Q 01/05

Because Oregon City held the West's only federal court in 1849, which California city's founding plat was filed there?

A) Los Angeles

B) San Bernardino

C) San Francisco

D) Sacramento

Answer · why

C) San Francisco

San Francisco's original plat is still kept in Oregon City, in the first plat book of the first office of records on the West Coast.

Q 02/05

A coin toss said to have happened in Oregon City's Ermatinger House named Portland instead of which eastern city?

A) Boston

B) Hartford

C) Providence

D) Albany

Answer · why

A) Boston

Boston was the choice of Asa Lovejoy, who came from Massachusetts, but Francis Pettygrove won two of three tosses in 1845. The penny they flipped is k...

Q 03/05

Oregon City's Municipal Elevator, a free ride up the bluff, is billed as North America's only vertical what?

A) Railway

B) Street

C) Park

D) Bridge

Answer · why

B) Street

Street fits because both the top and bottom doors open onto the same numbered road, which the lift is counted as part of. The 1955 tower replaced a sl...

Q 04/05

In 1889, a station at Willamette Falls in Oregon City sent what 14 miles to Portland, a first for the United States?

A) Compressed air

B) Telephone calls

C) Electricity

D) Natural gas

Answer · why

C) Electricity

Electricity left the falls on June 3, 1889, over the first long-distance transmission line in the United States. The small firm that built it grew int...

Q 05/05

Gold coins struck in Oregon City in 1849 to ease a cash shortage carried the image of which animal?

A) Elk

B) Eagle

C) Salmon

D) Beaver

Answer · why

D) Beaver

Beaver money, as settlers called it, held 8 percent more gold than official U.S. coins. The private mint behind it ran for only about six months.