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Heroes and villains. Saints and scoundrels. Life here
on the frontier lures an astonishing cast of characters. Existence
on the edge affords opportunity to all sorts of dreamers, both native
sons and please-God-let-me-start-overs. Since 1850, this newspaper has
documented the compelling drama unfolding on the Oregon stage.
Every 50 years or so, we attempt to list among these
actors the most powerful, the most influential, the most newsworthy.
This time around, however, we thought we might assemble a different
lineup: the most interesting.
The names that follow make for an eclectic bunch, but,
addicted as we are to the new, we confess a certain fondness for forerunners,
for people who figure something out early, then work on persuading the
rest of us to get with the program.
These folks, we know by experience, make for lively
conversation.
But enough with the preamble. Let's just say if we
held a dead-or-alive party at our house this evening, these are the
150 people to whom we'd want to throw open our door.
John Ainsworth Call him a traveling man.
Before coming west to seek his fortune, Ainsworth worked the Mississippi
steamboat that had young Mark Twain as its pilot. In the Oregon country,
he pioneered steamships, railroads and the art of marrying well.
Jesse Applegate Part pioneer, part philosopher.
In 1843 he led the "cow column" of the first great covered-wagon migration,
then went on to trailblaze settlement in Southern Oregon. He fought
for universal education and the abolition of slavery. Everyone of import
who passed through pioneer Oregon paused at his landmark home to pay
court to "The Sage of Yoncalla."
Ray Atkeson From his early photographs
of burlesque dancers to the coffee-table books that capped his career,
Atkeson used his camera to tap into something potent: Oregon's image
of itself as the Garden of Eden.
Bill Bakke In 1980, Bakke was a loner
with some wacko notion about salmon being the soul of the Pacific Northwest.
Twenty years later, he was the revered archdruid of the movement to
save native fish.
Lola Greene Baldwin In 1908, the Portland
crusader against vice became America's first policewoman, leading the
ragtime drive for "social hygiene" in Stumptown.
James Beard The bow-tied, amply waisted,
butter-loving Beard is the father figure of foodies everywhere.
Spencer Beebe In 1991, he founded an organization
called Ecotrust. Working to find economic solutions to environmental
problems, Beebe became the standard-bearer of a reOregonized way of
life.
John Beeson From the state's bloodstained
beginnings, voices were raised for Native American rights. None was
more eloquent than that of Beeson, who settled along the Rogue River
in the 1850s only to be driven from the state when his published "Plea
for the Indians" fell on outraged ears.
Pietro Belluschi One of a handful of genuine
Oregon visionaries, the architect all but invented modernism. His two
great gifts to his city are its art museum and, in 1948, the Equitable
Building, forerunner of so many high-rises to follow.
Simon Benson He started as a logger; he
ended as a lumber baron. Benson pioneered the use of machinery in the
woods, led the project to build the Columbia Gorge Highway, donated
1,000 acres surrounding Multnomah Falls to the city of Portland and
gave a thirsty downtown its trademark "Benson bubblers," the drinking
fountains.
Bertha Blancett In 1914, she came within
12 points of winning the all-around cowboy title at the Pendleton Round-Up.
Local buckaroos knew exactly how to herald this sort of prowess. They
barred women from the competition.
Mary Boggs In the 1880s, she and her lady friends
anchored their brightly painted brig in the middle of the Willamette.
They dispensed whisky and other favors to all who boarded the vessel,
reminding us that prim and proper Portland always finds a place for
vice in the flow of civic life.
Bill Bowerman Let's not waffle, this guy was
key to Nike's soul.
Angus Bowmer In 1931, Bowmer wandered through
Ashland, came upon the old chautauqua building, minus its roof, and
thought it looked like Shakespeare's open-air Globe Theatre. He was
right.
Tabitha Moffat Brown She was 66 when she walked
2,000 miles to Oregon in 1846, arriving with 6 cents. One year later,
she founded a school for children orphaned on the Oregon Trail. It grew
into Pacific University in Forest Grove.
Rex Burkholder Almost 100 years after the bicycle
went out of fashion, Burkholder began peddling the notion that Portland,
with its temperate climate and compact neighborhoods, was (still) custom-made
for bicycle transportation.
Peter Burnett The Oregon pioneer who went south
to become first governor of California was the first to capture the
essence of Oregonians: "They were all honest, because there was nothing
to steal; they were all sober, because there was no liquor to drink;
there were no misers, because there was no money to hoard; and they
were all industrious, because it was work or starve."
Beatrice Morrow Cannady Admitted to the Oregon
Bar in 1922, she was a pioneer in three fields: lawyering, newspapering
and the arts.
Richard Chambers One of Oregon's unsung heroes,
he's the true father of the nation's first bottle bill.
Joseph Champion In 1851, ignoring everyone flocking
to the Willamette Valley, Champion settled instead on the coast. Near
present-day Tillamook, he set up house . . . in a tree.
Bud Clark With his genuine charm and unfeigned
populism, the immensely popular barkeep-turned-mayor helped create the
national image of modern Portland, a city in which every day is Casual
Friday.
Beverly Cleary From a farm in Yamhill County,
with her best friend, Ramona, via Klickitat Street, she held America's
children in the palm of her hand.
Truman W. Collins He wore work boots in the
office and thought about the future, insisting that Collins Pine leave
enough trees standing to provide for distant harvests. When he died
in 1964, Collins left a $27 million estate, which grew to become one
of Oregon's largest charitable foundations.
Thomas Condon He was a Congregationalist minister
with a calling -- for geology. "Oregon's Grand Old Man of Science" discovered
the John Day Fossil Beds and, in 1906, wrote "Oregon Geology," still
a standard text.
Mrs. Henry Corbett Long after animals had been
driven from the central city, the widow of banker Henry Corbett insisted
on keeping her milk cow on the lawn out back of the family mansion on
Fifth Avenue. The cow in "the million dollar pasture" came to symbolize
what many considered an enduring Portland trait -- resistance to change.
John Couch The earring-wearing sea captain determined
that Portland, not Oregon City, would be the head of seagoing navigation.
In the 1860s, his great gifts to his city were five North Park Blocks
and four daughters. Newcomers were told the best way to get ahead in
Portland was to "marry a Couch."
Luther Cressman In 1983 in a cave near Fort
Rock, the archaeologist uncovered pairs of primitive Nikes, reminding
Oregonians that their heritage predates the first wagon train . . .
by about 10,000 years.
Anna B. Crocker The visionary leader of the
Portland Art Museum dreamed in 1932 of building a revolutionary new
kind of art museum. Then she did exactly that.
Homer Davenport The lad from Silverton achieved
fame as a Hearst newspaper political cartoonist at the turn of the century.
A pal of Teddy Roosevelt, Davenport visited Arabia and brought home
two mares and a stallion, among the first Arabian horses seen in America.
He's the only Oregonian honored in his hometown each year by a festival
during which citizens race sofas down Main Street.
Elijah Davidson The first man in Oregon to tell
a story of the one that got away. In 1874, he swore he was chasing a
bear "this big" when he stumbled into the Siskiyou national monument
now known as the Oregon Caves.
H.L. Davis In 1935, when Davis won the Pulitzer
Prize for fiction for "Honey in the Horn," H. L. Mencken called it the
best first novel ever published in America.
Matthew Deady The great 19th-century judge confided
daily in a best friend -- his diary. In it he faithfully recorded an
astonishing portrait of Portland life: who was hot, who was not, who,
at parties, turned out to be "as stupid as an oyster."
A.E. Doyle He came to the city as a child, rose
to cast it in his own image. Many of the architect's early 20th-century
designs -- Central Library, the Benson Hotel, U.S. National Bank, Meier
& Frank -- became enduring civic landmarks.
Andrew Dufur Jr He arrived in Portland in 1860
and spent 12 years farming in the mud. Finally he decided there had
to be a better place to grow wheat. He crossed the mountains and bought
460 acres where the town of Dufur now stands. Ever since, many Oregonians
have enjoyed being left high and dry.
Abigail Scott Duniway Before Xena, before
Gloria Steinem, before Betty Friedan, there was Abigail. A prototypical
feminist, she came west in a covered wagon, then fought a 40-year campaign
that brought Oregon women the vote in 1912.
Thomas Lamb Eliot The Unitarian pastor arrived
in Oregon in 1867, then spent 70 years in service to his passions: public
libraries, public schools and public parks. His 1899 dream of an urban
forest became, in 1948, Forest Park.
Jack Ely In 1963, the Kingsmen cut their immortal
version of "Louie, Louie." Ely's innocent lyrics set the standard for
40 years of rock 'n' roll: If parents couldn't understand the words,
they must be dirty.
John Emrick The keeper of the Norm Thompson
flame made environmental concerns a key issue for his company. In 1995,
his new headquarters became one of the first "green" buildings in Oregon.
Josiah Failing The merchant and third mayor
of Portland arrived in town in 1851 and immediately set to forming a
school district. It made much more sense, he said, to pay taxes to support
schools than to support jails.
Ken "Pappy" Ford Roseburg's legendarily shy
lumber baron spent the 1930s paying $4 an acre for "worthless" old-growth
fir. After his death in 1997, the Ford Family Foundation became one
of the largest private charitable endeavors in the state.
Bob Frasca His is the sure hand on the tiller
of Zimmer Gunsul Frasca, the powerhouse architectural firm that designed
modern Portland.
Pete French In the late 1800s, the pioneer cattleman
created a vast ranch in Southeast Oregon and built one of the state's
finest architectural achievements, the Round Barn near Diamond. French
met the quintessential Western end: He was shot from his saddle on Sagebrush
Flat.
Martin Goebel In 1994, with Oregon's trees gone,
her rivers tamed, her deserts drained and valleys paved, Goebel's timing
was just right. He became founding director of Sustainable Northwest,
an organization committed to ending the cycles of boom and bust by creating
enduring economies based on enduring ecosystems.
Neil Goldschmidt As effective in the backroom
as he was in the bully pulpit, Goldschmidt in the 1970s defined the
activist, urban mayor.
John Gray An industrialist, a developer and
a gentleman, Gray created the Oregon style of resort development represented
by the understated elegance of Sunriver and Salishan.
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Matt Groening He's the father of Bart Simpson.
Doh!
Ted Hallock During his 20 years in the Oregon
Senate, starting in 1963, Hallock carried the torch for statewide land-use
planning.
Stafford Hansell: Thomas Jefferson would have loved
this example of a "citizen legislator": part-time pig farmer, part-time
politician.
Heck Harper Every Western state needs
a singing cowboy, a hero on a horse . . . and on TV.
Connie Hatfield: At her cattle ranch near Brothers,
Hatfield and her husband Doc showed, starting in 1976, that new ways
of grazing cattle could enhance, not degrade, the range.
Mark Hatfield First elected as a 28-year-old
to the Oregon House in 1950, he went on to serve as governor and U.S.
senator, setting the standard by which others will be judged.
Tinker Hatfield Nike is all about cool
design. Among early Nike designers, Tinker was the coolest.
Ron Herndon In the second half of the
20th century, Herndon was a singular voice reminding Oregonians that
the measure of a community is the manner in which it educates its children.
Greg Higgins One day, the idea of eating
food grown halfway around the world may be politically incorrect. Then
Portland chef Greg "Eat Local" Higgins will be hailed as a pioneer.
Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt Thunder-Rolling-in-the-Mountains,
known as Chief Joseph, was a martyr and a mythmaker. The inspired orator
led his Nez Perce people on their great fighting retreat from their
beloved Wallowa Valley into exile. In 1904, his doctor determined the
cause of death: "a broken heart."
Julia Hoffman If the barista who makes your
cappuccino every morning is also a painter and a poet, blame Hoffman.
A photographer, sculptor, metalworker and weaver, she insisted that
anyone, given the chance, can be creative. Early in the 20th century,
she founded what is now the Oregon College of Art & Craft.
Stewart Holbrook "The Lumberjack Boswell" gave
1930s America the lowdown on life in the Great Northwest.
Mike Houck Portland's homegrown urban
naturalist was way ahead of everybody in the "green city" movement.
Robert D. Hume An industrialist and inventor,
Hume was the cannery owner who became a proponent of hatcheries: "to
call the attention of both producer and consumer to the danger of the
total extinction of this most valuable of food fishes, and provide a
simple method for their preservation." Right idea; wrong solution.
Mary Frances Isom In 1913, she oversaw
construction of the city's Central Library and charted the course of
citywide literary public outreach.
John Jackson He moved to Portland in 1964
when he became pastor of the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, then spent 30
years working as a husband, minister, role model, agitator, activist,
healer and lighthouse.
Glenn Jackson Known as "Mr. Oregon," the
newspaper owner, rancher, boss of Pacific Power & Light and chairman
of the Oregon State Transportation Commission reveled in his role of
power broker, the last of Oregon's old-time economic warlords.
William Jamison His charisma gilded his
civic impact, adding to the charm of this gallery owner and Pearl District
pioneer. With his early passion for "outsider" art, Jamison cast a spell
over his city.
Jantzen Diving Girl From her earliest
appearance in the company's 1920 catalog, one thing was clear: This
was the shape of things to come.
Tecumtum In the 1850s, the Rogue River
Indians fought settlers, then were confined to reservations. Their leader
uttered the dictum that rings through history: "It's not your war but
your peace which has killed my people."
Ira Keller His work leading the Portland
Development Commission set the standard for the marriage of private
money and public interest that became the hallmark of Portland development.
Andy Kerr His battle to end old-growth
logging led to him being called "the most hated man in Oregon." It also
led to him being hailed as having been right all along.
Ken Kesey Sometimes a writer gets a great
notion. In 1964, Kesey wrote the definitive Oregon novel.
Bill Kittredge A Warner Valley rancher
until he was 33, Kittredge became a writer, then a teacher who raised
up a generation of "Western" writers, then one of the most eloquent
voices for a new kind of communalism in the West.
Phil Knight The Sultan of Swoosh understood
before anyone else which way our world was turning.
Dick Kohnstamm Every state needs a Hood
ornament. During his 45-year stint on the mountain, "Mr. K" saved Oregon
Timberline Lodge . . . and furthered our enduring passion for architectural
heritage.
Hoichi Kurisu The landscape designer set the
standard for a million Oregon gardens.
Samuel Lancaster: He was the road engineer whose dream
became the Columbia Gorge Highway, hailed as "the most beautiful road
in America."
Harry Lane: Portland takes great pride in its urban
planning. Lane, mayor from 1905 to 1909, hatched a plan to tear out
every other residential street to plant shade trees and flowers.
Ross Langlitz: Early in the 1940s, the Portland motorcycle
racer went down to his basement and designed the perfect leather jacket.
He opened Langlitz Leathers in 1947; the company still makes the best
black leather jacket in the world.
Ursula K. Le Guin: Feminism meets fantasy in Le Guin's
work, which leads the astute reader to questions at the core of the
human condition.
David Lett: In the 1960s in McMinnville, Lett, a refugee
from dental school, made a pinot noir he named Eyrie. To some, "Oregon
wine" sounded like a joke. It turned into a world beater.
Reub Long: A lifetime buckaroo, "The Sage of the Oregon
Desert" was as good a philosopher as he was a horseman.
Barry Lopez: His love of language and his searing scientific
intelligence combine to make this writer the conscience of the state.
Asa Lovejoy: The only loser on this list. If Lovejoy
had not lost the famous coin flip with Francis Overton, Portland would
have been named Boston.
Henderson Luelling: In 1847, he came west in a covered
wagon containing two long boxes bearing nearly 1,000 young trees and
shrubs. Thus started the Oregon nursery industry, currently one of the
state's most prosperous economic engines.
E. Kimbark MacColl: You're not a real city until a
real historian has inked the story of your birth. MacColl's books on
the genesis of Portland are definitive texts.
Will Martin: The Portland artist, architect and dream
weaver inspired the team that created Pioneer Courthouse Square.
Lewis A. McArthur: In 1928, he published the first
edition of "Oregon Geographic Names," still the only Oregon book found
in as many glove compartments as bookcases.
Tom McCall: You think of Oregon, you think of Tom.
Conde B. McCullough: He could have made them all look-alikes;
instead, in the 1920s, the state engineer danced with every form and
function as he began designing the astonishing series of soaring bridges
that grace the Oregon coast.
Douglas McKay: In 1954, as secretary of the interior,
McKay, a former governor of Oregon, terminated 109 Native American tribes,
62 of them from Western Oregon. The blow to Oregon tribes, and to Oregon
culture, was devastating.
John McLoughlin: The father of Oregon, British representative
in these parts of the Hudson's Bay Company, gave immigrants from the
United States the Holy Trinity of welcoming gifts: advice, supplies
. . . and credit.
Mike McMenamin: Having America's best beer wouldn't
be nearly as much fun without having America'a best places to drink
beer. With his brother, Brian, McMenamin gave Portland a tavern culture
that obviates any need for village greens.
Charles McNary: Orphaned, raised on a pioneer homestead,
the U.S. senator was a keen proponent of dams on the Columbia River.
In the 1920s, he led the campaign for federal aid for farmers, handing
Uncle Sam a brand new role -- with tractor and plow.
Joe Meek: The retired mountain man wore buckskins when
he first went back to Washington, D.C., presenting himself as "Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the Republic of Oregon."
Folks back there have thought us odd ever since.
Ezra Meeker: He made his first trip west in a wagon
in 1852. He retraced the route by ox cart in 1906, painting inscriptions
on landmarks along the way. In 1916, he completed the journey by automobile.
In 1924, he did it in an airplane. Meeker's campaign inspired the movement
to mark, then to celebrate, the migratory path known as the Oregon Trail.
Aaron Meier: He wandered the Oregon country in 1855
peddling merchandise from a pack. In 1867, partnering with Sigmund Frank,
he founded the department store that served for almost a century as
the center of the city.
Fred Meyer: Tiring of hawking coffee door to door,
Meyer opened his first store in 1922. The My-Te-Fine businessman built
a retail empire, then created one of the largest charitable foundations
in the state.
Cincinnatus "Joaquin" Miller: A poet and a poseur,
"The Byron of Oregon" was lionized in Europe in the 1870s where he toured
in Stetson and chaps waxing eloquent about the wonders of the West.
He was the first to write of the natural enmity between "webfoots" and
those hapless souls to our south.
Wayne Morse: His feistiness, independence, keen intellect
and integrity earned him the nickname "Tiger of the Senate." In 1964,
he was one of only two U.S. senators to oppose the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
that opened the door for ground troops to enter Vietnam.
Melvin "Jack" Murdock: He began in a small shop servicing
radios. In 1937, he teamed up with a guy named Howard Vollum. Together
they founded an outfit called Tektronix. His legacy is The Murdock Trust,
founded in 1975 with assets of $90 million.
Bill Naito: The man had a million ideas a month: 60
percent of them were misses. If he'd been a ballplayer instead of a
civic visionary, this batting average would have made him Ty Cobb.
Maurine Neuberger: In 1955, she caused a ruckus at
a Democratic fund-raiser where Senate wives were asked to model clothes
from their home state. Neuberger showed up in a black Jantzen swimsuit.
After the death of her husband Richard, she was elected to his seat
in 1960, the first woman U.S. senator from Oregon and only the third
in the nation.
Terence O'Donnell: Portland's celebrated boulevardier
is a historian who writes, beautifully, about the reality rather than
the myth of Oregon.
William Overton: A "desperate rollicking fellow," Overton
shared with distinguished Asa Lovejoy the original claim to the Portland
town site. A drifter, he wandered early off the page of history, leaving
Portland with what it's always retained: a split personality.
Bethenia Owens-Adair: A wagon-train child raised near
Astoria, she was married at 14, left an abusive husband, taught herself
to read and write, fought her way into medical school and became one
of the first women to practice medicine on the frontier.
Joel Palmer: He pioneered almost everything he touched,
from writing the guide to the Oregon Trail to fighting for Indian rights.
He thought concentrating Native Oregonians on reservations was their
best hope for survival.
Bud Parsons: Don't like the world of 150 channels and
nothing on? Blame Bud. In 1948, the Astoria man cabled together a few
homes and linked them to a community antenna atop the Astoria Hotel.
One small step for Astoria; one giant leap for cable TV.
Linus Pauling The founding father of molecular
biology, a graduate of Oregon State University, remains the only person
ever to receive two unshared Nobel prizes, one for chemistry in 1954
and the Peace Prize in 1962.
Sylvester Pennoyer: Ever wonder where Oregon got its
independent streak? As governor, responding to an official query from
President Cleveland, Pennoyer wired: "You attend to your business, and
I'll attend to mine.
Portlandia We've always had a weakness
for the strong, silent type.
Michael Powell Every great city is famous
for something. Paris has the Eiffel Tower. New Delhi has the Red Fort.
Portland has a bookstore.
Steve Prefontaine "Pre" was sports star
as cultural icon when Eugene was the running capital of the world. He's
the only Oregonian to have two (bad) Hollywood movies made about him
in the same year.
Jim Quinn: The president of Collins Pine led the first
company in the United States to have a private forest certified for
its commitment to ecosystem health.
Sam Rosenburg: He planted pear trees in the Rogue Valley.
He had two sons. Their names were Harry and David. In 1934, they hit
on a new idea: giving fruit by mail for Christmas.
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Johnnie Ray: Elvis may have learned that wiggle from
"The Prince of Wails." Johnny cried; women swooned.
Amanda Reed: In 1904, the wife of Simeon Reed left
the bulk of her $1.8 million estate to establish in Portland "an institution
for the promotion of literature, science and art."
John Reed: Socially prominent Portlander Charles Jerome
Reed had a restless son who wandered the world, journalist's pen in
hand, in search of a revolution. He found at least three: the Mexican,
the Russian and the women's.
Sam Rosenburg: He planted pear trees in the Rogue Valley.
He had two sons. Their names were Harry and David. In 1934, they hit
on a new idea: giving fruit by mail for Christmas.
August Scherneckau: Reminding us that much that is
Oregon is fleeting, in 1876 Scherneckau founded a settlement -- locals
pronounced it Shaniko -- that became a rip-snortin', bawdy-house-boasting,
whiskey-toting wool capital of the West. Then, suddenly, it was gone.
Arlene Schnitzer: Armed with a shoot-from-the-lip wit,
a keen eye and a philanthropic heart, she opened her first art gallery
in Portland in 1961. Modern art was on the Oregon map at last.
Les Schwab: He opened a tire store in Prineville in
1952. Beef, and changing a flat, has often been free since.
Jack Shipley: The president of the Applegate Partnership
in Southern Oregon charted the course for a new kind of community organizing
with timber companies, ranchers and conservationists working together
in the watershed they share.
Rosie the Riveter In the 1940s, she went
to work every day in the Portland shipyards propelling the war effort.
Dick Roy The lawyer gave up a partnership
in one of Portland's biggest law firms to start the Northwest Earth
Institute and promote living simply.
Nancy Russell: She was First Friend to the Columbia
River Gorge.
Otto Rutherford: His dad was a room-service barber
in the Portland Hotel, barred by the color of his skin from working
in the hotel's barbershop. In 1953, he led the 18th legislative fight
in Oregon to outlaw discrimination in hotels, motels and restaurants.
He won.
John Scharff: He retired in 1971 after 36 years as
founding manager of the Malhuer Wildlife Refuge. To wander Steens Mountain
with Scharff was to hike high places with a giant.
August Scherneckau: Reminding us that much that is
Oregon is fleeting, in 1876 Scherneckau founded a settlement -- locals
pronounced it Shaniko -- that became a rip-snortin', bawdy-house-boasting,
whiskey-toting wool capital of the West. Then, suddenly, it was gone.
Arlene Schnitzer: Armed with a shoot-from-the-lip wit,
a keen eye and a philanthropic heart, she opened her first art gallery
in Portland in 1961. Modern art was on the Oregon map at last.
Les Schwab: He opened a tire store in Prineville in
1952. Beef, and changing a flat, has often been free since.
Jack Shipley: The president of the Applegate Partnership
in Southern Oregon charted the course for a new kind of community organizing
with timber companies, ranchers and conservationists working together
in the watershed they share.
Stephen Skidmore: He started in Portland, penniless,
in 1850. When he died, a wealthy man, at age 44 in 1885, he willed $5,000
to create a drinking fountain for men, horses and dogs. It's inscription,
"Good citizens are the riches of a city," became Portland's motto.
William Stafford: Oregon's poet laureate walked softly
and carried a morally huge stick.
Albert Starr: In 1960, working with Portland engineer
Lowell Edwards, the surgeon introduced the world's first successful
artificial heart valve.
Robert Thompson: I have seen the future, and it looks
a lot like the campus the Portland architect designed for Nike. In 500
years, these ruins will make Machu Picchu look humble.
Bunny Suit: By the 1990s, the "clean-room" wardrobe
of Oregon's high-tech industry had replaced the plaid shirt as the defining
uniform of the state.
Mariah Taylor: In 1980, she opened in Portland a clinic
that was supposed to provide health care to the kind of kids who never
got to see a doctor. Actually, what Taylor offered was something ever
more healing than medical treatment: love.
Jack Ward Thomas: A wildlife biologist based in La
Grande, his research of the relationships among wildlife, cattle and
loggers led to his appointment in 1993 as chief of the U.S. Forest Service.
Timber production off public lands would never be the same again.
Robert Thompson: I have seen the future, and it looks
a lot like the campus the Portland architect designed for Nike. In 500
years, these ruins will make Machu Picchu look humble.
Dave Tucker: Oregon is the natural home of redemption.
In 1896, Tucker got his trigger finger blown off during a horseback
bank robbery in Joseph. He later returned and became vice president
of the bank he held up.
Thomas Vaughan: Starting in 1954, in 35 years he all
but hand-built a major institution, the Oregon Historical Society. In
his spare time, he saved the Pioneer Courthouse from the wrecking ball.
George Venn: The university professor and poet from
La Grande served as general editor of the Oregon Literature Series,
a six-volume set, completed in 1994, that showcases in stunning fashion
the full voice of Oregon.
Frances Fuller Victor: A literary child prodigy, she
reluctantly moved with her husband to Portland in 1864 only to be reduced
to selling toiletries door-to-door. She became the state's leading early
historian and friend to many prominent pioneers.
DeNorval Unthank: In 1930, the Portland physician pioneered
a civic right, the right of a family, whatever its creed or color, to
live in whatever neighborhood it darn well pleased.
William U'Ren: He'd been a miner, a blacksmith, a newspaperman
and a spiritualist's medium before becoming a populist and political
reformer. In 1902, he helped create Oregon's initiative and referendum
system, allowing voters to bypass their elected representatives at the
ballot box.
Thomas Vaughan: Starting in 1954, in 35 years he all
but hand-built a major institution, the Oregon Historical Society. In
his spare time, he saved the Pioneer Courthouse from the wrecking ball.
George Venn: The university professor and poet from
La Grande served as general editor of the Oregon Literature Series,
a six-volume set, completed in 1994, that showcases in stunning fashion
the full voice of Oregon.
Frances Fuller Victor: A literary child prodigy, she
reluctantly moved with her husband to Portland in 1864 only to be reduced
to selling toiletries door-to-door. She became the state's leading early
historian and friend to many prominent pioneers.
Michael Vidor: Way ahead of the taste curve, Vidor
created a series of Portland restaurants unlike any that had come before:
L'Auberge, Genoa, The Wood Stove, Tanuki and Macheesmo Mouse.
Howard Vollum: The first logger to see the Silicon
Forest, he co-founded Tektronix in 1946.
John Waldo: "There are educational uses in the mountains
and the wilderness which might well justify a wise people in preserving
and reserving them for such uses:" The 19th-century chief justice of
the Oregon Supreme Court helped secure the designation of Crater Lake
as a national park.
Barbara Walker: Portland is an uneasy metropolis, guilty
of the way it thrusts through the pristine wilderness. Walker outranks
almost everyone with her work to nurture nature in the city.
Bill Walton: Two words: world champion.
Henry Wemme: Next time you get stuck in rush-hour traffic,
blame the Portland tentmaker. In 1899, Wemme decided to try something
new to speed up his day: He bought a horseless carriage.
Oswald West: Ever wondered why nobody owns the Oregon
coast? In 1913, the guv brought all Oregon
Opal Whiteley: In 1920, America was riveted by a childhood
diary from Oregon. "The Story of Opal: The Journal of an Understanding
Heart" was either the astonishing work of a 6-year-old genius or an
enormous hoax. Was Opal really the illegitimate child of French nobility?
Or a master forger from Cottage Grove?
Dan Wieden: The ad exec who just does it for Nike first
put the gas in Portland's latest economic powerhouse, its "creative
community."
Sarah Winnemucca: The daughter of a renowned Paiute
chief, she became an interpreter and scout for the Army, had friends
and admirers in high places, wrote her autobiography and drew attention
to the plight of the Paiutes.
James Withycombe: Raised on a farm in England, elected
Oregon governor in 1914, he was the father of soil conservation and
crop rotation in the Pacific Northwest.
C.E.S. Wood: He was a noted soldier, artist, jurist,
poet and cad. Portlanders have been multi-tasking ever since. Wood came
to Oregon to kill Indians. Then he fell in love with them and their
ways. He was an advocate for the state's poor and underprivileged, and
a plutocrat. He was a dandy and a debtor. Between his birth in 1852
and his death in 1944, one foot in caulk boot, the other in silk slipper,
he shattered almost every expectation society held of him, capturing
for almost a century the core spirit of what it meant to be an Oregonian.
Minoru Yasui: The young Portland lawyer, interned during
World War II, fought a 44-year campaign that eventually persuaded Uncle
Sam, in 1988, to pay reparations to his citizens deprived of their civil
rights.
John Yeon: In 1932, at age 17, he borrowed $4,500 to
buy Chapman Point, the glorious headland at the north end of Cannon
Beach. Late in life, he turned down a series of development proposals
that could have made him millions. He worked, often behind the scenes,
as an architect and landscape designer. Through the 20th century, nobody
did more, and was recognized less, for defining an Oregon aesthetic.
And so, our cast is complete: role models and rascals
alike. What's that? But your favorite Oregon character isn't here? Don't
despair. This is a guest list, not a soccer team. There's always room
for one more.
I'm sure you can think of at least . . . but don't
get me started.
Researchers Lynne Palombo and Gail Hulden of The Oregonian
library contributed to this report. You can reach Nicholas at 503-221-8533
or at PDXcolumn@aol.com.
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