Every spring, on the Oregon Episcopal School campus in southwest Portland, there’s a day that doesn’t feel like a normal school day. People gather. A bell tower stands quiet and tall. A few words are spoken, then names are read—slowly, carefully—like each syllable...
There are some places that fade quietly into history. And then there are places that refuse to die because too many people still remember exactly how they sounded. I was born in 1981, which means I just missed the full force of Organ Grinder Restaurant. By the time I...
There is something about Oregon’s high desert that changes you. Maybe it is the silence stretching for miles. Maybe it is the way sagebrush bends in the wind like it has seen everything and is not impressed. Or maybe it is the staggering realization that people were...
Oregon lost one of its quiet legends this week. Chuck Kesey, co-founder of Springfield Creamery and co-creator of Nancy’s Probiotic Foods, passed away peacefully at home in Eugene, surrounded by family. He was 87. A scientist, storyteller, and visionary long before...
If you’ve been watching HBO’s The Gilded Age, you’ve seen the nation’s transformation play out in gas-lit parlors and drawing-room duels; steel barons and railroad titans building empires as socialites spar over who’s allowed into high society. What the show captures...
I grew up in Springfield, Oregon, born in 1981, and when I was a kid in the early 90s, I remember hearing about a wild little place up in Portland called the X-Ray Café. As a kid of course with no car yet, Portland a bit out of reach as it was 2 hours away. I never...
Staying in a haunted house isn't for everyone, even if the ghost that lives there is friendly. However, there are a lot of people that seek out historical sites for their next vacation stay, ghost or no ghost. Heceta Head Lighthouse is one of those stunningly...
In the early morning hours of August 2, 1873, fire bells rang out across Portland as volunteer firefighters scrambled to battle a blaze that, according to newspaper accounts, raged “among the cottages of the poor and the elegant mansions of the rich.” The fire would...
Deeper than the Grand Canyon, rich in Native legend, steeped in tragedy, and overflowing with fierce beauty, these are the untold stories of Hells Canyon in Oregon. Along the Oregon-Idaho border lies Hells Canyon, North America’s deepest river gorge. At 7,993 feet...
In the 1950s, the United States pursued one of the most devastating policies ever enacted against Native Americans, known as termination. This policy ended the federal government’s trust relationship with tribes, bands, and individual Native people who held trust...
Writing this has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, as my eyes start to tear, and I take another deep breath trying to push forward. For 27 years, I’ve carried the weight of that day quietly — but today, for the first time, I’m sharing my personal story....
Today marks 45 years since the catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens, a day etched into the history of the Pacific Northwest—and the minds of everyone who lived through it. On the morning of May 18, 1980, at 8:32 a.m., the mountain violently exploded, forever...