50 Fun Facts About Oregon

What is the capital of Oregon?

It is only the state's third-largest city; the biggest has nearly four times the population.

Oregon became the 33rd state on Valentine's Day of which year?

News travelled so slowly that nobody in Oregon knew about it until March 15.

Which river forms most of Oregon's eastern border with Idaho?

The Columbia does the same job on the northern border with Washington, and the 42nd parallel marks the line with California and Nevada.

What is Oregon's highest point, at 11,249 feet?

It is a dormant volcano in the Cascades, and Timberline Lodge on its slopes played the Overlook Hotel in The Shining.

Oregon's only national park surrounds the deepest body of water in the United States. What is it called?

It fills the caldera left when Mount Mazama collapsed about 7,700 years ago and reaches 1,949 feet deep.

Which volcano collapsed to create the caldera that Oregon's famous deep blue lake now fills?

Wizard Island, the cinder cone near the west shore, grew afterwards inside the caldera.

What is the largest single living organism, found beneath Oregon's Malheur National Forest?

The Armillaria ostoyae spreads under about 2,200 acres of forest and may be thousands of years old.

Which sportswear giant, headquartered near Beaverton, is Oregon's largest public company?

It began in 1964 under a different name, founded by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight; Adidas's US headquarters is also in the state.

Under what name was Nike founded on January 25, 1964?

Bowerman coached track at the University of Oregon and famously cooked an early sole on his wife's waffle iron.

Oregon is one of only five states without which tax?

Voters have rejected a sales tax nine times, the last in 1993 by 75 to 25 percent.

Oregon's 'kicker' law returns money to taxpayers when what happens?

Refunds have gone out in seven of the eleven two-year budget periods since 1979, and voters put the rule in the constitution in 2000.

In 1971 Oregon passed the first US law of its kind requiring a deposit on what?

The Bottle Bill was meant to fight litter; ten states have since copied it.

Oregon was the first US state to legalise what, in 1994?

The Death with Dignity Act survived a repeal vote and a Supreme Court challenge; recreational cannabis followed in 2014.

Until August 2023, what were Oregon drivers not allowed to do at a petrol station?

The ban dated from 1951; New Jersey is now the only state where self-service is still illegal.

Oregon is the only US state with an excise tax on which purchase?

It is a flat $15 on bikes costing over $200, in place since 2018.

Which 1967 law declared all of Oregon's ocean beaches public land?

Governor Tom McCall championed it, and a state park near Hood River now carries his name.

Which Simpsons creator named characters after his family and the streets of his Oregon hometown?

Flanders, Lovejoy, Quimby and Kearney are all street names in his home city; Springfield, Oregon, is one of many Springfields claimed as the model.

Which 1985 adventure film about kids in the 'Goon Docks' was shot on Oregon's north coast?

All three distractors were also filmed in Oregon; the Oregon Film Museum sits in the old county jail of the town where it was shot, itself a location.

Bend, Oregon, is home to the last remaining store of which once-huge video rental chain?

It became a tourist attraction and the subject of a 2020 documentary.

Which Oregon bookstore claims to be the largest independent new and used bookstore in the world?

Its flagship City of Books fills a whole city block downtown.

Which city has the most breweries in the world, according to the state's boosters?

The state's beer culture goes back to the 19th century, when Henry Weinhard offered to pump beer through the Skidmore Fountain.

Which nickname for Oregon's largest city comes from the tree stumps left as the city was cleared in the 1800s?

The city was also once notorious as one of America's most dangerous ports, home of the 'shanghai' kidnappings.

Which town near the Columbia's mouth was the first permanent English-speaking settlement west of the Rockies?

John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company founded Fort Astoria in 1811.

Which town at the end of the pioneer trail served as the territory's first capital from 1848 to 1852?

It was also the territory's first incorporated city; the capital moved to its current home in 1852.

Where did Lewis and Clark spend the winter of 1805-06, near the mouth of the Columbia?

A replica of the fort stands in Warrenton; the expedition stayed from December to March in near-constant rain.

What is the 1846 agreement that fixed the US-British North America border at the 49th parallel called?

Joint occupation had been agreed in 1818; the '54-40 or fight' slogan lost out to compromise.

Six civilians killed near Bly in May 1945 were the only Americans killed on US soil by what?

Thousands of the balloons were launched across the Pacific; a Sunday-school picnic found one on Gearhart Mountain.

Oregon's 1844 territorial law banned slavery and also barred which group from entering?

A 'whites only' clause remained in the state constitution for decades, and Oregon entered the Union as a 'free' state as part of a Southern deal.

Which guru's followers built a city on an Oregon ranch in the 1980s and poisoned salad bars with salmonella?

Ma Anand Sheela's 1984 attack sickened hundreds in The Dalles; the story was told in Netflix's Wild Wild Country.

Which unidentified hijacker parachuted from a Boeing 727 over the Northwest in November 1971 with $200,000?

Some of the ransom money turned up on the banks of the Columbia in 1980; the case remains the only unsolved US air piracy.

Which Coos Bay runner, killed in a car crash at 24, is memorialised at Pre's Rock in Eugene?

Hayward Field, his home track, has hosted the US Olympic Trials repeatedly and the 2022 World Championships.

Which Oregon author, raised in Springfield, wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

The 1975 film version was shot at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem and swept the Oscars.

Which children's author set Ramona Quimby's books in the Grant Park neighbourhood of her Oregon home city?

Statues of Ramona, Henry Huggins and Ribsy stand in the park, and Klickitat Street is a real street.

Which Oregon NBA franchise won the 1977 championship behind Bill Walton?

They reached the Finals again in 1992 with Clyde Drexler, and endured the 'Jail Blazers' years before Damian Lillard's revival.

Which Providence Park women's team won NWSL titles in 2013, 2017 and 2022?

They won in the league's first season, 2013, and again in 2017 and 2022, and led NWSL attendance every year through 2022.

The University of Oregon Ducks are in Eugene. In which city are their rivals, the Oregon State Beavers?

The rivalry game is one of the oldest in college football; Oregon State also won college baseball titles in 2006, 2007 and 2018.

Oregon grows about 95 percent of the US crop of which nut?

The state's main farming valley is one of only four major hazelnut regions in the world; it also produced 100 million pounds of blueberries in 2016.

Which grape-growing regions of France do Oregon's vineyards most resemble in climate?

Oregon Pinot noir from the state's main wine valley is its signature; there were 676 wineries at last count.

What is Oregon's state tree?

About 60 percent of the state is forest, and Oregon leads the lower 48 in timber production.

Which chipmaker, with 22,000 Hillsboro workers, was Oregon's top private employer in 2023?

Tektronix started the 'Silicon Forest' and was the biggest private employer until the late 1980s.

Which Columbia Gorge waterfall, at 620 feet, is the tallest in Oregon?

It drops in two tiers, and the Benson Bridge lets visitors stand between them.

Which gorge on the Oregon-Idaho border is deeper than Arizona's most famous one?

The river on the Idaho border has cut it 7,993 feet deep, the deepest river gorge in North America.

Which 235-foot sea stack at Cannon Beach is one of Oregon's most photographed landmarks?

Tufted puffins nest on it in spring, and it appears in a 1985 Spielberg-produced adventure film.

Which Florence attraction is the largest system of sea caverns in the United States?

Steller sea lions haul out inside a cavern the size of a football field, reached by lift from the cliff top.

Which Newport attraction was once home to Keiko, the orca from Free Willy?

Keiko was rehabilitated there before being flown to Iceland in 1998.

Oregon claims which tiny Lincoln City waterway as the shortest of its kind in the world?

Montana disputes it with the Roe River; the D runs from Devils Lake to the Pacific in about 120 feet.

Which lowland, home to 60 percent of Oregonians, owes its soil to floods from glacial Lake Missoula?

The Missoula Floods repeatedly buried it under 300 to 400 feet of water at the end of the last ice age.

Which part of Oregon keeps most of its residents on Mountain Time, unlike the rest of the state?

It borders Idaho, and Ontario, its biggest town, keeps Boise's clock.

Which 1902 reform letting citizens pass laws by initiative and referendum became the 'Oregon System'?

Oregon later pioneered universal vote-by-mail too, in 1998.

Which bird is Oregon's official state bird?

The beaver is the state mammal, hence the Oregon State Beavers.