Great news: the “Making of a University,” James W. Groshong’s short history of OSU written in 1968 the time of the university’s centennial, is now available online in ScholarsArchive. Check it out!
Category Archives: Uncategorized
“That’s why they call it a deadline, because it almost kills you.”
Last night “Stories & Legends from the Heart of the Valley,” a documentary film about Corvallis’ first 150 years, had its debut! And, in the final installment of Morris and Lynn Walker’s “Clips in Time” column in the Gazette Times, they discuss their expectations for the premier and a bit about how to get copies for your own collection. To learn all about the project, visit the Heart of the Valley site.
Great research on Corvallis and Benton County can be done at the Benton County Historical Society.
You can use the Gazette Times online Archive to find articles online from 1999 to the present.
You can learn about our city and county on the Corvallis and Benton County official tourism website.
As always, you can check out the Wikipedia article on Corvallis.
For the history of OSU, look to our Chronological History.
An eclectic assortment of links…
It’s mid-week, with the grand History and Heritage Extravaganza (the 2009 NW Archivist joint conference) looming on the horizon and a lot of archives instruction happening this week! What to do? A blog post full of links to keep you all busy reading!
The World Digital Library will launch on April 21, 2009
The World Digital Library will make available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials. The objectives of the World Digital Library are to promote international and inter-cultural understanding and awareness, provide resources to educators, expand non-English and non-Western content on the Internet, and to contribute to scholarly research.
The History Engine: Tools for Collaborative Education & Research
The History Engine is an educational tool that gives students the opportunity to learn history by doing the work—researching, writing, and publishing—of a historian. The result is an ever-growing collection of historical articles or “episodes” that paints a wide-ranging portrait of life in the United States throughout its history and that is available to scholars, teachers, and the general public in our online database. Learn more!
Adair Village Blockhouse: witness to the Cold War, Adv07-08, OR: Who can resist this teaser?
Right in the middle of Adair Village squats a massive, rectilinear pile of concrete. Unmarked and nearly windowless, its perimeter guarded by a cyclone fence topped with three strands of barbed wire, the three-story structure known locally as “the Blockhouse” is a weird sort of contradiction? it’s the biggest thing for miles around, but it’s so utterly featureless that it seems to blend into the background, going almost unnoticed by the steady stream of motorists flowing past on Highway 99W. Today it stands cold, dark and silent. But flash back a half-century, and the Blockhouse was a concrete beehive called SAGE, its corridors filled with men and its rooms crammed with electronic surveillance equipment that constantly scanned the skies. The building was a sentinel standing watch against the looming threat of nuclear annihilation… Read more!
OHSU Historical Collections and Archives celebrates National Public Health Week!
It’s that time of year again: magnolias blooming, grass growing, and folks whooping it up for the annual celebration known as National Public Health Week! Check out their resources …
Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs & Oregon State University sign new MOU
Yesterday, Tribal Council members of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and leaders of Oregon State University signed a new memorandum of understanding, renewing and expanding their partnership. The day was full of presentations, sharing, and personal stories, culminating with the signing of the new MOU.
Council members visited the Archives in the morning and poster-sized versions of some of our photos were on display throughout the library. Tribal Council Chairman Ron Suppah found a connection to one displayed on the 5th floor: he was in the picture! What did he see?
4-H boys at the winter feed lot, located at the Warm Springs Agency
Beyond this personal connection, Suppah reflected on the larger connection between the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and OSU. “Where this journey began was when the federal government built The Dalles Dam on the Columbia River. Celilo Falls was a major fishing area, and when they closed the gates on The Dalles, we lost that fishing site, and the tribes demanded compensation for that.” The Tribes took this money (over $1 million) and commissioned OSU to conduct a study of tribal resources. Suppah says “The Oregon State study set the course for us as a tribal government.” You can find a copy of this 3 volume report in ScholarsArchive@OSU (Final report: Oregon State College/Warm Springs Research Project: Vol. 1. Introduction and survey of human resources, Vol. 2. Education, Vol. 3. The agricultural economy).
- Read more about the event in Ethan Lindsey’s OPB news article “Warm Springs Tribe Remembers OSU Help In Early Years.”
- Read more about the Warm Springs Extension Service.
- Read the March 24th, 2009 OSU Media Release “Fifty years of collaboration: Warm Springs tribes, OSU build on historic partnership.”
- See the OSU Archives Flickr Commons set with images of Celilo Falls from the Gerald Williams Collection.
- Check out the Oregon Multicultural Archives Digital Collection for more images of Warm Springs.
- Read about OPB’s 2005 “Warm Springs Country: A New OREGON STORY” broadcast.
Speaking of historic places…
The Whiteside Theatre Foundation has received a $5000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation to help pay for a structural evaluation of the vintage Corvallis movie palace. The 87-year-old theater, shut down seven years ago, needs renovation work, and foundation fundraisers say this grant is a key first step in that process.
And that’s not all, because the grant award followed another piece of good news for the theater: the Whiteside has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places!
To learn more, visit the Whiteside Theatre website.
And yes, they have a Flickr-based photo tour!
To read more about the new grant, read the Gazette Times article “Grant plants seed for Whiteside.”
To see the National Register of Historic Places application, which has tons of great information about the building and its history, check out the application pdf (warning, it’s a decent-sized download).
Happy birthday Weatherford Hall!
OSU celebrated the 80th birthday of Weatherford Hall on Saturday night, also giving a nod to the innovative new program housed inside its walls. Austin Entrepreneurship Program, which is a “unique living-learning environment for undergraduates offering entrepreneurship courses, hands-on experience, and the opportunity to explore business ideas.”
Click any of the images below to view the 1928 OAC Alumnus story about Weatherford Hall, the “new” men’s dormitory.
Fun fact: Weatherford Hall, part of OSU’s new historic district, is the only residential facility at OSU to be named a LEED “green” building!
Read more about the banquet in the Gazette Times article “OSU celebrates history, future of Weatherford Hall.”
Change of Reference Room hours 4/6/09
Tribal Council members of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and leaders of Oregon State University will sign a new memorandum of understanding on Monday April 6th. The day-long meeting will happen in the Valley Library, with a portion tomorrow morning in the Archives & Maps Reference Room. We will open at 10:00 am, so please delay your visit if you were planning an early one! The signing of a new MOU is an important act, one that deepens the 50-year relationship between the tribes and the university that began after of the 1957 flooding of Celilo Falls.
Want to know more?
- Read more about the April 6th event on the Gazette Times page.
- Learn more about the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs on their web site.
- Read more about the story of Celilo Falls on Wikipedia.
- See our Flickr Commons set of Celilo Falls pictures from the Gerald Williams Collection.
The Rumors are True!
Check out the latest addition to the osu.archives Flickr page: Basketball over the years. Comment, tag, enjoy!
Where to go, look, research, see, share?
Want to know more about what you can do to help us with our Flickr Commons project? Elizabeth Thomsen, Flickr Commons user and frequently a power researcher, shares her strategies for researching the pictures she sees in The Commons in her most recent blog post “Commenting the Commons.”
Check it out!
Lots of logs … and a lone sheep?
Watch for it Wednesday, April Fools’ Release? No joke, it’s true, there is a new set in OSU’s Flickr Commons account!
John Fletcher Ford, NW photographer and lifelong evangelist, began his life in Minnesota (1862). He became an evangelist early in life, living in Kansas and Iowa, and settled into the life of a pastor in the Pacific Northwest (1893) after conducting a revival in Ilwaco, Washington. Ford was an ardent opponent of liquor, and a vigorous proponent of the temperance movement.
Want a few more personal details? He married in 1882 and had 6 children. Unfortunately, he was stricken with pleurisy during the last year of his life, dying at nearly 53 on February 16, 1914 in Ilwaco. Upon his death, local newspapers praised Ford as “a genial gentleman” and “one of the best known citizens of Pacific County.” As a tribute to his geniality, newspapers also reported upon the impressive numbers of visitors who had come to pay tribute.
However, that’s not why you are here … Of course, in addition to his marriage and ministry, Ford also spent time in the forests, capturing images that document logging practices that will make you gasp—or at least make those viewers who aren’t dare-devils gasp. In his obituary, the Columbia River Sun noted that his “collection of logging and fishing views of the lower Columbia river embraced nearly every camp and fishing ground in the district. These pictures are extremely interesting and valuable and a veritamine of picturesque illustration.” As a side note, he also operated a photography studio called “Foto Studio,” in Portland (1900-1908) with John, Charles, and Richard Ford.
Want to know more about the forest history in the Pacific Northwest? Get ready for a link list!
- OPB’s History of Logging in Oregon: Timeline
- University of Oregon: J.F. Ford Oregon photograph album, c. 1900-1908
- Women & Timber The Pacific Northwest Logging Community, 1920 – 1998
- Historic Logging in the Pacific Northwest
- Irvin Logging Photos
- Industrialization, Technology, and Environment in Washington
- Camp 6 Logging Museum
Know more? Please let us know!