Portland Metro and Oregon Research: History
Support for research about local issues, places, laws, people, history, and more.
Check out our Oregon History Guide
For additional resources related to Oregon historical research, check out PCC's Oregon History Guide.
Looking for Info on the History of a Home/Building/Address?
Oregonian Access
The oregonlive.com web site provides free full-text access to many Oregonian articles from the last few years. The Multnomah County Public Library also provides online full text access to the Historical Oregonian (1861-1987) and current Oregonian (1987-present) to all cardholders.
Search the Oregon Newspaper Index which indexes (but does not provide full-text access to) over 845,000 articles in the Oregonian newspaper from 1851-1987. This index is maintained by the University of Oregon.
Photographic Sources
- Oregon State University Special Collections & Archives Flickr CommonsOver 3000 historical photos of life in Oregon
- Portland Then and NowTumblr blog from the Oregonian showing what locations in Portland looked like historically and now.
- Portland State University Archives Digital GalleryThe Digital Gallery features images from the University Archives photograph collection documenting Portland State's rich history. The image collections, highlighting campus buildings and events, student life, and portraits of faculty and staff, can be searched and browsed by dates and keywords.
- Vintage PortlandDigital photos from the City of Portland Archives and Records Management
Online Primary Source Collections
- Historical Oregon NewspapersOn this site you can search and access complete content for historic Oregon newspapers that have been digitized as part of the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program (ODNP). This full-text searchable database contains almost 2,400,000 pages from Oregon newspapers dated 1846 - 2023.
- OHS Digital History ResourcesThe digital collections of the Oregon Historical Society.
- PDX Social History GuideLocation-based guide to the history of various communities in Portland. PDX Social History Guide brings their stories to the surface through interviews, mapping, art and photos. Each story features a summary, audio clip, and an image or map.
- Oregon History ProjectThe Oregon History Project is an online resource for learning about Oregon's past. In these pages, the work of historians and writers will help you explore the history of Oregon through the perspectives of people who helped shape the state.
- Oregon DigitalDigital collections from University of Oregon and Oregon State.
- Portland Planning Bureau: Historic Resources and PreservationProvides information about historic landmarks in Portland as well as historic Portland maps.
- Multnomah County Digital ArchivesComplete collection of Multnomah County's digitized archival work.
- Century of Action: Oregon Women VoteCentury of Action celebrates 100 years of Oregon women's right to vote and advances the understanding of women's citizenship in Oregon's history.
- Columbia River Basin Ethnic History ArchiveMaps, documents, reports, newspapers, and more focusing on immigrant populations, including people identified as having African, Asian, European, or Latin American heritage, in the Columbia River Basin. This collection does not include Native American resources.
- American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Digital CollectionFrom the University of Washington, with scanned photographs, treaties, and reports.
National Register of Historic Places
- National Register of Historic Places MapView historic places on a map view.