Portland Metro and Oregon Research: History
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, and supports fee-based article delivery of all Oregonian articles ($1.95 per article). 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.
Online Primary Source Collections
- Portland Planning Bureau: Historic Resources and PreservationProvides information about historic landmarks in Portland as well as historic Portland maps.
- 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.
- 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.
Oregon Historical Quarterly
Online full-text articles from the Oregon Historical Quarterly, 1926 to the present through the JSTOR database. After you connect, login through the Portland Community College link, and the articles will be free.
If the table of contents doesn't work for you, the more detailed Oregon Historical Quarterly Index, 1981-present (which will give you the names of people and events in these articles) will be your next step. You can use the Ctrl-F feature of your web browser search for a specific word. Be careful here. A mention of a name or event doesn't mean the article that has that name or event is in any way about that person or event.
PCC Library also has printed indexes to The Oregon Historical Quarterly, from 1900 - 1980. You will need to come to the library to see them.
Check out paper copies of Oregon Historical Quarterly from PCC Library.
National Register of Historic Places
- National Register of Historic Places MapView historic places on a map view.
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.