Settling Oregon
Americans quickly populated the Far West and re-created there the small-town life of the eastern states. As early as 1845, as this drawing by a British military officer shows, Oregon City boasted a steepled church, several large merchandise warehouses, and several dozen houses. On the riverbank opposite the town stand several Native Americans, who had a very different way of life and would be steadily pushed off the lands of their ancestors. Library of Congress.