United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico; the State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party; the Democrats' dominant worldview was once social conservatism and economic liberalism, while populism was its leading characteristic in the rural South. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate in the Progressive Party, beginning a switch of political platforms between the Democratic and Republican Party over the coming decades, leading to Woodrow Wilson being elected as the first fiscally progressive Democrat. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has promoted a social liberal platform, supporting social justice. Well into the 20th century, the party had conservative pro-business and Southern conservative-populist anti-business wings.
The New Deal Coalition of 1932–1964 attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction—many of whom were Catholics based in the cities. After Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s, the pro-business wing withered outside the South. After the racial turmoil of the 1960s, most Southern whites and many Northern Catholics moved into the Republican Party at the presidential level; the once-powerful labor union element became less supportive after the 1970s. White Evangelicals and Southerners became Republican at the state and local level since the 1990s. People living in metropolitan areas, women and gender minorities, college graduates, racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, such as Jewish Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans and African Americans, tend to support the Democratic Party much more than they support the rival Republican Party; the Democratic Party's philosophy of modern liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state.
It seeks to provide government regulation in the economy. These interventions, such as the introduction of social programs, support for labor unions, affordable college tuitions, moves toward universal health care and equal opportunity, consumer protection and environmental protection form the core of the party's economic policy. Fifteen Democrats have served as President of the United States; the first was President Andrew Jackson, the seventh president and served from 1829 to 1837. The most recent was President Barack Obama, the 44th president and held office from 2009 to 2017. Following the 2018 midterm elections, the Democrats held a majority in the House of Representatives, "trifectas" in 14 states, the mayoralty of numerous major American cities, such as Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Portland and Washington, D. C. Twenty-three state governors were Democrats, the Party was the minority party in the Senate and in most state legislatures; as of March 2019, four of the nine Justices of the Supreme Court had been appointed by Democratic presidents.
Democratic Party officials trace its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other influential opponents of the Federalists in 1792. That party inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party arose in the 1830s with the election of Andrew Jackson. Since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues, they have been more liberal on civil rights issues since 1948. On foreign policy, both parties have changed position several times; the Democratic Party evolved from the Jeffersonian Republican or Democratic-Republican Party organized by Jefferson and Madison in opposition to the Federalist Party of Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. The party favored republicanism; the Democratic-Republican Party came to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812, the Federalists disappeared and the only national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans.
The era of one-party rule in the United States, known as the Era of Good Feelings, lasted from 1816 until the early 1830s, when the Whig Party became a national political group to rival the Democratic-Republicans. However, the Democratic-Republican Party still had its own internal factions, they split over the choice of a successor to President James Monroe and the party faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles, led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became the modern Democratic Party. As Norton explains the transformation in 1828: Jacksonians believed the people's will had prevailed. Through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president; the Democrats became the nation's first well-organized national party and tight party organization became the hallmark of nineteenth-century American politics. Opposing factions led by Henry Clay helped form the Whig Party; the Democratic Party had a small yet decisive advantage over the Whigs until the 1850s, when the Whigs fell apart over the issue of slavery.
In 1854, angry with the Kansas–Nebraska Act, anti-slavery Dem
Kalapuya
The Kalapuya are a Native American ethnic group, which had eight independent groups speaking three mutually unintelligible dialects. The Kalapuya tribes' traditional homelands were the Willamette Valley of present-day western Oregon in the United States, an area bounded by the Cascade Range to the east, the Oregon Coast Range at the west, the Columbia River at the north, to the Calapooya Mountains of the Umpqua River at the south. Today, most Kalapuya people are enrolled in the federally recognized Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon. In both cases descendants have intermarried with people of other tribes in the confederated tribes, are counted in overall tribal numbers, rather than separately. Most of the Kalapuya descendants live at the Grand Ronde reservation, located in Yamhill and Polk counties; the tribal name has been rendered into English under various spellings as "Calapooia," "Calapuya," "Calapooya," "Kalapooia," and "Kalapooya." The Kalapuyan people spoke sundry dialects of a Kalapuyan language.
It was categorized by John Wesley Powell as part of the Takelman language group. In the early 21st century, these are known as the Oregon Penutian languages; the Kalapuyan people were not a single homogeneous tribal entity but rather were made up of eight autonomous subdivisions, loosely related to one another by three language dialects, which were mutually intelligible. The eight related groups comprising the Kalapuya people spoke three distinct dialects of the Oregon Penutian language family: Northern Kalapuyan, Central Kalapuyan, Yoncalla. Catholic missionary François Blanchet said that "fourteen or fifteen different dialects were spoken by these tribes. Moreover, the Chinook jargon is spoken among the Kalapooias." Chinook jargon was a trade language that developed among the Native Americans for their own use and for trading with Europeans. It became popular on the Grand Ronde Reservation; the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community have renamed it as Chinuk Wawa, developed a language immersion program for children to create new generations of native speakers.
Kalapuya bands consisted of extended families of related men, their wives, children. They had a patrilineal kinship system; these bands would occupy a year-round village: during the winter they lived there full-time. During the spring and summer, some members split off into smaller groups and traveled to other areas to gather seasonal food and raw materials for basketry. Bands had a single leader or chief— the wealthiest man — who would resolve arguments, settle collective debts of the community such as those incurred through gambling, would provide food for feasts; as was the case for many tribes of the Pacific Northwest, the Kalapuya practiced slavery. They obtained Indian slaves through trade or as gifts; the slaves were captured by enemy peoples during raids. Northern Kalapuya groups, such as the Tualatin and Yamhill, obtained slaves through conquest, raiding bands located on the coast or further south in the Willamette Valley. Slaves were considered a form of wealth. Women and children were preferred as slaves.
Slaves lived with the families who owned them, working side-by-side in gender-specific daily tasks and performing chores such as the collection of firewood and water. Slaves were free to marry, they could purchase freedom through their own accumulation of property or through sufficient payment to the owner by a prospective spouse. The patriarchal Kalapuyan society had divisions by wealth and personal property. Special religious leaders known as shamans were recognized as a distinct class; these people were believed to possess supernatural predictive or healing powers and could have their origin in any group. Kalapuyan society had gender-differentiated labor. Men engaged in fishing and warfare, they made tools and constructed canoes. Women worked to gather and prepare the staple plant foods that were the basis of the Kalapuyan diet, set up temporary camps, constructed baskets and other craft products. During the summer months the women of the band would process and prepare food products for winter storage staying in the main village to complete the task, while others gathered the foods from afar.
The Kalapuyan groups were: -Northern Kalapuya: Tualatin known as the Atfalati, along the Tualatin River Yamhill, along the Yamhill River-Central Kalapuya: Ahantchuyuk, along the Pudding River Luckiamute, along the Luckiamute River Santiam, along the lower Santiam River near present-day Lebanon Chepenefa, along the Marys River near present-day Corvallis Chemapho, along Muddy Creek Tsankupi, along the Calapooia River Mohawk, along the Mohawk River Chafan Chelamela, along the Long Tom River Winefelly, along the Mohawk, McKenzie, Coast Fork Willamette rivers.-Yoncalla: Yoncalla, along the Umpqua River. In his description of the Indians of the Willamette Valley in 1849, Governor Joseph Lane gave the following estimates for the tribes' populations: "Calipoa": 60; the Kalapuya people are believed to have entered their historical homeland in the Willamette Valley by migrating from the south of the valley northwards and forcing out earlier inhabitants. Each of these bands occupied specific are
Willamette Valley
The Willamette Valley is a 150-mile long valley in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley, it is surrounded by mountains on three sides – the Cascade Range to the east, the Oregon Coast Range to the west, the Calapooya Mountains to the south, it forms the cultural and political heart of Oregon, is home to 70 percent of its population including its six largest cities: Portland, Salem, the state capital, the cities of Gresham and Beaverton in the Portland metropolitan area. Eight of Oregon's ten – and 16 of its 20 – largest cities are located in the Willamette Valley; the valley's numerous waterways the Willamette River, are vital to the economy of Oregon, as they continuously deposit fertile alluvial soils across its broad, flat plain. A massively productive agricultural area, the valley was publicized in the 1820s as a'promised land of flowing milk and honey'. Throughout the 19th century it was the destination of choice for the oxen-drawn wagon trains of emigrants who made the perilous journey along the Oregon Trail.
Today the valley is considered synonymous with "Oregon Wine Country", as it contains more than 19,000 acres of vineyards and 500+ wineries. Much of the Willamette's fertility is derived from a series of massive ice-age floods that came from Lake Missoula in Montana and scoured across Eastern Washington, sweeping its topsoil down the Columbia River Gorge; when floodwaters met log- and ice-jams at Kalama in southwest Washington, the water caused a backup that filled the entire Willamette Valley to a depth of 300 to 400 feet above current sea level. Some geologists suggest that the Willamette Valley flooded in this manner multiple times during the last ice age. If floodwaters of that magnitude covered Portland in 2010, only the tops of the West Hills, Mount Tabor, Rocky Butte, Kelley Butte and Mount Scott would be visible, as would only some of the city's tallest skyscrapers. Elevations for other cities in the valley are Newberg, 175 feet; the lake drained away, leaving layered sedimentary soils on the valley floor to a height of about 180 to 200 feet above current sea level throughout the Tualatin and Willamette valleys.
Geologists have come to refer to the resulting lake as Lake Allison, named for Oregon State University geologist Ira S. Allison, who first described Willamette Silt soil in 1953 and noted its similarity to soils on the floor of former Lake Lewis in Eastern Washington. Allison is known for his work in the 1930s documenting the hundreds of non-native boulders washed down by the floods, rafted on icebergs and deposited on the valley bottom and in a ring around the lower hills surrounding the Willamette Valley. One of the most prominent of these is the Bellevue Erratic, just off Oregon Route 18 west of McMinnville, it is believed that the Willamette Meteorite was rafted by flood and ice to the location near West Linn where it was found in 1902. The valley may be loosely defined as the broad plain of the Willamette, bounded on the west by the Oregon Coast Range and on the east by the Cascade Range, it is bounded on the south by the Calapooya Mountains, which separate the headwaters of the Willamette from the Umpqua River valley about 25 miles south of Hidden Valley.
Interstate 5 runs the length of the valley. Because of differing cultural and political interests, the Portland metropolitan area and Tualatin River valley are not included in the local use of the term. Additionally, the east slopes of the Coast Ranges and the west slopes of the Cascade Range from Oakridge to Detroit Lake can be considered part of the Willamette Valley in a cultural sense, despite being mountainous areas. Cities in the valley include, from south to north, Cottage Grove, Corvallis, Dallas, Keizer, McMinnville, Oregon City, Portland, St. Helens. Parts of the following counties, from south to north, lie within the valley: Douglas, Linn, Polk, Clackamas, Washington and Columbia. Sometimes the area around Albany and Corvallis and surrounding Benton and Linn counties is referred to locally as the Mid-Valley. Marion and other counties are sometimes included in the definition of the Mid-Valley; the climate of the Willamette Valley is Mediterranean with oceanic features. This climate is characterized by dry and cloudless summers, ranging from warm to very hot, followed by cool and cloudy winters.
The precipitation pattern is distinctly Mediterranean, with little to no rainfall occurring during the summer months and over half of annual precipitation falling between November and February. Temperatures are predictable throughout the year, with daytime highs reaching the low to mid 80s in the summer and the mid 40s in the winter. Lengthy stretches of 90 °F days occur every summer reaching 100 °F. Cold days where the daytime high fails to rise above freezing are rare and may occur only two or three days per year, not at all in the lowest elevations of the valley. Temperatures of 5 °F or lower occur only about once every 25 years. Spring and fall days are between 50 and 70 degrees, with occasional surges of summer-like or winter-like temperatures that last more than a week. Precipitation varies across the valley and is correlated with elevation. Annual totals range from 36 inches (
Oregon's 5th congressional district
Oregon's 5th congressional district represents Oregon's central coast through Salem, north to the southern Portland suburbs, east to the summit of Mount Hood. It includes Lincoln and Polk Counties, most of Clackamas and Tillamook Counties, plus parts of Benton and Multnomah Counties; the district is represented by Democrat Kurt Schrader, elected in 2008 to replace the retiring Darlene Hooley. This marked the first time in the district's history that a new representative had the same party affiliation as the outgoing representative; every single representative from this district since its creation after the 1980 census has gotten divorced while in office. The district was created in 1982 when Oregon was granted a new congressional district as a result of reapportionment from the 1980 census. Denny Smith, who had represented Oregon's 2nd congressional district in the previous Congress, was re-elected in the 5th district in 1982. In 2002, the district shrank in area due to redistricting. About half of the portion of the district, in Benton County, Oregon was moved into the 4th district and portions of west-central Clackamas County were moved into the 3rd district.
At the same time, small portions of northern Clackamas and southern Multnomah County, part of the 1st district were moved into the 5th district. Sources: Elections History from the Oregon Secretary of State website Election Statistics from the website of the Clerk of the United States House of Representatives In the 2002 redistricting, the district gained its current portion of Multnomah County from the 3rd district, but lost a significant portion of northern Clackamas County to the 3rd district. Oregon's congressional districts List of United States congressional districts Martis, Kenneth C.. The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. Martis, Kenneth C.. The Historical Atlas of United States Congressional Districts. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. Congressional Biographical Directory of the United States 1774–present
California
California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U. S. the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento; the Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 9.7 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, the country's second most populous, after New York City. California has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, its largest county by area, San Bernardino County; the City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. California's $3.0 trillion economy is larger than that of any other state, larger than those of Texas and Florida combined, the largest sub-national economy in the world. If it were a country, California would be the 5th largest economy in the world, the 36th most populous as of 2017.
The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies, after the New York metropolitan area. The San Francisco Bay Area PSA had the nation's highest GDP per capita in 2017 among large PSAs, is home to three of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people. California is considered a global trendsetter in popular culture, innovation and politics, it is considered the origin of the American film industry, the hippie counterculture, fast food, the Internet, the personal computer, among others. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are seen as global centers of the technology and entertainment industries, respectively. California has a diverse economy: 58% of the state's economy is centered on finance, real estate services and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.
S. state. California is bordered by Oregon to the north and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; the state's diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the east, from the redwood–Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. Although California is well-known for its warm Mediterranean climate, the large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains. Over time and wildfires have become more pervasive features. What is now California was first settled by various Native Californian tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries; the Spanish Empire claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its successful war for independence but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War.
The western portion of Alta California was organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850. The California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom; the word California referred to the Baja California Peninsula of Mexico. The name derived from the mythical island California in the fictional story of Queen Calafia, as recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo; this work was the fifth in a popular Spanish chivalric romance series that began with Amadis de Gaula. Queen Calafia's kingdom was said to be a remote land rich in gold and pearls, inhabited by beautiful black women who wore gold armor and lived like Amazons, as well as griffins and other strange beasts. In the fictional paradise, the ruler Queen Calafia fought alongside Muslims and her name may have been chosen to echo the title of a Muslim leader, the Caliph. It's possible.
Know ye that at the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California close to that part of the Terrestrial Paradise, inhabited by black women without a single man among them, they lived in the manner of Amazons. They were robust of body with great virtue; the island itself is one of the wildest in the world on account of the craggy rocks. Shortened forms of the state's name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000; the Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups were diverse in their political organization with bands, villages, on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash and Salinan.
Trade, intermarriage a
Vancouver, Washington
Vancouver is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U. S. state of Washington, the largest suburb of Portland, Oregon. Incorporated in 1857, it is the fourth largest city in the state, with a population of 161,791 as of April 1, 2010 census. Vancouver is the county seat of Clark County and forms part of the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area, the 23rd largest metropolitan area in the United States. Established in 1825 around Fort Vancouver, a fur-trading outpost, the city is located on the Washington/Oregon border along the Columbia River, directly north of Portland. In 2005, Money magazine named it No. 91 on its list of best places in America to live. In 2016, WalletHub ranks Vancouver the 89th best place in the US for families to live. Vancouver shares its name with the larger city of Vancouver in southern British Columbia, Canada 300 mi to the north. Both cities were named after sea captain George Vancouver. Vancouver, British Columbia was incorporated 29 years after the incorporation of Vancouver and more than 60 years after the name Vancouver was first used in reference to the historic Fort Vancouver trading post on the Columbia River.
City officials have periodically suggested changing the U. S. city's name to Fort Vancouver to reduce confusion with its larger and better-known northern neighbor. Many Pacific Northwest residents distinguish between the two cities by referring to the Canadian city as "Vancouver, B. C." and the United States city as "Vancouver, Washington," or "Vancouver, USA." Local nicknames include "Vantucky" and "The'Couv". In 2013, the nickname "Vansterdam" surfaced as a result of the legalization of marijuana in the state of Washington; the Vancouver area was inhabited by a variety of Native American tribes, most the Chinook and Klickitat nations, with permanent settlements of timber longhouses. The Chinookan and Klickitat names for the area were Skit-so-to-ho and Ala-si-kas meaning "land of the mud-turtles." First European contact was made in 1775, with half of the indigenous population dead from smallpox before the Lewis and Clark expedition camped in the area in 1806. Within another fifty years, other actions and diseases such as measles and influenza had reduced the Chinookan population from an estimated 80,000 "to a few dozen refugees, landless and swindled out of a treaty."Meriwether Lewis wrote that the Vancouver area was "the only desired situation for settlement west of the Rocky Mountains."
The first permanent European settlement did not occur until 1824, when Fort Vancouver was established as a fur trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company. From that time on, the area was settled by both the US and Britain under a "joint occupation" agreement. Joint occupation led to the Oregon boundary dispute and ended on June 15, 1846, with the signing of the Oregon Treaty, which gave the United States full control of the area. Before 1845, American Henry Williamson laid out a large claim west of the Hudson's Bay Company, called Vancouver City and properly registered his claim at the U. S. courthouse before leaving for California. In 1850, Amos Short named the town Columbia City, it changed to Vancouver in 1855. The City of Vancouver was incorporated on January 23, 1857. Based on an act in the 1859–60 legislature, Vancouver was the capital of Washington Territory, before capital status was returned to Olympia, Washington by a 2–1 ruling of the territory's supreme court, in accordance with Isaac Stevens' preference and concern that proximity to the border with Oregon might give some of the state's influence away to Oregon.
U. S. Army Captain Ulysses S. Grant was quartermaster at what was known as Columbia Barracks for 15 months beginning in September 1852. Soon after leaving Vancouver, he resigned from the army and did not serve again until the outbreak of the American Civil War. Other notable generals to have served in Vancouver include George B. McClellan, Philip Sheridan, Oliver O. Howard and 1953 Nobel Peace Prize recipient George Marshall. Army presence in Vancouver was strong, as the Department of the Columbia built and moved to Vancouver Barracks, the military reservation for which stretched from the river to what is Fourth Plain Boulevard and was the largest Army base in the region until surpassed by Fort Lewis, 120 miles to the north. Built on the old company gardens and skirmish range, Pearson Army Field was a key facility, at one point the US Army Signal Corps operated the largest spruce cut-up plant in the world to provide much-needed wood for airplanes. Vancouver became the end point for two ultra-long flights from USSR over the North Pole.
The first of these flights was performed by Valery Chkalov in 1937 on a Tupolev ANT-25RD airplane. Chkalov was scheduled to land at an airstrip in nearby Portland, but redirected at the last minute to Vancouver's Pearson Airfield. Today there is a street named for him in Vancouver. In 1975 an obelisk was erected at Pearson Field commemorating this event. Separated from Oregon until 1917, when the Interstate Bridge began to replace ferries, Vancouver had three shipyards just downstream which produced ships for World War I before World War II brought an enormous economic boom. An Alcoa aluminum plant opened on September 2, 1940, using inexpensive power from the nearby New Deal hydropower turbines at Bonneville Dam. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Henry Kaiser opened a shipyard next to the U. S. Army base, whi
Benton County, Oregon
