The World Rushed In: Northeastern Oregon Northeastern Oregon is an often breath-taking place of mountains, valleys, and broad plateaus. With hot, dry summers and bone-chilling winters, it has never been an easy place to make a living. Those determined to stay here have had to make their peace with a stark, beautiful place whose unstable economy has often been controlled by people and factors originating outside its borders. David Peterson del Mar teaches history classes for Portland State University, Oregon State University, and the University of Oregon and consults for several grants on teaching history in middle and high schools. He is the author of several books, including Oregon's Promise: An Interpretive History."> compiled by David Peterson del Mar

Introduction Select Topics Mapping the Region Continuity and Change: Indigenous Peoples and Newcomers Indigenous peoples created tightly knit, subsistence-oriented societies over thousands of years on the land that would become northeast Oregon. The arrival of horses and germs brought dramatic change, a process that fur traders, missionaries, and immigrants accelerated. But few whites remained in these lands before the 1860s. Select Topics Peopling the Columbia Plateau Economy and Society Premonitions Early Contact The Oregon Trail Losing the Land Warfare broke out between whites and Native peoples across northeastern Oregon between 1847 and 1877. All Indians, whether or not they fought the newcomers, lost most of their land. Most of the survivors moved to reservations where they struggled to maintain their social and cultural traditions. Select Topics Warfare Treaty Making Umatilla Indian Reservation Bonanza Times and After 1861 brought a great surge of gold seekers to pockets of northeastern Oregon, where they formed large but volatile communities peopled largely by young men. Chinese sojourners followed as the boom played out in the 1870s, and white ranchers and farmers survived the decline of mining. Select Topics Gold! Law, Order, and Diversity Chinese Communities Getting Around and Settling In A National Economy and Culture The arrival of railroads in the 1880s quickened the area’s economy.  Wheat production, logging, milling, and other manufactures boomed.  Automobiles by the 1910s prompted urbanization.  Schools and reform groups proliferated in towns and cities, but so did movies and other aspects of modern, mass culture. Select Topics The Railroad and Agriculture The Railroad and Economic Growth Irrigation and Mechanization Urbanization and Culture Working Men The Automobile and Culture Wars Bust and Boom: The Depression Years and World War II Drought and the Great Depression hit rural northeastern Oregon hard, though government programs brought irrigation projects and miles of paved roads to the area. World War II brought prosperity but also pulled many residents away, although many Mexican people came to work the fields. Select Topics Dry Years, Hard Times The New Deal The War's Economic and Social Impac... Going and Coming: Mexican Americans The Best and Worst of Times: The Post-War Years Farms have grown larger, less numerous, and more expensive since World War II.  Timber declined, though government work and manufacturing increased.  In general, northeastern Oregon did not share much of Oregon’s late-twentieth-century prosperity.  Latino settlement continued to grow, as did white residents’ conservatism. Select Topics Big Farms, Big Business, Big Govern... Urban Growth: Ontario and Hermiston Going and Coming Women, Counterculture Tradition in Culture and Politics Epilogue