Around Oregon in 1959…
- President Eisenhower proclaimed Oregon's 100th anniversary. (Oregon became the 33rd state on February 14, 1859.)
- 37-year-old Mark O. Hatfield was governor.
- The Oregon Centennial Exposition and International Trade Fair held at what is now the Portland Expo Center in North Portland. It was the largest fair held in the West since the 1939 Golden Gate Expo in San Francisco, and the keynote speaker was Richard Nixon. Festivities were held all over the state throughout the year, and included a play, a musical, parades, specially commissioned artworks by artist Carl Morris, and a new centennial train at the Oregon Zoo.
- A gallon of gas was 25 cents.
- Witnesses say life in Oregon in 1959 was more like it was in 1909 than 2009.
Also way back then…
- Rosy, the zoo's first Asian elephant and the first elephant ever to live in Oregon, had arrived in Portland from Thailand in 1953 to much fanfare.
- 1962 saw the birth of Packy, the first elephant born in this country in 44 years, and the first of many baby elephants at the zoo. Attendance exceeded one million.
- In 1960, the 1 1/2 mile train extension to Washington Park opened. The line was surveyed by the Southern Pacific Railroad. It was constructed with the help of the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway (now part of the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway) and the Portland Terminal Railroad Co. The Union Pacific hauled ballast donated by the school children in Prineville, Oregon, at no charge.
