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...)
Bridgeoporus is a fungal genus in the family Polyporaceae. A monotypic genus, it contains the single polypore species Bridgeoporus nobilissimus, first described to science in 1949. Commonly known both as the noble polypore and the fuzzy Sandozi, this fungus produces large fruit bodies (or conks) that have been found to weigh up to 130 kilograms (290 lb). The upper surface of the fruit body has a fuzzy or fibrous texture that often supports the growth of algae, bryophytes, or vascular plants. This species is found in the Pacific Northwest region of North America where it grows on large (at least 1 m diameter) specimens of noble fir (Abies procera), Pacific silver fir (Abies amabilis), or western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla). Bridgeoporus nobilissimus causes a brown rot in its tree hosts. Genetic analysis shows that the fungus is more prevalent than fruit body distribution indicates. The fungus was discovered in Clackamas County, Oregon, in 1943 by brothers Ali and Fred Sandoz.
Ken Kesey (1935–2001) was an Americanauthor, best known for his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and as a counter-cultural figure. He is sometimes considered a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. He was born in Colorado and grew up in Springfield, Oregon. After high school he graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree from the journalism school, before receiving a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship and moving on to Stanford University. At Stanford he volunteered for the CIA's Project MKULTRA and was exposed to a variety of drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, and DMT. These experiences would contribute to his writings. Kesey's first book was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, published in 1962. When the publication of his second novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, required his presence in New York in 1964, Kesey, Neal Cassady, and others in a group of friends they called the "Merry Pranksters" took a cross-country trip in a school bus nicknamed "Furthur" or Further. This trip, described in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (and later in Kesey's own screenplay "The Further Inquiry") was the group's attempt to create art out of everyday life. In New York, Cassady introduced Kesey to Jack Kerouac and to Allen Ginsberg, who in turn introduced them to Timothy Leary. Sometimes a Great Notion was made into a 1971 film starring Paul Newman; it was nominated for two Academy Awards. In 1966, Kesey was arrested for possession of marijuana and eventually spent five months in jail. He later returned to Oregon, where he lived the rest of his life. Kesey died on November 10, 2001, following an operation for liver cancer.
... 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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