RN Jobs in OR

Oregon is located in the western United States. It was originally home to many Native American tribes, most notably the Chinooks and Nez Perce.

The first Europeans to arrive in Oregon were Spanish explorers, led by Captains Bruno de Heceta and Francisco de Eliza, looking for a waterway from California to Asia. Instead, they found a land rich in natural resources, the country of Oregon, which they declared to be Spain. Later, British and American traders looked for furs.

The Hudson’s Bay Company established trading posts at Fort Vancouver (built in 1825) and the mouth of the Willamette River on the Columbia River; however, its control was questioned by American colonists. In 1843, the company’s main manufacturer of Fort Vancouver, Dr. John McLaughlin, built a new fort on the Lower River in southern Oregon and named it “Fort Orford.”

In 1846, a group of pioneers led by Marcus Whitman established a mission near what is now Walla Walla, Washington. Among them was New York physician Dr. Marcus Whitman, who traveled west with the Reverend Henry Spaulding in 1835 to establish what became the Whitman Mission in Oregon among the Cayus Indians. Whitman’s group moved east until they were stopped by bad weather.

They spent the winter at Fort Hall, built in 1834 by Nathaniel J. Wyeth’s American Fur Company. That winter, Dr. Whitman met two young native sisters, Narcissa and Eliza Spaulding, who had recently lost their father and husband. None of the women spoke English, but they were especially excited to meet someone they could communicate with.

In the spring of 1837, the Whitmans moved to what is now Walla Walla, Washington. During the same year, a group of nearly 100 American settlers from Peoria, Illinois, and other locations along the Ohio River traveled overland to settle in the Oregon Country.