The Beaver State

A History of Oregon

By: Daniel Hardy

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

A Sweeping History of the Great State of Oregon

At the edge of the continent, where the Oregon Trail ended and a new American West began, Oregon has always been a place of dramatic contradictions. From the diverse indigenous nations who thrived for millennia to the pioneers who crossed two thousand miles seeking free land, from the timber barons who clearcut ancient forests to the environmentalists who fought to save what remained, Oregon's story captures essential American tensions between idealism and exclusion, prosperity and sustainability, individual liberty and collective responsibility.

This sweeping history traces Oregon from the salmon-rich rivers of Native peoples through the fur trade and wagon trains, from statehood with an explicitly racist constitution through the New Deal's transformation of the Columbia River, from World War II shipyards and the tragic Vanport flood through Tom McCall's environmental revolution and the bitter timber wars. It reveals a state that pioneered progressive reforms—public beaches, land use planning, direct democracy—while simultaneously excluding and marginalizing communities of color. It explores how the spotted owl became a flashpoint for rural economic collapse, how Portland evolved from mill town to progressive icon, and how twenty-first century Oregon grapples with wildfires, housing crises, and divisions so deep that some rural residents want to join Idaho.

Oregon's history is America's history concentrated and clarified: a place where competing visions of the good life collide against a backdrop of extraordinary natural beauty, where every generation has sought utopia and discovered complexity, where the edge remains as sharp and challenging as ever.