Champoeg State Park pioneer landing
— — the field where Oregon voted itself into being.
Not only on a wall.
“A wide bend of the Willamette River in Marion County, where on May 2, 1843, a small assembly of settlers stood in an open field and voted, 52 to 50, to form a provisional government. The town that later grew here was washed away by the great flood of December 1861 and never rebuilt. What remains is meadow, oak savanna, the river, and a quiet stone marker. from the studio
Champoeg State Park pioneer landing, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Champoeg State Heritage Area sits on the south bank of the Willamette River in Marion County, Oregon, about 25 miles southwest of Portland and seven miles east of Newberg. The park covers roughly 615 acres of meadow, oak savanna, riverbank, and restored prairie. It preserves the site of the historic town of Champoeg, the trading and warehousing settlement that grew along this stretch of the Willamette in the 1830s and 1840s. The park is managed by Oregon Parks and Recreation Department and includes a visitor center, the Robert Newell House, and the Pioneer Mothers Cabin Museum.
The defining day at Champoeg is May 2, 1843. A meeting of settlers, French-Canadian fur trappers, and Hudson's Bay Company men gathered in the open field to decide whether the Oregon Country should organize a provisional government independent of Britain. The vote carried, narrowly, by 52 to 50; American settler Joe Meek is the figure traditionally credited with calling the divide. The decision set the political course that led, three years later, to the Oregon Treaty of 1846 and the eventual establishment of Oregon Territory in 1848.
The town of Champoeg never recovered from the great Willamette Valley flood of December 1861, when the river rose more than 50 feet above its normal stage and erased most of the settlement's buildings and warehouses. A smaller flood in 1890 finished what remained. The site was never rebuilt as a town; the land was acquired piecemeal through the early twentieth century and dedicated as a state park in the 1930s. The river still rules the lower meadow, and the Willamette Water Trail passes the park's boat ramp.