Pacific Coast Business Directory

 Oregon

Oregon was organized as a Territory in 1818, and admitted into the Union with the present prescribed limits on the twelfth of February, 1859. Bounded north by Washington, east by Idaho, south by Nevada and California, and west by the Pacific Ocean. The broad and romantic Columbia runs along the northern border, and Snake River, Lewis Fork of the Columbia, runs for nearly two hundred miles along its eastern border.

Historically, Oregon is the most important division of the Pacific Coast. The early French, Spanish, and English navigators, prior to the independence of America, had sailed along the coast, but it fortunately remained for Captain Robert Gray, an American, in the ship Columbia, from the Boston, who on the 11th of May, 1792, crossed the bar and entered what proved to be a large river, making a chart of the channel and surroundings, and naming it after his ship, the Columbia.

The etymology of the name of Oregon is shrouded in mystery. By some writers it is attributed as coming from origanum, the scientific name of the wild marjoram which grows profusely on the coast. By others the name is supposed to have come from the Spanish Origin. The most probable solution is that it is an Indian word, first recorded by Mr. Jonathan Carver, an adventurous traveler of the Mississippi Valley, in 1766. Read more....

 

Pacific Coast Business Directory

Source: Pacific Coast Business Directory for 1876-78, Compiled by Henry G. Langley, San Francisco, 1875.

 

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