SPRINGFIELD — When you see someone do the impossible, everything becomes possible. That’s what former olympian Ben Blankenship hopes to bring to sustainability – and Springfield, too. Blankenship is the founder of Endless Mileage, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering sustainable environments and programming that inspires the next generation of[Read More…]
History
Digging into the history of ‘Fruitlands’
An early Lorane orchard getting sprayed. An introduction Oregon’s earliest history lessons usually involve the stories of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the hunters and trappers who provided pelts for trading with the Native Americans, the migration over the Oregon Trail by its early settlers, cattle drives, and gold seekers[Read More…]
Rehabilitation continues for Creswell’s ‘Old Schoolhouse’
PHOTO PROVIDED/ CRESWELL HERITAGE FOUNDATION – Creswell’s Old Schoolhouse. In 2007, Creswell residents Marge Williamson and Carol Campbell undertook to have Creswell’s old schoolhouse listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building had just been vacated because the volunteer library that occupied it since 1927 moved to a[Read More…]
Skill, stout shipbuilding kept shipwreck fatality-free
The U.S.S. Peacock attacking the H.M.S. Nautilus just after the War of 1812, which the Peacock’s skipper was unaware had ended, in 1815. Photo provided/US Navy With all the ships that have come to grief there over the years, and all the sailors who have drowned as a result, it’s[Read More…]
History, here: Posters around town merge past with present
An airfield previously located near Olympic Street between 21st and 28th streets is pictured on the History Here poster installed in that area. Victoria Stephens/The Chronicle SPRINGFIELD – If you haven’t seen the History Here poster on the northeast corner of 18th and Olympic streets, you might not know that[Read More…]
Oregon’s first murder defendant was saved from gallows by his wife
It’s hard to tell, just from reading between the lines of the court documents, but it’s probably a safe guess that Nimrod O’Kelly’s neighbors did not like him. It was the spring of 1852, and the Oregon Trail emigrations had begun a few years earlier. O’Kelly had been one of[Read More…]
Battleship U.S.S. Oregon was lost in Pearl Harbor attack – sort of
The U.S.S. Oregon in dry dock in 1898, two years after launch. When this photo was taken, the Oregon was the most famous warship in the country, and one of the most powerful. PHOTOS COURTESY U.S. NAVY Dec. 7, 1941, was a bad day for American battleships. Four of the[Read More…]
Bordello madam Carrie Bradley was the Brigid O’Shaughnessy of 1880s Portland
This cartoon was published in The West Shore in 1889 as a criticism of the quality of policing in Portland. The woman in the window on the extreme right is a prostitute negotiating with a prospective customer. It is possible, if not very likely, that this cartoon was drawn with[Read More…]
Oregon’s first published book was a torrid page-turner in its day
The title page from the original 1854 edition of Part Two of the first novel-length work of (alleged) fiction ever published in Oregon, by Margaret Jewett Bailey. IMAGE: oregonencyclopedia.org Early in the summer of 1854, an advertisement appeared in the Portland Oregonian – a tantalizingly feisty one, from an author[Read More…]
1984 – Museum renovation begins
34612 BILL LUND/THE CHRONICLE EXCERPT FROM OCT. 5, 1994 – Last week, volunteers from the Creswell Historical Society tore down the chimney of the Creswell Historical Museum, marking the first phase of remodeling for the 105-year-old building. The restoration of the museum, which also houses the Creswell Chamber of Commerce[Read More…]