Oregon Heritage

09/30/2026

Two Clackamas County City Halls recently listed in the National Register of Historic Places:

Milwaukie City Hall in Milwaukie, Clackamas County: Built in 1938 and serving as Milwaukie's city hall until 2022, the former Milwaukie City Hall is significant in the areas of Politics/Government and Architecture as an example of a Classical Moderne style civic building, constructed with the support of the P***c Works Administration. View the nomination.

Canby City Hall in Canby, Clackamas County: Completed in 1937 and serving as Canby's city hall until 2016, the former Canby City Hall is significant in the areas of Politics/Government and Architecture as an example of a Colonial Revival style civic building, constructed with the support of the P***c Works Administration. View the nomination.

View the nominations and learn more about listing Oregon properties on the National Register of Historic Places here: https://www.oregon.gov/oprd/OH/pages/national-register.aspx

09/24/2026

NEW OREGON HERITAGE RESOURCE!

The federal Historic Tax Credit supports projects that preserve, adaptively reuse and rehabilitate historic properties with a 20% tax credit for work on historic properties. From 2016-2026 rehabilitation projects using the HTC have generated $446 million in investment across 53 projects in Oregon.

Oregon Heritage has a new Historic Tax Credit Readiness Toolkit to help more historic property owners take advantage of the program and improve historic properties in Oregon.

Check it out here: https://www.oregon.gov/oprd/OH/Pages/Tax-Incentives.aspx

09/17/2026

The Peter and Laurie King Kerr Estate (now known as Elk Rock Garden) is among Oregon’s newest entries in the National Register of Historic Places.

Located on the outskirts of South Portland, the Peter and Laurie King Kerr Estate was designed and constructed between 1897 and 1957 and it still reflects the layered contributions of its owner, grain commission merchant Peter Kerr, and several prominent design professionals, including landscape architects John C. Olmsted and Adolph Meyer, horticulturalist Emanuel T. Mische, and architects Ellis F. Lawrence and William Holford, the designers of the Kerr residence located on the grounds. Now open to the public, the Peter and Laurie King Kerr Estate stands as one of the Portland area’s only country estates or large private gardens that retains much of its original scale, setting, and design.

View the nomination and learn more about listing Oregon properties on the National Register of Historic Places here: https://www.oregon.gov/oprd/OH/pages/national-register.aspx

09/11/2026

The Oregon Casket Company Building in downtown Portland is among Oregon’s newest entries in the National Register of Historic Places.

Designed by the architectural firm of Whidden & Lewis and constructed in 1897, the Oregon Casket Company Building demonstrates the economic stature of the Oregon Casket Company at the turn of the 20th century. Construction of the building also coincided with a nationwide economic recovery and the building exemplifies the importance of Portland at that time as a base for the distribution of goods across the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

From 1897 to 1925, the Oregon Casket Company Building served as company headquarters and regional distribution center. In this era, timber from the West Coast was prized for its durability, making Portland an ideal location for a company that soon became the one of the largest dealers of undertaker supplies and manufacturer of caskets in the western United States.

Architecturally, the five-story Oregon Casket Company Building still retains the character defining features that convey its historic function as a turn-of-the-century warehouse and distribution center. The exterior of the heavy-timber structure features rough-aggregate stucco cladding and decorative brickwork, along with original wood sash windows and loading doors. The building’s interior reflects its original use for warehousing and light manufacturing, with heavy timber posts and beams, brick walls, and wood flooring. While the ground floor storefronts were remodeled in 1954, the building’s upper stories still mostly reflect their original appearance. Today, the Oregon Casket Company Building retains a high degree of integrity and it continues to convey its historic function as an important warehouse and distribution center.

Visit the National Register program webpage at https://www.oregon.gov/oprd/OH/pages/national-register.aspx to explore listed properties, review eligibility criteria and the nomination timeline, access research tools, and more.

09/11/2026

Registration is OPEN for the 2026 Oregon Main Street Deep Dive: Makers on Main, Oct. 7-8.

The 2026 Oregon Main Street Deep Dive explores how Makers and Main Street thrive together. We'll examine how communities can support creative entrepreneurship, activate downtown spaces with maker culture, and build stronger local economies by turning craft and creativity into opportunity. From storefront studios and workshops to production spaces and maker collectives, we'll explore how communities can cultivate environments where makers flourish, downtowns grow stronger, and local identity shines.

Learn more and register here: https://www.oregon.gov/oprd/OH/Pages/oms-deep-dive.aspx

09/11/2026

Last day to participate in this important survey!

Your creative work counts, and we want to count it.

Oregon's Arts and Culture Program, which supports the state's cultural infrastructure through the Oregon Arts Commission and the Oregon Cultural Trust, is teaming up with regional economic research firm ECOnorthwest on a new report about Oregon's creative economy.

To capture the full picture, we need to hear from the people doing the work. If you earn income through creative work, whether it's your full-time living or one of several income streams, we want your input. That includes independent contractors, freelancers, self-employed folks and part-time artists whose contributions often go unseen in traditional employment data.

Please take the survey! It closes September 11. https://bit.ly/4i5eLjL

Questions? Contact Brittany Bagent at ECOnorthwest, [email protected].

09/09/2026

The Oregon Heritage Commission released updated goals to statewide Oregon Heritage Plan.

The Oregon Heritage Plan is a call to action for heritage efforts across the state to unite around common goals. Oregon Heritage invites individuals and organizations to discuss the goals and strategies in this Plan, consider how they align with organization missions and priorities, and join Oregon Heritage in this work. Together, individual steps will add up to important outcomes for the state resulting in more stories told, more people served, and more sustainable heritage organizations. Oregon Heritage and other statewide agencies and service organizations provide grants, incentives, technical assistance, and recognition programs to support this work.

Read the plan here: https://www.oregon.gov/oprd/OH/Pages/tools.aspx

Has your organization moved goals forward? Let us know! Tell us how you have accomplished Plan goals by emailing [email protected] to share your success stories over the next seven years.

La Comisión del Patrimonio de Oregón publicó objetivos actualizados para el Plan del Patrimonio de Oregón a nivel estatal.

El Plan del Patrimonio de Oregón es un llamado a la acción para que los esfuerzos del patrimonio en todo el estado se unan en torno a objetivos comunes. Oregon Heritage invita a personas y organizaciones a analizar los objetivos y las estrategias de este Plan, a considerar cómo se alinean con las misiones y prioridades de sus organizaciones, y a unirse a Oregon Heritage en esta tarea. En conjunto, las acciones individuales producirán avances importantes para el estado, lo que permitirá contar más historias, atender a más personas y lograr que las organizaciones dedicadas al patrimonio sean más sostenibles. Oregon Heritage, así como otras agencias y organizaciones de servicio a nivel estatal ofrecen subvenciones, incentivos, asistencia técnica y programas de reconocimiento para apoyar este trabajo.

Lea el plan aquí: https://www.oregon.gov/oprd/OH/Pages/tools.aspx

¿Ha avanzado su organización en la consecución de sus objetivos? ¡Cuéntenoslo! Envíe un correo electrónico a [email protected] para contarnos cómo lograron los objetivos del Plan, a fin de comp artir sus historias de éxito durante los próximos siete años.

08/19/2026

The Oregon Cultural Trust supports Oregon’s arts, culture, heritage and humanities sectors.

Be sure to save the date for the Arts & Culture Summit as the sectors come together to collaborate and leverage opportunities to strengthen the statewide arts, culture, heritage, and humanities impact.

07/23/2026

The Ursula K. Le Guin House in Portland’s Willamette Heights neighborhood is among Oregon’s newest entries in the National Register of Historic Places.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) is recognized as one of the most influential American literary figures of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Widely regarded for her transformative contributions to science fiction and fantasy, she explored questions of gender, identity, power, and community in her work. Her home at 3321 NW Thurman Street served as her primary residence and creative environment for nearly six decades, from 1960 through her death in 2018. Within these rooms she authored many of her most celebrated works, including A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), and The Dispossessed (1974), as well as poetry, essays, translations, and children’s literature. Her works played a defining role in the New Wave literary movement and helped shape modern speculative fiction, earning her numerous awards including five Hugo Awards, five Nebula Awards, and the National Book Award.

The home was recently donated to Literary Arts, a Portland, Ore. based nonprofit, by the Le Guin family to establish the Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency. Once established, the residency will welcome writers to live and work in the home, with a focus on supporting historically underrepresented voices in literature.

Interested in learning more about the National Register of Historic Places? Visit the National Register program webpage at https://www.oregon.gov/oprd/OH/pages/national-register.aspx to explore listed properties, review eligibility criteria and the nomination timeline, access research tools, and more.

Ursula K. Le Guin

07/02/2026

The La Grande Carnegie Library in downtown La Grande is among Oregon’s newest entries in the National Register of Historic Places.

Constructed in 1913 with funding from the Carnegie Corporation, the La Grande Carnegie Library reflects the city’s early twentieth century commitment to expanding public access to information and educational opportunity. The library served as an educational hub for the community from its construction in 1913, supporting the work of La Grande’s public schools while also providing essential self education resources for adults. Library staff collaborated with teachers, offered children’s story times and summer reading programs, and maintained branch collections in remote schools. In the 1920s, the library briefly held the fifth highest circulation of any public library in Oregon. Its sustained use for educational purposes--as a public library through 2005 and currently as an arts and cultural center--underscores its historic role as a cornerstone of community learning and intellectual life.

Architecturally, the La Grande Carnegie Library is an excellent and well preserved example of Classical Revival design and an outstanding representative of the Carnegie Library Program’s recommended building typology. Designed by the La Grande firm Bunting & Block, the building features hallmark characteristics of Carnegie funded libraries, including a rectangular plan, a prominent central staircase leading to an elevated entrance, and an interior layout that emphasized efficiency and librarian supervision. Its symmetrical façade, brick construction, hipped roof, molded cornice with decorative modillions, and pedimented main entrance reflect the classically inspired style that defined several of the civic and government buildings constructed in La Grande during the 1910s. Today, the library retains a high degree of integrity and continues to convey both its architectural character and its historic function as an important public educational institution in La Grande.

Visit the National Register program webpage at https://www.oregon.gov/oprd/OH/pages/national-register.aspx to explore listed properties, review eligibility criteria and the nomination timeline, access research tools, and more.