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Oregon is a state located in the western United States bordering the Pacific Ocean, California, Washington, Idaho, and Nevada. Its northern border lies along the Columbia River and the east along the Snake River. Two north-south mountain ranges - the Coastal Range and the Cascade Mountain Range - form the two boundaries of the Willamette Valley, one of the most fertile and agriculturally productive regions in the world. Oregon is known for its rain, but only the western half of the state is notably rainy; east of the Cascades the climate is much more arid.
A 1977 article in U.S. News and World Report described Oregon as a
That description still applies over a quarter-century later. OregonianAn Oregonian is a resident or native of the state of Oregon; The Oregonian is the daily newspaper in Portland. Oregon.s are proud of their state's beautiful forests and streams, and place great importance on proper use of their natural resourcenatural resources Natural resources are commodities that are considered valuable in their relatively unmodified ( natural) form. A commodity is generally considered a natural resource when the primary activities associated with it are extraction and purifs. They struggle to balance this with the desire to support the development needed to support its increasing population without losing what attracts people to Oregon in the first place. The state has pioneered some innovative solutions to the nation's environmental problems, such as the Oregon Bottle BillThe Oregon Bottle Bill of 1971 was key Oregon state legislation which required carbonated soft drink and beer containers to be returnable with a minimum refund value. The law reduced litter and increased container recycling. As a result of the law, items, but has also suffered from the rapid pace of logging in its forests.
Its population in 2000The United States 2000 census conducted by the Census Bureau determined the resident population of the United States on April 1, 2000, to be 281,421,906, an increase of 13. 2 percent over the 248,709,873 persons enumerated during the 1990 census. resident was 3,421,399, a 20.4% increase over 1990; as of July 2003, the population had grown to an estimated 3,559,596.
Oregon's earliest residents were several Native AmericanNative Americans (also Indians Aboriginal Peoples American Indians First Nations Alaskan Natives or Indigenous Peoples of America are the indigenous inhabitants of Americas prior to the European colonization, and their modern descendants. This term compri tribes, including the BannockThe Bannock are a Native American tribe of the Pacific Northwest. A bannock is a form of flat cake, baked on a griddle and popular in Scotland. It is generally made of oatmeal and takes the form of a large oatcake. However, the meaning is not universal an, Chinook, Klamath, and Nez Perce. James Cook explored the coast in 1778 in search of the Northwest Passage. The Lewis and Clark Expedition travelled through the region during their expedition to explore the Louisiana Purchase. They built their winter fort at Fort Clatsop, near the mouth of the Columbia River. Exploration by Lewis and Clark ( 1805- 1806) and Britain's David Thompson ( 1811) publicized the abundance of fur in the area. In 1811, New York financier John Jacob Astor established Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River with the intention of starting a chain of Pacific Fur Company trading posts along the river. Fort Astoria was the first permanent white settlement in Oregon. In the War of 1812, the British gained control of all of the Pacific Fur Company posts.
By the 1820s and 1830s, the British Hudson's Bay Company dominated the Pacific Northwest. John McLoughlin, who was appointed the Company's Chief Factor of the Columbia District, built Fort Vancouver in 1825.
The Oregon Trail infused the region with new settlers, starting in 1842- 43, after the U.S. wrested control of the Oregon Country from the United Kingdom. A popular slogan among the Democrats who wanted the Pacific territory as far north as latitude 54°40′ was " Fifty-Four Forty or Fight." This confrontation was resolved in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty after a period where it seemed that the United States and the United Kingdom would go to war for a third time in 75 years. Cooler heads prevailed, and the boundary between the United States and British North America was set at the 49th parallel. The Oregon Territory was officially organized in 1848.
Settlement increased due to the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850, in conjunction with the forced relocation of the native population to Indian Reservations in Oregon. The state was admitted to the Union on February 14, 1859.
In the 1880s, railroads enabled marketing of the state's lumber and wheat, as well as the more rapid growth of its cities.
Industrial expansion began in earnest following the construction of the Bonneville Dam in 1943 on the Columbia River. The power, food, and lumber provided by Oregon have helped fuel the development of the west, and the periodic fluctuations in the nation's building industry has severely impacted the state's economy on multiple occasions.
The state has a long history of polarizing conflicts: Native Americans vs. British fur trappers, British vs. settlers from the U.S., ranchers vs. farmers, wealthy growing cities vs. established but poor rural areas, loggers vs. environmentalists, white supremacists vs. anti-racists, supporters of social spending vs. anti-tax activists, and native Oregonians vs. Californians (or outsiders in general). State ballots frequently illustrate the extremes of the political spectrum - anti- gay, pro-religious measures on the same ballot as liberal drug decriminalization measures.