Images of America

In the desert, water is king. Prior to the arrival of irrigation canals in 1906, the Central Oregon region that would become Redmond was little more than a collection of determined settlers, many living in tents, bent on proving up their Carey Act homesteads. By 1910, the Redmond Spokesman, one of two newspapers publishing in the newly incorporated town, was bragging, "Redmond is situated in the heart of the best irrigated farming section in Central Oregon, where abundant crops are grown by an intelligent and progressive class of farmers and ranchers." By 1911, Redmond cemented its reputation as the hub of Central Oregon when the Oregon Trunk Railroad line arrived, boosting Redmond commerce by taking it out of the horse-and-wagon movement of goods and people. After World War II , the City of Redmond purchased an army airbase for $1 and built it into Oregon's largest regional airport east of the Cascade Mountains.

Located near the mouth of the Columbia River, Warrenton, incorporated in February 1899, is a city comprised of many earlier towns and villages. Hammond, although still having a separate post office and zip code, was merged with Warrenton in 1991. Fort Stevens, now an Oregon State Park, is located near Hammond. Lexington was the first county seat for Clatsop County until the county seat was vacated on December 4, 1879, and moved to Astoria. Skipanon, located near the same site as Lexington, was also annexed by Warrenton. Flavel, along the Columbia River between Warrenton and Hammond, was an active port for the Great Northern Steamship Company. It was annexed by Warrenton in 1918. Warrenton-Hammond documents each of these towns as they grew and became the present city of Warrenton.

The large number of immigrants traveling along the Oregon Trail bypassed Grant County because of its location. Most wagon trains used the northern route to the Columbia River. A few used the southern route toward southern Oregon. Grant County was left in between. When gold was discovered in the Canyon Creek area in 1862, the population swelled from scarcely 200 to more than 5,000, many of them Chinese. Today, Grant County's population is approximately 7,500, with John Day, the largest city, at slightly less than 2,000. From the 1860s to near 1900, gold and the mining industry reigned, as upward of $26 million worth of gold was mined. As the supply of gold diminished, so did the population, and timber became the number one industry. Settlers from the East saw potential in the large stands of tall, straight ponderosa pine, and many sawmills came into existence. The sawmills have since greatly declined, but other settlers discovered that the acres of bunchgrass provided excellent cattle feed. Today, cattle is king. In the spring, the cattle herds are moved off their winter grounds to higher elevations; in the fall, they are herded back into the valley. In the past, these movements often took them through the heart of many cities.

In 1935, Angus Bowmer, an instructor at Southern Oregon Normal School in Ashland, began with a dream and a small coterie of devoted friends who believed, as he did, in the value of Shakespeare performed on an Elizabethan stage. Though the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's early platforms were rudimentary and the backstage areas primitive, the art drew enthusiastic audiences. The urgency of World War II closed the festival's doors, but in 1947 it reopened with larger theater facilities and an expanded repertory, winning the support and respect of state, regional, and national artists and dignitaries. In a setting of extraordinary beauty and a community dedicated to culture and the arts, the 75-year-old Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is among the largest and most influential professional regional theaters in North America.