USA Oregon - The History : USA  

USA Oregon - The History - Travel guide

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USA Oregon - The History

Spanish and English sailors are believed to have sighted the Oregon coast in the 1500s and 1600s. Capt. James Cook, seeking the Northwest Passage, charted some of the coastline in 1778. In 1792, Capt. Robert Gray, in the Columbia, discovered the river named after his ship and claimed the area for the U.S.

In 1805 the Lewis and Clark expedition explored the area. John Jacob Astor's fur depot, Astoria, was founded in 1811. Disputes for control of Oregon between American settlers and the Hudson Bay Company were finally resolved in the 1846 Oregon Treaty, in which Great Britain gave up claims to the region.

Oregon's nickname, the Beaver State, harks back to the early years of the 19th century.
Fur hats were fashionable at that time, in northeastern cities, and Oregon's streams were an important source of beaver. With competition fierce among the fur companies for control of the western lands, adventurous trappers, called mountain men, became the first white people to know the region well. Later, when the rage for beaver hats had passed and Oregon's beaver supply was all but exhausted, the mountain men showed the early pioneers a route they had picked out in their trapping years. Known as the Oregon Trail, it took thousands during the 1840s to the fertile Willamette Valley, where wheat, fruits, and vegetables thrived. Settlers were also drawn to other parts of the state, where a profitable timber industry later developed around Oregon's bountiful supply of Douglas fir trees.

Oregon became the 33rd State to Unite under America on February 14, 1859.