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Oregon is a State in the Pacific Northwest region of the 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 Pacific Coast 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 has one of the most diverse landscapes of the fifty states. It is well known for its tall, dense forests and its accessible, scenic Pacific coastline. Less well known are the semiarid scrublands, prairies, and deserts that cover approximately half the state in eastern and north-central Oregon. It is one of the few places in the Northern Hemisphere where lift-serviced Alpine Skiing is available year round. The state's name is properly pronounced ôr'ĭ-gən. The pronunciation ôr'ĭ-gŏn' is also common, but considered incorrect by residents, who have been known to sport T-shirts and bumper stickers spelling the name "Orygun" in order to educate visitors. Oregon's Population In 2000 was 3,421,399, a 20.4% increase over 1990. The Census Bureau estimated Oregon's population to have reached 3,594,586 by 2004. HISTORY Oregon's earliest residents were several Native American tribes, including the Bannock , Chinook , Klamath , and Nez Percé . James Cook explored the coast in 1778 in search of the Northwest Passage . The Lewis And Clark Expedition traveled 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 the United Kingdom'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. In 1841 the master trapper and entrepreneur Ewing Young died with considerable wealth, with no apparent heir, and no system to probate his estate. A meeting followed Young's funeral at which a probate government was proposed. Doctor Ira Babcock of Jason Lee's Methodist Mission was elected Supreme Judge. Babcock chaired two meetings in 1842 at Champoeg —half way between Lees Mission and Oregon City —to discuss wolves and other vermin. These meetings were precursors to an all citizen meeting in 1843, which instituted a provisional government headed by an executive council made up of David Hill, Alanson Beers, and Joseph Gale . The Oregon Trail infused the region with new settlers, starting in 1842 – 43 , after the United States agreed to jointly settle the Oregon Country with the United Kingdom . The border 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 Oregon Boundary Dispute 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 . At the outbreak of the American Civil War , regular troops were withdrawn and sent east. Volunteer cavalry were recruited in California and were sent north to Oregon to keep peace and protect the populace. The First Oregon Cavalry served until June 1865. 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 have hurt the state's Economy on multiple occasions. The state has a long history of polarizing conflicts: , State Of Klamath , State Of Shasta and Cascadia .) Oregon state ballots often include politically conservative proposals (e.g. anti-gay, pro-religious measures) side-by-side with politically liberal ones (e.g. Drug Decriminalization ), illustrating the wide spectrum of political thought in the state. Naming The origin of the state's name is something of a mystery. The earliest known use of this proper noun was in a 1765 petition by Major Robert Rogers to the Kingdom Of Great Britain . The petition referred to ''Ouragon'' and asked for money to finance an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage . Why Rogers used the name has led to many theories, which include:
Less supported theories are based on it having a Spanish etymology. The theory that it comes from ''oregano'', was dismissed years ago by Henry W. Scott, an early editor of '' to Vancouver Island in the 18th Century were, in fact, from Catalonia , a principate of the ancient Crown Of Aragon in Spain . In 1778 , Jonathan Carver used Oregon to label the Great River Of The West in his book ''Travels Through the Interior Parts of North America''. The poet William Cullen Bryant took the name from Carver's book and used it in his poem '' Thanatopsis '' to refer to the recent discoveries of the Lewis And Clark Expedition ; this use helped establish it in modern use. GEOGRAPHY See Also: List of Oregon counties Oregon Geographic Names List of Oregon rivers List of Oregon mountain ranges List of Oregon state parks Oregon's geography may be split roughly into six areas:
The state varies from Rain Forest in the Coast Range to barren desert in the southeast, which still meets the technical definition of a Frontier . Oregon is 295 miles (475 km) north to south at longest distance, and 395 miles (475 km) east to west at longest distance. In terms of land and water area, Oregon is the ninth largest state, covering 97,073 square miles (254,418 Km&2 ). Its highest point is the summit of Mount Hood , at 11,239 ft (3,428 m). As a West Coast state, its lowest point is Sea Level . Its mean elevation is 3,300 ft (1 km). , Newberry National Volcanic Monument , and Oregon Caves National Monument . Areas that are partly in Oregon and partly in neighboring states include: California National Historic Trail , Fort Vancouver National Historic Site , Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail , Lewis And Clark National Historical Parks , Nez Perce National Historical Park , Oregon National Historic Trail . LAW AND GOVERNMENT Oregon will have two vote-by-mail elections in 2006 (May and November.) For information about candidates, districts, etc., see Oregon Election, 2006 . State government ]] Oregon state government has a Separation Of Powers similar to the Federal Government . It has three branches, called departments by the State's Constitution :
Governors in Oregon serve four-year terms and are term limited to two consecutive terms, but an unlimited number of total terms. The Secretary of State serves as Lieutenant Governor for statutory purposes. The other constitutional officers are Treasurer, Attorney General, Superintendent of Public Instruction and Labor Commissioner. The Legislative Assembly consists of a thirty-member Senate and sixty-member House. Senators serve four-year terms, and Representatives two. The state supreme court has seven elected justices, including the only openly gay state supreme court justice in the nation, Rives Kistler . They choose one of their own to serve a six-year term as Chief Justice. The only court that may reverse or modify a decision of the Oregon Supreme Court is the United States Supreme Court . Oregon is one of the few states whose legislature is Biennial . The debate over whether to move to annual sessions is a long-standing battle in Oregon politics, but the voters have resisted the move from citizen legislators to professional lawmakers. Because Oregon's state budget is written in two year increments and its revenue is based largely on income taxes, it is often significantly over- or under-budget. Recent legislatures have had to be called into special session repeatedly to address revenue shortfalls resulting from economic downturns, bringing to a head the need for more frequent legislative sessions. The state maintains formal relationships with the nine Federally-recognized tribal governments in Oregon:
Oregon adopted many electoral reforms proposed during the Progressive Era , due to the efforts of William S. U'Ren and his Direct Legislation League . Under his leadership, the state overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure in 1902 that created the Initiative and Referendum processes for citizens to directly introduce or approve proposed laws or amendments to the state constitution. In following years, the Primary Election to select party candidates was adopted in 1904 , and in 1908 the Oregon Constitution was amended to include recall of public officials. More recent progressive innovations include the nation's only doctor-assisted suicide law, called the Death With Dignity Law (which was challenged in 2005 by the Bush Administration in the U.S. Supreme Court , in contrast to the Republicans' traditional support of states' rights), legalization of medical marijuana, and among the nation's strongest anti-sprawl and pro-environment laws. Of the Measures Placed On The Ballot since 1902, the people have passed 99 of the 288 initiatives and 25 of the 61 referenda on the ballot, though not all of them survived challenges in courts (see '' Pierce V. Society Of Sisters '', for example). During the same period, the legislature has referred 363 measures to the people, of which 206 have passed. Oregon has been a pioneer in the use of Vote-by-mail :
Oregon is currently seen as a moderate Democratic-leaning Blue State which has voted for the party in every election since 1988 . The politics of the state are largely similar to those of neighboring Washington. The distribution, sales and consumption of Alcoholic Beverage s are regulated in the state by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission . Thus, Oregon is an Alcoholic Beverage Control State . Entering the Union at a time when the status of " Negroes " was very much in question, and wishing to stay out of the looming conflict between the Union and Confederate States, Oregon banned Negroes from moving into the State in the vote to adopt its Constitution ( 1858 ). This ban was not officially lifted until 1925 ; in 2002 , additional language now considered racist was struck from the Oregon Constitution by the voters of Oregon. Federal government Oregon is represented in the United States legislature by two Senators and five Representatives . (See also the historical US Congressional Delegations From Oregon .) In the U.S. Electoral College , Oregon casts seven votes. Oregon has supported Democratic candidates in the last five elections. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry won the state in 2004 by a margin of four percentage points, with 51.4% of the popular vote. Urban Multnomah County's strong support of the Democratic candidate was slightly greater than the support for Republican candidate George W. Bush in the rest of the state. The United States District Court For The District Of Oregon hears Federal cases in Oregon. Oregon (among other western states and territories) is in the 9th judicial district, which hears appeals from the District Court. See United States Court Of Appeals . ECONOMY The Willamette Valley is very fertile and, coupled with Oregon's famous rain, gives the state a wealth of agricultural products, including Cattle , Dairy products, Potato es, Peppermint , and Apple s and other Fruit s. Oregon is also one of four major world Hazelnut growing regions, and produces 95% of the domestic hazelnuts in the United States. While the history of the Wine production in Oregon can be traced to before Prohibition , it became a significant industry beginning in the 1970s and Oregon is home to at least four Wine Appellations . Due to regional similarities of climate and soil, the grapes planted in Oregon are often the same varieties found in the French region of Alsace . Vast forests have historically made Oregon one of the nation's major Timber production and Logging states, but forest fires (such as the Tillamook Burn ), over-harvesting, and lawsuits over the proper management of the extensive federal forest holdings have reduced the amount of timber produced. According to the Oregon Forest Resources Institute , timber harvested from federal lands dropped some 96% from 1989 from 4,333 million to 173 million Board Feet (10,000,000 to 408,000 m³) in 2001. Even the shift in recent years towards finished goods such as paper and building materials has not slowed the decline of the timber industry. Examples include Weyerhaeuser 's acquisition of Willamette Industries in January, 2002 , the announcement by Louisiana Pacific in September , 2003 that they will relocate their corporate headquarters from Portland to Nashville , and the experiences of small lumber towns like Gilchrist . Despite these changes, Oregon still leads the United States in Softwood lumber production; in 2001, according to the Oregon Forest Resources Institute, 6,056 million board feet (14,000,000 m³) was produced in Oregon, against 4,5257 mbf. in Washington, 2,731 in California, 2,413 in Georgia , and 2,327 in Mississippi . The effect of the forest industry crunch is still massive unemployment in rural Oregon and is a bone of contention between rural and urban Oregon. High technology industries and services have been a major employer since the 1970s . Tektronix was the largest private employer in Oregon until the late 1980s . Intel 's creation and expansion of several plants in eastern Washington County continued the growth that Tektronix had started. The spinoffs and startups that were produced by these two companies led to the establishment of the Portland metropolitan area as the Silicon Forest . The recession and Dot-com bust of 2001 in the Silicon Valley has led to similar results in the Silicon Forest; many high technology employers have either reduced the number of their employees or gone out of business. OSDL made news in 2004 when they hired Linus Torvalds , developer of the Linux kernel. Oregon also is the home of non-technology-based companies such as shoemaker Nike , whose world headquarters is located in Beaverton . Oregon had one of the largest Salmon -fishing industries in the world, although ocean fisheries have reduced the river fisheries in recent years. Tourism is also strong in the state; Oregon's evergreen mountain forests, waterfalls, pristine lakes (including Crater Lake National Park ), and scenic beaches draw visitors year round. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival , held in Ashland , is a tourist draw near its Californian border which complements the area's scenic beauty and opportunity for outdoor activities. Oregon is home to a Number Of Smaller Breweries . DEMOGRAPHICS The largest reported ancestry groups in Oregon are: German (20.5%), English (13.2%), Irish (11.9%), American (6.2%), and Mexican (5.5%). Most Oregon counties are inhabited principally by residents of European ancestry, with a high proportion of German-Americans and people of British descent. There are large numbers of Mexicans in Malheur and Jefferson counties. 6.5% of Oregon's population were reported as under 5, 24.7% under 18, and 12.8% were 65 or older. Females made up approximately 50.4% of the population. See Also: List of people from Oregon List of Portlanders Oregon locations by per capita income Religion The religious affiliations of the people of Oregon are:
Although most people from Oregon still identify themselves (at least nominally) as Christians, Oregon has the lowest church membership of all 50 states. While some parts of the USA have Church membership rates as high as 80%, it runs only about 12% in Oregon. Nearly one in four Oregonians identify themselves as non-religious, giving Oregon one of the highest percentages of non-religious people in the nation. "Non-religious" is an Umbrella Term which is sometimes synonymous with or includes elements of Atheism , Agnosticism , Skepticism , Freethought , Humanism , Secular Humanism , Heresy , Logical Positivism , and even Apathy . 2000-2003 population trends Estimates released September 2004 show double-digit growth in Latino and Asian American populations since the 2000 Census. About 60% of the 138,197 new residents come from ethnic and racial minorities. Asian growth is located mostly in the metropolitan areas of Portland, Salem, and Eugene; Hispanic population growth is across the state. MAJOR CITIES AND TOWNS The capital is Salem and the largest city is Portland . Eugene , home of the University Of Oregon is the third largest city. Oregon City was the first incorporated city west of the Rockies and later, the first capital of the Oregon Territory , from 1848 to 1852 , when the territory Capital was moved to Salem, Oregon . It was also the end of the Oregon Trail and the site of the first public library established west of the Rocky Mountains , stocked with only 300 volumes. EDUCATION Colleges and universities The in Monmouth, Southern Oregon University in Ashland, and Eastern Oregon University in La Grande. Portland State University is Oregon's biggest and serves as the commuter school in the Portland Metropolitan Area. The Oregon Institute Of Technology has its campus in Klamath Falls. The affiliate Oregon Health And Science University (OHSU) is a graduate-only medical school in Portland. OHSU is also starting a Eugene campus in joint with the University of Oregon. There is some speculation that this may eventually turn into a University of Oregon Medical School. Oregon also boasts a wide variety of private colleges, especially in the Portland area. The University Of Portland is Oregon's Catholic university. Concordia University , Lewis & Clark College , Marylhurst University , Reed College , and Warner Pacific College are also in Portland. Pacific University is in the suburb of Forest Grove. There are also private colleges further south in the Willamette Valley. McMinnville boasts Linfield College , while nearby Newberg is home to George Fox University . Salem is home to two private schools, Willamette University and Corban College . In addition to the University of Oregon, Eugene is home to the campuses of Northwest Christian College and Eugene Bible College . Community colleges The state supports seventeen regional community colleges around the state. They offer community education as well as two-year degrees. Colleges belonging to the state are:
PROFESSIONAL SPORTS TEAMS The only major professional sports team in Oregon is the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association . Traditionally, they have been one of the most successful teams in the NBA in terms of both win-loss record and attendance. However, the team has run into personnel and financial issues in recent seasons, and the team's popularity has taken a hit. The Blazers play in the Rose Garden in downtown Portland. The Rose Garden's other tenants include the Portland Winter Hawks , a longstanding and popular Western Hockey League team, and the Portland Lumberjax , an expansion National Lacrosse League team. In addition to the Winter Hawks and Lumberjax, Portland has two more minor-league sports teams who play at PGE Park . The Portland Timbers of the USL First Division are a very popular soccer team, and the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League are the Triple-A club of the San Diego Padres . There has been recent talk of Portland trying to get their own Major League Baseball team. Eugene and Salem also have minor-league baseball. The , Central Oregon Hotshots , Salem Stampede , and the Eugene Chargers . Even with all of these professional options available, the state's two major college teams, the Oregon Ducks and Oregon State Beavers remain the most popular sports entities in the state. BROADCASTING
STATE SYMBOLS : (since 1899) : (written in 1920 and adopted in 1927) : (chosen by the state's children in 1927) : (since 1939) : (since 1961) : (like a Geode but formed in a Rhyolitic Lava Flow ; since 1965) : (since 1969) : (Adopted in 1977) : (''Papilio oregonius''; since 1979) :, a type of Feldspar (since 1987) :State nut: Hazelnut (since 1989) :State seashell: Oregon Hairy Triton (''Fusitriton oregonensis'', a Gastropod in the Cymatiidae family; since 1991) :State mushroom: Pacific Golden Chanterelle (since 1999) : (since 1997) :State fruit: Oregon Pear (since 2005) :'', Latin for “She Flies With Her Own Wings” (since 1987; This was the original motto of Oregon, but had been changed to “The Union” in 1957. {Link without Title} ) :State hostess: Miss Oregon (since 1969) :State team: Portland Trail Blazers of 1990–1991 (since 1991) TRIVIA
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