Oregon: Wagon Trails, Waterfalls, and the Best Cheese Ever
State #33 | February 14, 1859
Oregon is one of those states that refuses to be only one thing.
It has a wild Pacific coastline, misty forests, snowcapped mountains, fertile valleys, rushing waterfalls, volcanic landscapes, and a high desert that looks as if it belongs in an entirely different state.
Oregon also holds a particularly important place in my own story: it is where I was born. Pendleton is part of our family story too. My dad grew up there, and he took us to the famous Pendleton Round-Up.
And one quick pronunciation note from someone who was born there: it’s OR-uh-gun—not OR-ee-gone.
Over the years, I have been to Astoria, Clackamas, Portland, Pendleton, Seaside, The Dalles, the Columbia River Gorge, and Multnomah Falls. It may not be where most of my life unfolded, but Oregon owns the first page.
And then there is Tillamook cheese—which, in my completely unbiased opinion, is the best cheese ever.
But before we get to cheese, waterfalls, and one spectacularly bad decision involving a whale, we need to go back to a time long before anyone pointed a wagon west.
Before the Wagons
Oregon’s story did not begin with the Oregon Trail.
Native peoples lived throughout this region for thousands of years, building communities, trading across long distances, fishing its rivers, and developing cultures deeply connected to the land and water.
The Chinookan peoples lived along the lower Columbia River. The Kalapuya inhabited the Willamette Valley. The Klamath and Modoc lived in the south, while the Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Nez Perce were among the peoples of the eastern region.
Near present-day The Dalles, Celilo Falls served as a major fishing and trading center for thousands of years. The falls disappeared beneath the Columbia River in 1957 when The Dalles Dam was completed, but Celilo remains an important cultural place.
Today, Oregon is home to nine federally recognized tribal governments, several of them confederations representing many distinct tribes and bands. Their history is not simply Oregon’s past; it remains an essential part of Oregon today.
Britain, America, and a Very Loud Slogan
By the early 1800s, Britain and the United States both claimed the enormous region known as Oregon Country.
Rather than fight over it immediately, the two nations agreed in 1818 to occupy it jointly. This arrangement lasted for twenty-eight years, which is a surprisingly long time to share something when both sides believe it belongs to them.
As more American settlers arrived, expansionists demanded the entire region as far north as latitude 54°40′. Their cry was “Fifty-four Forty or Fight!”
It was catchy. It was dramatic. And in the end, it was mostly political shouting.
The Oregon Treaty of 1846 set the boundary at the 49th parallel, extending the existing United States–Canada border west to the Pacific. Two years later, Congress formally created the Oregon Territory.
Oregon or Bust
For many Americans in the 1840s and 1850s, Oregon represented land, opportunity, and the chance to begin again.
Getting there was another matter.
The Oregon Trail stretched roughly 2,000 miles from the Missouri River to Oregon. Emigrants usually traveled only twelve to fifteen miles a day, and the trip took four to six months.
They crossed rivers, plains, deserts, and mountains while facing disease, accidents, harsh weather, food shortages, and exhaustion. This was not a scenic road trip with carefully selected hotel stops. Once the wagon started west, there was no turning around because someone forgot the phone charger.
When travelers reached The Dalles, they still faced one of the hardest parts of the journey. Before 1846, they had to take their wagons apart, load everything onto rafts, and risk the dangerous trip down the Columbia River.
Later, they could take the Barlow Road around Mount Hood. That route cost five dollars per wagon and ten cents for every animal—because apparently even in 1846, someone found a way to add a toll near the end of a very long trip.
Knowing that history adds another layer to places I have visited, especially The Dalles and the Columbia River Gorge. Today, we see dramatic cliffs, waterfalls, and river views. Emigrants saw the final obstacle standing between them and the Willamette Valley.
The Oregon Trail helped the United States secure control of the region, but it also brought rapid settlement onto Native homelands. Treaties that followed forced tribes to give up most of their land, and many Native people were removed to reservations. The westward journey opened new lives for settlers while permanently disrupting the lives of the people already there.
Both parts belong in the story.
A Valentine with a Complicated Message
On February 14, 1859, Oregon entered the Union as the 33rd state.
That makes Oregon our Valentine state, although its original constitution was anything but a love letter to everyone.
In 1857, Oregon voters rejected slavery—but they also voted to prohibit Black people from moving to the new state, owning property, or making contracts there. Oregon became the only free state admitted to the Union with a Black exclusion clause written into its constitution.
The clause was eventually made unenforceable by the 14th Amendment, but Oregon voters did not formally remove it from the state constitution until 1926.
This is not the cheerful part of Oregon’s story, but leaving it out would give the state a history it did not actually live. Statehood can be worth celebrating while still requiring us to look honestly at who was welcomed into that new state—and who was deliberately shut out.
A Capital That Could Not Sit Still
Oregon’s government had a little trouble deciding where to unpack.
Oregon City served as an early center of territorial government. The capital then moved to Salem, shifted briefly to Corvallis in 1855, and returned to Salem later that same year.
The legislature moved into a newly built capitol in Salem in December 1855. A little more than a week later, the building burned down.
At that point, Oregon may have decided it was time to stop moving things around.
Salem became the official state capital by popular vote in 1864 and has held onto the job ever since.
A State That Changes Before Your Eyes
Oregon’s geography may be its greatest show-off.
The western side of the state is green, forested, and shaped by the Pacific Ocean. The Cascade Range rises through the center, with Mount Hood as Oregon’s highest peak. East of the mountains, the landscape turns drier and more open, with high desert, ranch country, canyons, and wide skies.
Then there is the Columbia River Gorge, where the river cuts through the Cascade Mountains to create one of the most striking drives in the country. Multnomah Falls drops in two tiers through a wall of green, looking almost too perfectly placed to be real.
For travelers who would rather enjoy the scenery without worrying about driving or finding parking, guided Multnomah Falls and Columbia River Gorge experiences offer an easy way to visit several of the gorge’s waterfalls from Portland.
Farther south, Crater Lake fills the collapsed remains of ancient Mount Mazama. At 1,943 feet deep, it is the deepest lake in the United States. With no rivers flowing into or out of it, the lake is fed almost entirely by rain and snow—and its intense blue color looks as if someone adjusted the photograph before you ever took it.
Let ’er Buck in Pendleton
Eastern Oregon is also tied to my family in a much more personal way. My dad grew up in Pendleton, and he later took us to the Pendleton Round-Up.
The first Pendleton Round-Up was held on September 29, 1910. About 7,000 people attended—the largest crowd in Pendleton’s history at the time. What began as a celebration of horsemanship, ranching, and the traditions of the American West grew into one of the best-known rodeos in the country.
For our family, though, it was more than a famous Oregon event. It connected us to the place where my dad had grown up and gave us a chance to experience a tradition Pendleton has proudly carried for generations.
At the Round-Up, “Let ’er Buck!” is more than a slogan. For a few days every September, it feels like the whole town joins in.
A Coast Open to Everyone
Oregon has 362 miles of coastline, and the public has the right to use its beaches.
The state’s famous Beach Bill, passed in 1967, protected public use along the coast. That means beaches at places such as Seaside, Cannon Beach, Newport, and Florence are not reserved only for people fortunate enough to own property beside them.
It is a wonderfully Oregon idea: the ocean belongs in everyone’s vacation pictures.
Astoria, near the mouth of the Columbia River, brings together maritime history, Victorian homes, and the memories of every movie fan who has ever gone looking for The Goonies. Seaside offers a classic Oregon coast experience, complete with a broad beach, cool water, and weather that may change its mind before you finish walking the promenade.
Even the Flag Has Two Sides
Oregon is known as the Beaver State, a name that reaches back to the fur trade that helped draw British and American trappers into the region.
The beaver also appears on the reverse of the state flag. The front displays the state seal, thirty-three stars, and the year 1859.
According to the Oregon Blue Book, Oregon is the only state with a flag that has a different design on each side.
Most states chose one design and called it finished. Oregon apparently wanted a front and a back.
Now, About That Cheese
The Tillamook area was well suited to dairy farming, but its mountains and muddy roads made it difficult for farmers to get products to market.
So in 1855, local residents built a small schooner named the Morning Star and used it to carry dairy products to Astoria and Portland. That little ship still appears on Tillamook’s logo today.
Cheese proved easier to transport than butter, and Tillamook dairying continued to grow. In 1909, several local cheesemakers formed the Tillamook County Creamery Association, creating shared standards for quality and consistency.
More than a century later, Tillamook is known for cheese, ice cream, butter, and a creamery that has become a tourist attraction in its own right.
I appreciate Oregon’s forests, rivers, beaches, and history.
But I also appreciate a really good block of extra-sharp cheddar, especially in my mac and cheese!
The Day Oregon Blew Up a Whale
Every state needs at least one story that makes people ask, “Who thought that was a good idea?”
Oregon’s happened in November 1970, when a forty-five-foot, eight-ton sperm whale washed ashore near Florence.
Officials needed to remove it, and someone decided the best solution was dynamite. Not a little dynamite, either. They used half a ton.
The plan was for the whale to break into small pieces that birds and other scavengers would clean up. Instead, large chunks of blubber flew through the air, spectators ran for cover, and one piece crushed a parked car. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
The Florence whale explosion became legendary—and ensured that future officials would know at least one method not to use when removing a whale.
Sometimes history teaches us through courage and wisdom.
Sometimes it teaches us through airborne whale fat. 😂
Oregon, from My World to Yours
Oregon gave America a famous trail, a Valentine’s Day statehood date, public beaches, a lake deeper than any other in the country, and a flag that refuses to look the same from both sides.
It also gave us towering forests, the Columbia River Gorge, windswept coastal towns, high desert, the Pendleton Round-Up my dad shared with us, and cheese worth making an entirely separate section about.
For me, Oregon will always be more than State #33. It is where my own story began—a place I have returned to in different seasons of life and one that still feels deeply connected to my family’s story.
Oregon is beautiful, complicated, independent, and just a little quirky.
And in Brock’s World, that’s the truth—with an extra-sharp twist. 🧀
