Lebanon, Oregon

The Elkins Flour Mill is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 6.87 square miles (17.79 km²), of which 6.67 square miles (17.28 km²) is land and 0.20 square miles (0.52 km²) is water.[11]

Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital

Lowe's Regional Distribution Center is the largest employer in Lebanon, with 650 employees. The other major employers are Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital, Lebanon Schools, Wal-Mart, Weyerhaeuser, and Entek International.[13][14]

The main building for the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific, Northwest. The building first opened for classes in fall of 2011 and is located across the street from Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital.

Lebanon is served by the Lebanon Community Schools public school district, which includes Lebanon High School. It is also home to the private East Linn Christian Academy, which serves students from preschool through twelfth grade (PreK-12).

Western University of Health Sciences opened their College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific, Northwest in August 2011, the first new medical school in Oregon since Oregon Health & Science University was established.[15] The school opened with 107 students.

In 2017, Linn-Benton Community College opened its HealthCare Occupations Center beside the osteopathic college.

In 2021, Western University of Health Sciences opened its College of Health Sciences for students of physical therapy.

In 1847, Jeremiah and Jemima Ralston bought a pioneers' cabin, staked a claim, and built a log house on a low rise at what is now Ralston Park. Nearby, on today's Main Street, they built a store. It soon became a stop for gold seekers on their way to California. A village grew up around the store, and in 1855 the couple filed a plat for the town, naming it for Jeremiah's birthplace of Lebanon, Tennessee. They also donated land for the Santiam Academy, which the Methodist Episcopal Church operated until 1906.

Lebanon was established on the land of the Louis Band of the Santiam Kalapuya.Like other Kalapuya tribes, the Santiam had dwindled in number, from malaria and other diseases, before the Americans arrived. In 1855, the band sold the U.S. government their rights to the land and moved to a temporary reservation on a claim belonging to the Ralstons' son, just south of their own. There the band awaited removal to the Grand Ronde Valley.

In 1859, local men in search of a way to drive cattle to central Oregon discovered the Santiam Pass. Soon Lebanon found itself on another essential trade route. Linn County stockmen incorporated the Willamette Valley and Cascade Mountain Road in 1864, and vacationers as well as stockmen came to rely on what came to be called the Santiam Wagon Road. This toll road was later replaced with U.S. Highway 20.

Transportation was often easier by water than land in the early decades of American settlement in the Willamette Valley. The South Santiam River was too shallow for large boats, so in 1872 construction began on a canal to carry barges laden with goods between Lebanon and Albany. But the water flowed too fast for upstream shipping, and the coming of the railroad curtailed downstream shipping. Today, however, the canal is still in use, running through Lebanon backyards to provide water for the people of Albany.

Railroads helped Lebanon provide its goods not only to Albany but to the world. The Albany–Lebanon Railroad, completed in 1880, was a branch of the Oregon and California Railroad's north–south line through Albany. The Southern Pacific eventually took over these lines and, in 1910, rerouted the old Oregonian line through Lebanon.

From the 1890s on, a great variety of farming and food-processing industries flourished in the area. Eastern Oregon came to dominate in wheat growing, but Lebanon-area farmers produced orchard fruits, berries, walnuts, filberts, hops, flax, vegetables, forage crops, turkeys, mohair, honey, and flowers for florists. Lebanon had a cheese factory, a creamery, potato warehouses, a cannery, and prune and nut driers. In the 1920s, the local grass-seed industry got its start, and by the 1930s Linn County was the leading county in grass-seed production in the United States.

Lebanon's most celebrated crop has been strawberries. By 1907, Lebanon was one of the leading strawberry-growing areas in the Willamette Valley. Lebanon's Strawberry Festival – featuring, since 1931, "the World's Largest Strawberry Shortcake" – has been an annual event since 1909. As of 2020, however, only one local strawberry field remains.

The local wood-products industry began to grow around 1900, which the supply of timber in the upper Midwest declined. The industry began to boom when the Oregon and Electric Railroad was completed, in 1932. New sawmills were built along the line in town as well as in the mountains. From 1937 to 1942, twenty new mills opened in the city; they made a great variety of wood products. The paper mill, which had originally made paper from wheat straw, doubled in size in 1936 to process logs that were floated down the South Santiam River. The local population swelled, and the Great Depression had little effect on the city.

In 1940, a still greater boom began. That year, Evans Products built what was purported to be the biggest plywood mill in the world. "Evansville" became a station on the Oregon and Electric line. World War II increased the demand for plywood, and women took men's places in the mill. From 1940 to 1950, Lebanon's population grew by 115 percent.

In 1952, the plywood plant, now called Cascade Plywood, began producing Lebanite, a hard composite board. Lebanon residents began calling themselves Lebanites. Cascade Plywood came to dominate Lebanon's economy.

Lebanon's economy began a slow decline in the 1970s. As overharvesting in the nearby forests made timber extraction more expensive, the mills began closing. Lebanon's paper mill closed in 1980, the plywood mill in 1984, and the Lebanite hardwood plant in 2004. Weyerhaeuser shut down the last of the big mills in 2006 and 2007. Unemployment rocketed, and Main Street storefronts were left empty.

In the twenty-first century, the city's economy has improved. The openings of the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific Northwest, in 2011, the Edward C. Allworth Veterans’ Home, in 2017, and Linn-Benton Community College's HealthCare Occupations Center, in 2017, have sparked growth. Weyerhaeuser opened the state-of-the-art Santiam Lumber sawmill in 2008, only one year after closing down the old Bauman sawmill. Main Street storefronts and old houses are being renovated, and brewpubs, bakeries, and other new businesses are thriving.

• David W. Ballard (1824–1875), governor of Idaho territory
• Carson "Skeeter" Bigbee (1895–1964), professional baseball outfielder
• Eric Castle (1970–), former NFL safety and special teams player for the San Diego Chargers
• Warren C. Gill (1912–1987), Coast Guard veteran, Oregon State Representative and State Senator
• Michael Merzenich (1942–), world-renowned neuroscientist
• Jo Collins (1945–), actress and 1965 Playmate of the Year
• Howard Hesseman (1940–2022), actor
• Ben Howland (1957–), college basketball coach
• Pat McQuistan (1983–), offensive lineman for the Arizona Cardinals
• Paul McQuistan (1983–), offensive lineman for the Seattle Seahawks
• Tom Medley (1920–2014), cartoonist (creator of Stroker McGurk) and magazine editor
• Katherine Ann Power (1949–), former fugitive for manslaughter and armed robbery
• Doug Riesenberg (1965–), former NFL offensive tackle
• Mike Royer (1941–), comic book artist at Marvel and DC Comics
• Dave Roberts (1951–), MLB third baseman
• Dick Smith (1939–2012), MLB outfielder and first baseman

• Media related to Lebanon, Oregon at Wikimedia Commons
• Entry for Lebanon in the Oregon Blue Book
• City of Lebanon website
• Chamber of Commerce
• Lebanon Express newspaper
• Lebanon Local newspaper
• Historic photos of Lebanon from Salem Public Library[h
• Lewis, David. "The 1851 Treaty Commission Journal: Santiam Kalapuya Negotiations."
• City of Lebanon Historic Context Statement
• "Lebanon" entry in Oregon Encyclopedia