Willamette Valley

The Willamette Valley, in northwestern Oregon, is roughly 150 miles long (240 Kilometre km) long and contains (as of the 2020 United States census 2020 U.S. census) approximately 70 percent of the Oregonians. The valley is an alluvial plain formed by the Willamette River, which is a major tributary of the Columbia River. The Willamette River flows northward between the Oregon Coast Range on the west and the Cascade Range on the east. The valley is sometimes called “Oregon Wine Country”. Quotes Only a small portion of the land being fenced, almost the whole Willamette Valley is open to travel, and covered with the herds of the settlers, some of whom own between two and three thousand cattle and horses. Though thus pastured the grass is knee-high on the plains, and yet more luxuriant on the low lands; in summer the hilly parts are incarnadine with Fragaria strawberries. ... Besides the natural increase of the first importations, not a year has passed since the venture of the Willamette Cattle Compay in 1837, without the introduction of cattle and horses from California, to which are added those driven from the States annually after 1842, .. when come likewise constantly increasing flocks of sheep. Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Oregon, Vol. II 1848–1888 The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Vol. XXX San Francisco History Company 1888 https://books.google.com/books?id=l-gNAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA4 4 Beginning in the summer of 1830, and recurring each summer for several years thereafter, the lower Columbia River drainage basin Columbia and Willamette River valleys were visited by yet another "new" disease, called "fever and ague" (by the Americans) or "intermittent fever" (by the British). Although there has been some controversy over the identity of this disease, current consensus favors malaria ... Cumulatively, the "fever and ague" epidemics had a devastating impact on the Chinookan peoples Chinookan and Kalapuyan peoples of the area. From a total population something under the 15,545 estimated by Lewis and Clark Expedition Lewis and Clark and the Hudson's Bay Company in the early decades of the 1800s, numbers for these two groups dropped to around 1,932 by 1841, a decline of 88% ... Robert Thomas Boyd, The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence: Introduced Infectious Diseases and Population Decline Among Northwest Coast Indians, 1774-1874 University of Washington Press 1999 9780295978376 https://books.google.com/books?id=P_FdUPbmwCgC&pg=PA84 84 (403 pages) Pinot noir is Oregon's most extensively planted variety, accounting in 2001 for 49 percent of the state's total vineyard surface. If the counties outside the Willamette Valley are disregarded, pinot's share rise to more than 55 percent, and it is the only Red wine red variety of statistical significance. John Winthrop Haeger, North American Pinot Noir University of California Press 2004 9780520930940 https://books.google.com/books?id=ERMggkRg2WgC&pg=PA103 103 (455 pages) On the hilltops of my home in upstate New York (state) New York, the bare gray branches of the maples seem to be traced with a newly sharpened pencil against the winter sky. But in the Willamette Valley, the Oregon oaks are drawn in thick green crayon. The steady winter rains keep the tree trunks lush and green with moss, while the leaves lie dormant. The mossy sponge drips a constant flow of water to the tree roots, saturating the ground below and filling the soil reservoir for the summer ahead. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses Oregon State University Press 2003 35 9780870714993 1st part of quote; last part of quote The Cascade Range Cascade Mountains divide Oregon into two regions, high desert to the east and the Willamette Valley and Pacific Coast to the west. The agricultural heart of the state resides in the valley, as do most of its citizens. It was in this region, 150 miles long and up to 60 miles wide, that Railway electrification electric railways reigned from the last decade of the 19th century until the Great Depression. Richard Martin Thompson, Willamette Valley Railways Arcadia Publishing 2008 9781439635957 https://books.google.bj/books?id=QCKo7-UsWs4C&pg=PA7 7 External links Category:Geography of Oregon Category:Valleys