wooden at the UCLA from 1971 to 1974, where the team won the national title twice, including a perfect 30–0 record during the 1971–1972 season and an 88-game winning streak. In 1973, he won the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States, while also winning both the USBWA College Player of the Year and Naismith College Player of the Year three consecutive years. The Portland Trail Blazers of the NBA drafted Walton as the number one overall player in 1974. In 1977, the team won the NBA title with Walton as the Finals MVP. The next year Bill Walton was selected as the NBA Most Valuable Player Award, though limited to 50 games due to injury. During the 1978 to 1979 season he sat out in protest after earlier demanding to be traded after allegations the team was unethical and incompetent in treating player injuries. In 1979 as a free agent he signed with the San Diego Clippers and then in 1985 was traded to the Boston Celtics where he won the NBA Sixth Man Award in 1986. In 1990, Bill Walton retired from the NBA as a player. After retirement, Walton began a career as a broadcaster. He has worked as a color commentator for the Clippers, NBC, ABC and ESPN. In 1996, he was named as one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players of all time. Previously he was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame, and his number 32 was retired by the Blazers.
... that it has been a goal of Oregon state senator Bill Hansell to get the potato officially designated as the state vegetable?
... that when Oregon journalist Larry Smyth was asked who he thought would win presidential elections, he invariably replied "the man who gets the most votes"?
Multnomah Falls is a waterfall on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge, located east of Troutdale, between Corbett and Dodson, along the Historic Columbia River Highway. The falls drops in two major steps, split into an upper falls of 542 feet (165 m) and a lower falls of 69 feet (21 m), with a gradual 9 foot (3 m) drop in elevation between the two, so the total height of the waterfall is conventionally given as 620 feet (189 m). Multnomah Falls is the second tallest year-round waterfall in the United States after Yosemite Falls.
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