Oregon's earliest residents were several Native American tribes,
including the Bannock, Chinook, Klamath, and Nez Percé. James Cook
explored the coast in 1778 in search of the Northwest Passage. The Lewis
and Clark Expedition traveled through the region during their expedition
to explore the Louisiana Purchase.
They built their winter fort at Fort
Clatsop, near the mouth of the Columbia River. Exploration by Lewis and
Clark (1805-1806) and Britain's David Thompson (1811) publicized the
abundance of fur in the area. In 1811, New York financier John Jacob
Astor established Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River with
the intention of starting a chain of Pacific Fur Company trading posts
along the river. Fort Astoria was the first permanent white settlement
in Oregon. In the War of 1812, the British gained control of all of the
Pacific Fur Company posts.
By the 1820s and 1830s, the British Hudson's Bay Company dominated the
Pacific Northwest. John McLoughlin, who was appointed the Company's
Chief Factor of the Columbia District, built Fort Vancouver in 1825.
The Oregon Trail infused the region with new settlers, starting in
1842–43, after the U.S. agreed to jointly settle the Oregon Country with
the United Kingdom. In 1844, the Democrat James Polk ran for President
on the slogan "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight," referring to the northern
border of the Oregon Country at latitude 54°40′. Cooler heads prevailed,
and the boundary between the United States and British North America was
set at the 49th parallel. The Oregon Territory was officially organized
in 1848.
Settlement increased due to the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850, in
conjunction with the forced relocation of the native population to
Indian Reservations in Oregon. The state was admitted to the Union on
February 14, 1859.
In the 1880s, railroads enabled marketing of the state's lumber and
wheat, as well as the more rapid growth of its cities. Two north-south
mountain ranges - the Coastal Range and the Cascade Mountain Range -
form the two boundaries of the Willamette Valley, one of the most
fertile and agriculturally productive regions in the world. Oregon is
well known for the vast forests that cover the western third of the
state and a few enclaves of Eastern Oregon. It is less known for the
semiarid scrublands, prairies, and deserts that cover approximately half
the state in eastern and north-central Oregon.
