Marilyn Clint is the Rose Festival's Parade Queen, as described by Portland's Mayor in 2015 when a 'Parade Queen Day' was declared in her honor after decades of managing Portland's famous parades. In The Quixotic Business of Celebration, Marilyn will speak to the impracticality and idealism of festival stewardship. Marilyn will highlight the year 1913 as an example of this recurring trend.

Theaters have always captured our imaginations. Their architecture and lighting have drawn us inside. Their decorative lobbies have let us know something special was about to happen. Darrell Jabin; Oregon’s Traveling Historian toured and photographed dozens of theaters. He researched opera houses, vaudeville, movie palaces, drive ins and neighborhood theaters. He interviewed historians, theater owners and directors of community theaters to create a presentation covering a unique part of Oregon history.

In 1842, early Oregon settler Dr. Elijah White took a census of settlers in the Oregon Territory, most living in Wailatpu (near today’s Walla Walla) and the Willamette Valley. The census lists people in “neighborhood” order, including those living at The Falls, or present-day Oregon City. During this presentation learn about Chloe Clarke and William Willson, among a handful of others living at The Falls at that time: where did they come from and why did they come? What did they do, and where did they go? What ideas and misperceptions might they have had, and what legacies and challenges did they leave? As we travel back in time you’ll meet this earliest Methodist Missionary teacher and carpenter, discuss “Beaver Money” and better understand why the author who later wrote the book The White-Headed Eagle did so. Emanating through the presentation is the essence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers, critical for travel and livelihood, then and now.

Gladstone, Oregon, is located at the confluence of the Clackamas and Willamette Rivers and was once the northern half of the historic town of Oregon City. Gladstone came to prominence as the site of the first Oregon State Fair, the first Clackamas County Fair, the first railroad bridge in Oregon, and the first river crossing of the first interurban trolley west of the Rocky Mountains. In 1869, Gladstone witnessed Ben Holladay challenge both his competitors and the Clackamas River in the great north–south railroad race. From 1894 to 1927, Gladstone became known as the "Mother Chautauqua of the West," where orators such as William Jennings Bryan held thousands of attendees spellbound in Gladstone Park. In this Murdock Talk presentation author Kim Argaves Huey discusses Gladstone's rich history, from its founding by Judge Harvey E. Cross, to it's role in the industrialization of Oregon City.

The rich soil of the Willamette Valley is from eastern Washington, brought here by the ice age Lake Missoula Floods. It was this soil that attracted the Oregon Trail pioneers to become part of one of the largest non-forced migrations in all of history. But did you know that from Pendleton to the The Dalles some of the very trails the pioneers used were actually channels of those very floods? Join us as Rick Thompson takes us on a visual journey through the water gaps and next to the giant gravel bars the pioneers saw as they traveled the flood channels carved long before they arrived.

An analysis of Oregon’s Female murders from 1854-1950.

Darrell Jabin, Oregon's Traveling Historian will share and discuss the individuals and events that helped create the state of Oregon.

Traveling historian Darrell Jabin discusses the discovery of Oregon and how it came to have its name.

A presentation about the Wilamette Falls Locks.

A presentation on the paper mill industries that once thrived near Willamette Falls.

A presentation about Willamette Valley Wineries.

A presentation focusing on the historical and modern funeral industry.

A presentation about the Celilo Village community and the alliances that were formed by two native and settler-descended women leaders.

A presentation focusing on the troubled and complicated life of Peter Burnett.