Just a hop skip and jump west over I-5 from Gervais OR stands a church marking what was once known as St. Louis, one of the oldest Euro-American communities in Oregon. Named for the king of France, St. Louis consisted of a post office, a store, a school, a cemetery, and of course a church. The current church…
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Niagara Park
About 40 miles east of Salem off Highway 22 is a county park that began as a town in the 1890’s. This town, then known as Niagara, was peopled with those who would begin constructing a dam in order to power a mill which would be used to make paper from straw. With the Santiam river roaring past a…
Bohemia Mountain
Nearly 6,000 feet above the floor of the Willamette Valley in the Cascade Range of the Umpqua National Forest is a mining district known as Bohemia Mountain. Once a hub of underground tunnels and heavy machine rock crushing, this area is now an exciting place for trail hiking – but since it is still mined; it would…
A Beautiful Memorial
This is a memorial resting on the grounds of the Oregon State Hospital. Housed within this revamped BLDG 60 are over 3,000 copper urns which were moved around for many years on the Hospital grounds until finally resting within the walls of this building. At one time, building 40 was used to quarantine the terminally…
Poems From Old Champoeg
Having just renewed my library card (I have a fee based card on account of living outside the city limits), I went wild over at the shelving area known as the Hugh Morrow section. Okay, it was a toned-down wild, as I was in the library for goodness sakes. I brought home a lot of…
Towns that Were
This is a bit of exciting news; on Monday, June 6th from 9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. yours truly will have the pleasure of being interviewed by Jeff McMahon on KGAL radio out of Lebanon OR. What, you ask, will be the subject of this interview? The segment is Valley Talk, and the subject is…wait…
100 Miles Long, 30 Miles Wide
Oregon touts over 900 miles of scenic bikeways. We also placed 6th in the 2015 LEAGUE OF AMERICAN BICYCLISTS bicycle friendliness ranking. In short, coupling beauty with safety, Oregon is a bicyclist’s dream. It should come as no surprise, then, that one of the nation’s first scenic bikeways can be found nestled between Oregon’s two…
The Challenge
On Friday I took a quick ride from Aurora to Canby, then on Sunday I rode from St. Paul to Champoeg Park. Each ride was around 10 miles, which is not a long ride, but I am trying to tour the French Prairie of the Willamette Valley as quickly as possible. I have found that…
Pioneers and Adventurers
Source: Pioneers and Adventurers
Willamette Valley Heritage; barns and structures 