Salem, Oregon

This week the General Land Office is visiting Salem, the capital of Oregon. Salem is located about 45 miles south of Portland, alongside the Willamette River.

The survey plat was approved on February 5, 1852, by Surveyor General John B. Preston. Preston was appointed as the first surveyor general of the Oregon Territory by President Millard Fillmore in 1850. On June 4, 1851, Preston placed the first marker, a red cedar stake, at the Willamette Meridian initial point. It was from that initial point that the Willamette Meridian was surveyed. In the map below, you can see the city of Salem in sections 22 and 27.

The Oregon State Capitol Building located in Salem was built between 1936 and 1938 with help from the federal government after the first two capitol buildings were destroyed by fires in 1855 and 1935. The current capitol building was expanded in 1977.

Today, the capitol grounds span three city blocks and include two parks, Wilson Park and Capitol Park.

In Wilson Park, just west of the Oregon State Capitol, there is a Douglas fir tree that was raised from seed carried to the moon by astronaut Stuart Roosa on the 1971 Apollo 14 space mission. This was the first "Moon Tree" planted in Oregon on Arbor Day, April 30, 1976, by Governor Bob Straub to celebrate America's bicentennial. The seeds were part of a joint NASA and U.S. Forest Service project, as Roosa was previously a USFS smokejumper. Today, there are moon trees planted all over the country.