Oregon Blue Book
The Oregon Blue Book
is an official state directory and manual concerning state, county, city,
federal and tribal governments, with related general information.
The
online version
is continually updated and contains more information and resources than
is possible with the paper copy. This site will give you a thorough knowledge
of Oregon including its history, physical characteristics, recreation, state
government, local government, voting information, cultural activities, plus
lots more. So, take a tour of the state capitol, view scenes from
Oregon counties, and hear the state song,
Oregon,
My Oregon.
The Oregon Encyclopedia
 In
February 2007, Portland State University and the Oregon Historical Society
launched "The
Oregon Encyclopedia," a free online facts about the significant people,
places, institutions and events that have shaped who, where and what we
are. The encyclopedia will be a work in progress through 2009, when the
state celebrates its 150th birthday.
The project will grow and change as Oregon does, the encyclopedia is expected
to include up to 3,000 entries with more than 200 essays, plus photos, documents
and maps. They will cover topics dating from 10,000 years ago to present,
and range from economic and demographic shifts to biographies, art, music,
popular culture, plus more.
What is an Oregonian
Chet Orloff, former head of the Oregon Historical
Society, wrote a column in The Oregonian about the character of Oregonians
in November 2001. This was after Oregon has taken on the US Attorney General
(John Ashcroft), in challenging directives to abrogate our Death with Dignity
Act and, in Portland, to detain and interview visitors and citizens of Middle
Eastern descent. Here are some of his words.
We Oregonians are a contrary lot. The vast majority
of those on the Oregon Trail in the mid-19th century turned south to
the California gold fields. A few headed north, marking the beginning
of the state of Oregon as we know it now. They took the road less
traveled.
It took years for many of the other states to catch
up with Oregon's initiative, referendum and recall governance. Today,
for all its many faults, the system is the stock in trade of participatory
democracy.
Governor Oswald West made the beaches open to all by
declaring the coastline a public highway and setting the course for
Oregon's 20th century conservation movement. What notions in a land
of private property! West dealt with legislators by announcing that
if they tried to kill off his measures, he would "veto any bill that
they fathered . . . whether it had merit or not." In 1911 he vetoed
63 bills.
The go-against-the-grain leadership of Wayne Morse
(Vietnam), Maurine Neuberger (women's issues), Mark Hatfield (use of
military force, health care and education), Tom McCall (land use) and
Neil Goldschmidt (downtown revitalization) pushed and pulled Oregonians,
and Americans, to think in new ways.
Consider Metro, still one of the nation's better efforts
at regional government and yet one that few other regions have emulated
-- not from lack of trying and enthusiasm, but from lack of will and
imagination. It will take decades even for many Oregonians to appreciate
what future historians will acknowledge as yet another example of Oregon's
being ahead of the curve.
Oregon, in the words of its deeply missed laureate
Terence O'Donnell, is a "time-deep land." The land itself and the history
upon it are unique to Oregon. Considering all that we face today, how
well we manage this land can continue to set us apart from, and put
us ahead of, the crowd.
Chet Orloff
Oregon Relationship With California
Oregonians love to complain about them, those outsiders
from other states who don't appreciate the Oregon way of doing things.
Carl Abbot is a teacher of urban studies and planning at
Portland State University. He is the author of a number of studies
of the changing patterns of regional growth in the United States, including
The Metropolitan Frontier: Cities in the Modern American West.
Carl had this to say in mid-October 2005 in a article in The Oregonian
entitled, Caught in California's Orbit.
We talk about
showing visitors the door, rolling up the welcome mat and legislating zero
growth. We hold up Los Angeles as the Godzilla of planning, and we fear
creeping Seattleization.
Well, let's
get over it. For the foreseeable future, Oregon is the little state between
two bigger states. We should happily look for the benefits that spill over
the borders. California, like it or not, provides us with brains, capital,
customers and a shove into the fast lane.
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Without
Silicon Valley, the Silicon Forest would be the Silicon Woods. Oregon
did develop a homegrown electronics industry in Tektronix and its
progeny, such as Mentor Graphics and Floating Point Systems, but
Tek reached the top of its growth curve in the 1970s. Since then
we've depended on Hewlett Packard (from California) and Intel (from
. . . you know the answer).
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Which
brings up point two: Without California's universities, less brain
power would be available to tackle Oregon problems. This state's
higher education system doesn't match California's. Given
our chronic under funding of higher education, Oregon depends on
recruiting highly credentialed workers from California universities
to compete in a brain-powered world. Lots of attention has been
devoted to the problem of expanding engineering programs in Oregon
universities, but the need for educated talent stretches across
the board.
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Oregon
is pinning a lot of hope on the "creative services" sector of the
economy, which produces the software, multimedia, advertising and
entertainment products that flow through every cell phone, computer,
satellite dish and cable hookup. It's great that Portland is one
of the most attractive cities in the country for cool, well-educated
people in their 20s and early 30s. But California's huge media and
entertainment industry is an essential client of ours. For a little
history, remember it was California raisins that made Will Vinton
Studios an early success in this field.
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More
Californians mean more diversity of ethnicity and ideas. Fifty years
from now, the United States is going to be a rainbow nation of races
and ethnic groups, with European-origin Americans no longer the
automatic majority. California is getting there first, as it does
in a lot of things. One reaction has been what Mary Murphy,
a Montana State University professor, called the "white flight highway"
that white Californians take to Idaho, Nevada, Utah or Montana in
the hope of escaping racial diversity. Oregon is also one of the
white flight destinations, but our civic culture has not been especially
receptive. Instead, California migration is slowly helping Oregon
ease into the Pacific Rim world in which Asians, North Americans,
Central Americans and South Americans mingle in a vast global neighborhood
and marketplace.
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Without
Californians, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival would find it hard
to maintain its rich array of offerings and outstanding national
reputation. Why? There are more Californians in its audience than
Oregonians (44 percent to 38 percent. And what would Mount Bachelor
do without California skiers? What would Oregon Coast restaurants
and motels do without California tourists? How would Realtors in
Central Oregon fill their time if they couldn't show vacation and
retirement properties to Californians?
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Last
but not least, it's time for a confession. I'm not a native here,
although I consider myself a naturalized Oregonian. I reached Portland
by way of school years in Dayton, Ohio, higher education in Philadelphia
and Chicago and university jobs in Denver and Norfolk, Va. When
I arrived, in 1977, one of the first things I noticed was a peculiar
Oregon approach to freeway driving. Oregonians were slow! They may
have had freeways, but they treated them like Oregon 34, wending
its quiet two-lane way from Waldport to Alsea. Californians have
been the cure. By impatient example, they've taught us how to merge
into fast-moving traffic. It's about time we learned. The 21st century
will make the 20th look pokey, so we can be grateful for anyone
who gets us up to speed.
Oregon Economic Data
Oregon ranks 15th in the Progressive Policy Institute's
New Economy Index, 23rd in PricewaterhouseCoopers' venture capital index
and 27th in per-capita income according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Take a stroll through a detailed Web site called
EconData. The
site has links to anything that you want to count, measure, sort, or slice
about the regional economy.
In 1950, forest products manufacturing --"lumber and wood
products" and "paper and allied products"-- employed 62 percent of Oregon's
manufacturing workers. By 1997, it employed 25 percent. In 1994
and 1995, several companies announced their intention to build large semiconductor
factories in Oregon within a few years. These factories would employ
a total of several thousand people in the manufacture of microcomputer chips.
By 1997, several of these new factories had been built and 28 percent of
Oregon's manufacturing workers were employed in high technology companies.
But these high-profile factories had a solid base of high technology on
which to build. Intel's 11,000 Oregon workers are the largest number
of Intel workers employed in any state. The suburban area and towns
just west of Portland are collectively referred to as the Silicon
Forest.
As early as 1946, Oregon became home to a prominent electronics
company named Tektronix, a company that continues to play an important role
in the state's high technology industry. Hewlett-Packard joined Oregon's
growing high tech industry in 1975, followed by Intel in 1976. Many
more prominent high technology companies opened factories in Oregon during
the 1980s and 1990s. Some of them were spinoffs of Oregon's existing
high technology companies.
Oregon Voting: Initiative and Referendum
As a new Oregonian, you may be in shock when you receive
your first "Voter Information" booklets from the Secretary of State.
It can take days to digest the volumes - yes, you may get more than one
book - and then ponder how to vote on numerous issues.
The Oregon System - the initiative and referendum
- gained Oregon national recognition for the degree of citizen involvement
in the processes of self-government. Passed by 91% in 1902, Oregon
became the third State in the Union to adopt the process. Since then,
Oregon voters have deliberated on over 300 measures, more than any of the
other 22 states with similar citizen initiative abilities. Oregonians
are serious about the Oregon System, and many politicians who have
abused the law have suffered the consequence at the ballot box.
Initiatives are citizen-sponsored amendments to either
the state constitution or to statutory law. Referrals are proposed
laws that the legislature has sent to the voters to either approve or reject.
Referendums give citizens the power to refer and vote on acts passed by
the previous Legislative Assembly, as long as the act does not take effect
earlier than 90 days after the end of the assembly. Initiatives are
sponsored by any citizen or organization in the state, as are referendums.
Referrals are sponsored by the state legislature.
What is the difference between a constitutional and a statutory
amendment? A constitutional amendment amends the Oregon state Constitution,
which affects all laws based on the amended portion of the constitution.
A statutory initiative either amends state statutes or creates a new state
statute, but has no effect on the Oregon constitution.
In order to place a statutory initiative on the ballot
the petitioners must collect the signatures of qualified voters, equal to
6 percent of the total votes cast for all candidates at the most recent
gubernatorial election. A constitutional amendment initiative, on
the other hand, must contain signatures equal to 8 percent of the total
votes cast for all candidates at the most recent gubernatorial election.
In 2006, it takes 75,630 valid signatures from registered voters to change
a state law via initiative and 100,840 to amend the Oregon Constitution.
For more detail information about Oregon's initiative and
referendum law visit these Web sites:
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BallotMeasure.com
- An Oregon-based Web site that tracks initiatives.
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Oregon Voting
Maintained by Ernie Delmazzo, a researcher and paralegal. Ernie's
site provides news and information about Oregon voting including the
election process and present and proposed law, including ballot initiatives.
It's object is to educate the public in a nonpartisan manner. Ernie
has written a number of General Election and Voting Systems Research
reports. WARNING - the site is hosted on a "freebie" server so
you have to content with the "popup" ads.
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1996
City Club Report on Initiative and Referendum - A public affairs
education and research organization serving the Portland metropolitan
area for over 80 years.
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Project Vote-Smart
- A national library of factual information on over 13,000 elected offices
and candidates for public office -- President, Governors, Congress and
State Legislatures.
Oregon's Free Speech
Oregon is where speech is freer than anywhere else in the
nation -- or for that matter, perhaps the world. Written in 1857,
Oregon's free-speech guarantee in an article of the state constitution.
It reads:
"No law shall be passed restraining the free expression
of opinion, or restricting the right to speak, write, or print freely
on any subject whatever; but every person shall be responsible for the
abuse of this right."
This language is broader -- "any subject whatever" -- than
the First Amendment. During the 1980s, the Oregon court concluded that Article
18 absolutely forbids government from passing laws directed at the content
of what residents express.
Expressive behavior such as speech, writing, film, video,
etc. may sometimes injure specific individuals; the state constitution allows
those people to receive damages for "abuse" of the right.
This jurisprudence has made Oregon's free-speech law the
most protective in the nation. Nude dancing, for example, is a form of expression
and under current reasoning can't be banned.
Oregon's popular self-rule means local juries can't slap
unpopular publications with huge punitive damages for libel. It means the
Oregon Legislature can't pass laws outlawing disparagement of local crops.
And it means police in Oregon can't arrest protesters on public property
just because their message is unpopular.
Some Oregonians get upset by the wide-open market in images
and words this law has spawned. Three times that minority has asked voters
to change the state constitution to make an exception for sex and three
times the voters have refused.
Oregon Health Plan
The
Oregon Health Plan, begun in 1994, was Oregon's effort to expand Medicaid
to include more low-income residents by giving priority to coverage of the
most cost-effective treatments. The reform grew out of 47 "town meetings"
in which citizens told officials what kind of care and coverage they valued
most.
Oregon uses a list of hundreds of conditions and their
treatments and higher priority is given to conditions that can be successfully
treated. Also part of the plan is preventive care.
Oregon Public Beaches
In 1913 Gov. Oswald West signed a law that declared Oregon's
beaches a public highway, and thus, public property, to provide citizens
with access to "the great birthright of our people." It wasn't until 1966
that challenges to ownership of the dry sands above the median high tide
mark came into focus. A picnicking couple was told they were trespassing
on the sand at a Cannon Beach motel, and the authorities who investigated
their complaint were shocked to find that the state was in legal limbo to
prevent similar trespassing charges.
In the remarkable 1967 legislative session, House Bill
1601, commonly known as "The Beach Bill," was introduced and passed making
the entire Oregon coast public and removing any doubt of whether the public
has access to the beaches.
The bill's passage marked the beginning of an era of progressive
conservation measures that provided a national, and even international,
model and helped define Oregon's political, cultural and recreational life.
Death with Dignity Act
In 1994 Oregon became the first state to legalize doctor-assisted
suicide. Oregon voters narrowly approved the
Death With Dignity Act in 1994 and reaffirmed it in 1997 by a 60-40
margin after legal challenges.
Under the Oregon law, doctors can prescribe a lethal drug
dose to a terminally ill patient of sound mind who requests it both in writing
and aloud, and meets other requirements. During the first seven year
of the act, 208 Oregonians have elected to died under the Death with Dignity
Act.
In a August 22, 2006 article in The Oregonian, Dr. Susan
Tolle, Director of the Center for Ethics in Health Care at Oregon Health
& Science University, said that several unique factors contributed to Oregon's
enactment of the nation's first doctor-assisted suicide law. "Among them:
the state's tradition of rugged individualism, its strongly secular politics,
its comfort level with uncharted political territory, and its early attention
to end-of-life care, including hospice."
Even aside from assisted suicide, end-of-life care looks
different in Oregon. Oregon ranks number one among states in use of home
hospice care and fewer than one in four deaths in Oregon occurs in a hospital,
half the national rate.
The U.S. Supreme Court's ruled in January 2006, in favor
of Oregon and against the Bush administration, by a 6 to 3 vote. The high
court's ruling did not address the right to end one's life, but it did end
speculation that the Justice Department could punish doctors for prescribing
in accordance with Oregon's Death With Dignity Act. The court decision
was an interpretation of the Controlled Substances Act.
Oregon Demographics
Population 3,421,399 people live in Oregon.
Race/Ethnicity 2,899,270 are white; 55,662 black or African
American; 45,211 American Indian or Alaska Native; and 101,350 Asian; 275,314
Hispanic or Latino.
Race/Ethnicity Percent white 86.6%; black or African American
1.6%; American Indian or Alaska Native 1.3%; Asian 3%; Hispanic or Latino
8%.
Most-populated Cities Portland, 509,610; Eugene, 133,460
Least-populated Cities Greenhorn, 3; Lonerock and Granite,
25
Ancestry Top three: 879,273 German; 575,293 English; Irish
467,955.
Nativity and Place of Birth Native 2,703,014; foreign born
139,307 (8.5%).
Age One quarter, or 822,605 are 17 or younger, while 13.4 percent,
or 438,847, are 65 or older.
Bachelor's Degree or Higher 25.1 percent of persons age 25+.
Pre-capita Income for 1998 $27,135 - national average is $28,518
Gender 1,651,300 of are female and 1,616,250 are male.
Growth Oregon grew at an average annual rate of 1.81 percent
in the 1990s, compared with the national rate of 1.04 percent.
In Washington Population in Clark County, Washington's fastest-growing
county, grew by almost 42 percent from 1990 through April 1, 1999.
Newcomers to Oregon They accounted for 70 percent of our growth
from 1990 through 1998.
The Lure Forty-five percent cite "family or friends," and 44
percent cite "quality of life."
Births Every 12 minutes an Oregonian is born.
Teens Every 1.6 hours a teen-ager gives birth.
Infant Deaths Almost six of every 1,000 babies die before their
first birthday in Oregon.
Prevention Ninety-six percent of entering. kindergartners and
first-graders in 1997 had required vaccinations.
Fitness Thirty-two percent of us were overweight in 1997, and
one-fifth of us were getting little or no exercise.
Single-Family Homes In Oregon alone, 1,497 building
permits were issued in August 1999.
Homeownership Rate 64.3 percent.
Rent Averaged $747 a month in early 2005 in the Portland
metro area.
Home-Improvement Project About half of Portland-area
adults did one in 1998.
Security Systems One-fifth of Portland-area homes have
them.
Density About 35.6 people per square mile in 2000, compared
to 79.6 national average.
Farms Acres of farmland dropped to 17.6 million in the late
90s, compared to 21.5 million in 1959.
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Oregon State Flag
The Oregon state flag, adopted in 1925, is navy blue with gold lettering
and symbols. Blue and gold are the state colors. Below the shield,
which is part of the state seal, is written "1859," the year of Oregon's
admission to the union as the 33rd state. The flag's reverse side depicts
a beaver. Oregon has the distinction of being the only state
in the union whose flag has a different pattern on the
reverse side.
Oregon - the Name
The first written record of the name "Oregon" comes to us from a 1765
proposal for a journey written by Major Robert Rogers, an English army officer.
It reads, "The rout ... is from the Great Lakes towards the Head of the
Mississippi, and from thence to the River called by the Indians Ouragon.
..." His proposal rejected, Rogers reapplied in 1772, using the spelling
"Ourigan." The first printed use of the current spelling appeared in Captain
Jonathan Carver's 1778 book, "Travels Through the Interior Parts of North
America 1766, 1767 and 1768." He listed the four great rivers of the
continent, including "the River Oregon, or the River of the West, that falls
into the Pacific Ocean at the Straits of Annian."
 In
April, 2004, two researchers say they've solved one of the oldest place
name mysteries in the country: the origin of "Oregon." "This is really the
holy grail of U.S. place names," Thomas Love, a Linfield College anthropology
professor, said. "It took us a long time, but we nailed it." Love, working
by telephone and e-mail with Ives Goddard, a Smithsonian Institution linguist,
labored more than six years devising and refining the theory. "Oregon,"
they argue, is derived from "wauregan," a Connecticut tribe's pidgin word
for "good, beautiful." They also argue that "wauregan" was related to another
Eastern tribe's word "olighin," which means "beautiful river" -- and that
link led to the use of "wauregan" in naming a Northwest river flowing into
the Pacific Ocean.
Oregon
55% Public Land
56% of the state of Oregon is publicly owned land and approximately
half of the state is forested, which means we have almost 30 million acres
of forests to play.
Western Meadowlark
State Bird
Beaver
State Animal
Grape
State Flower
Chinook
State Fish
Hazelnut
State Nut
Pear
State Fruit
Oregon Swallowtail
State Insect
Douglas Fir
State Tree
Oregon State Capitol
The Oregon Pioneer statue that tops the capitol building was done by Ulric
Ellerhusen. This heroic figure represents the spirit of Oregon's early settlers.
Cast in bronze and finished in gold leaf, it weights 8.5 tons and is hollow
inside. The base of the 23-foot high statue is 140 feet above the ground.
The Gilkey Covered Bridge spans Thomas Creek in Linn
County and until 1960, it stood next to a covered railroad bridge.
Oregon has 51 covered bridge, the most this side of the Mississippi River,
The Oregon Covered
Bridge Festival is an annual event and the only one in the West.
Oregon's beaches are public property providing citizens with access to over
360 miles of sand.
Klamath River looking downstream.
Governor Tom McCall
During Tom McCall years as governor of Oregon from 1967 to 1975 the state
exploded with ideas, social experimentation, and novelty. The landmarks
that Oregon is still known for − land-use planning,
strong pollution controls, protection of public beaches, the bottle bill
− all came during his eight years as governor.
The famous phrase that made him known throughout the country was at a Junior
Chamber of Commerce Convention in 1971. He told the delegates: "We
want you to visit our State of Excitement often. Come again and again. But,
for heaven’s sake, don’t move here to live.
Oregon has two National Parks:
Crater Lake National
Park and Fort Clatsop.
Crater Lake ranks seventh in the world and is the deepest in the nation
at 1,949 feet. Fort Clatsop became a national monument in 1958 and was elevated
to national historic park status in 2004, prior to the Lewis and Clark Expedition
bicentennial. Fort Clatsop was where the Lewis and Clark Expedition wintered
in 1806.
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