That Oregon Life · Stories & discoveries
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For millions of people who grew up in the 1990s, Free Willy was more than just a movie. It was emotional, unforgettable, and for many kids, it was the very first time they questioned whether wild…
If you’ve ever stood at the base of Mt. Hood and thought, there has to be an easier way to get up there, you’re not alone. In fact, back in the early 1950s, a group of…
There are places in Oregon where history whispers instead of shouts. No crowds. No big signs demanding your attention. Just a narrow trail winding through towering trees, the soft hush of wind through redwoods, and the…
After nearly six long years in protective custody, emotional counseling, and what sources describe as “a very intensive bronze detox program,” Portland’s beloved elk statue is finally returning to downtown on April 12, 2026. City officials,…
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,…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
Stay at Oregon’s Heceta Head Lighthouse B&B, where history meets haunting. Guests still encounter Rue, the ghostly keeper who drifts through rooms, forever tied to the sea and shore.
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…
