On October 25, 1906, the sailing vessel Peter Iredale was bound from Salina Cruz, Mexico to Portland, Oregon when she ran into trouble trying to enter the mouth of the Columbia River in thick mist and a rising tide. Heavy winds drove the ship aground near Fort...
From humble beginnings in 1890s New Jersey and contracting polio at age 7 (which left her with a lifelong limp), Dorothea Lange went on to become one of the most prolific photojournalists of her era. At the time she graduated high school, Lange had never even owned or...
"I was standing still for a moment, looking toward Portland," recalled Thurston Skei, who was climbing Mount Adams just before 8 a.m. on July 2, 1939. "I saw a trail of smoke coming down through the sky. There was a bright flash at the head of the smoke column as if a...
The brothers Mike and Brian McMenamin are personal local heroes of mine. I had visited many of their properties and brewpubs in the Portland area but never realized their impact until my first time at the Kennedy School while living in NE PDX circa the early 2000s. I...
I don't know when or why this obsession first came about. If I try to trace it back, maybe it was my first glimpse of Lower Eight Mile School, sitting alone and desolate in a field somewhere west of The Dalles. One Room Schoolhouses are Important Oregon History...