Oregon Experience

In 1920, Oregon’s Opal Whiteley was the center of international controversy. Her childhood diary was called a work of genius, until readers discovered hidden clues to a mystery that has not been solved to this day. At the turn of the century, Opal grew up literally barefoot and dirt poor in Oregon’s logging camps. From an early age she stood out. She seemed to be a child prodigy with an encyclopedic knowledge of nature.

In 1946 the field of electronics was exploding. Radiomen Howard Vollum and Jack Murdock were home from the War and decided to start their own business. The company was Tektronix. The product? An indispensable piece of test equipment that engineers couldn’t work without. In The Spirit of Tek you’ll meet some of the people who built a unique company that changed the world. Four young entrepreneurs decided to start an electronics company in Portland, Oregon. It was the right idea at the right time. Howard Vollum was fresh from the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Jack Murdock was home from the Coast Guard. Both were radiomen eager to build new careers. Along with fellow “Coastie” Miles Tippery and accountant Glenn McDowell, they decided to start their own business and signed incorporation papers in December 1945. They named their company Tektronix.

Also called consumption or “wasting disease,” tuberculosis once ran rampant in America. It still claims 8 million lives a year worldwide. Oregon led the Northwest in the fight against TB in the early 1900s. Yet even then, and until the advent of modern antibiotics, most treatments remained crude and ineffective. OREGON EXPERIENCE explores the historical impact of TB in Oregon.

Few other cities in the world have water as pure and as well-protected as Portland. For nearly 115 years, an ingenious, gravity-fed system has delivered mountain rainwater from an isolated river called the Bull Run. Yet the rich history of Portland’s water supply has unfolded largely unbeknownst to the people it serves.

In the summer of 1970, some tens of thousands of people converged in rural Clackamas County for an event called Vortex I. This festival celebrated freedom - freedom from violence, from drug laws and from clothes. It also served as an elaborate ploy to lure young people away from Portland. Vortex I is the only state-sponsored rock festival in U.S. history. Content Alert - Partial Nudity.

The Portland Youth Philharmonic is America's first youth orchestra. But the story of the PYP begins in Burns where a violinist named Mary Dodge shared her love of music with the local children. As their talent emerged, Dodge formed a children's orchestra called the Sagebrush Symphony that captivated audiences statewide.