The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is a department of the

state government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonom ...

of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

responsible for systems of

transport Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land ( rail and road), water, cable, pipelin ...

ation. It was first established in 1969.History of ODOT
/ref> It had been preceded by the Oregon State Highway Department which, along with the Oregon State Highway Commission, was created by an act of the

Oregon Legislative Assembly The Oregon Legislative Assembly is the state legislature for the U.S. state of Oregon. The Legislative Assembly is bicameral, consisting of an upper and lower house: the Senate, whose 30 members are elected to serve four-year terms; and the ...

in 1913. It works closely with the five-member Oregon Transportation Commission (the modern name of the Highway Commission) in managing the state's transportation systems. The Oregon Transportation Commission, formerly the Oregon State Highway Commission, is a five-member governor-appointed

government agency A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an administrati ...

that manages the

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

s and other transportation in the

, in conjunction with the Oregon Department of Transportation.

Inception

Oregon Transportation Building April 2009 (3466679688)

The first State Highway Commission was created on August 12, 1913, and was composed of

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Oswald West Oswald West (May 20, 1873 – August 22, 1960) was an American politician, a Democrat, who served most notably as the 14th Governor of Oregon. He was called "Os West" by Oregon writer Stewart Holbrook, who described him as "by all odds the m ...

, Secretary of State

Ben W. Olcott Ben Wilson Olcott (October 15, 1872July 21, 1952) was an American politician of the Republican Party who served as the 16th Governor of Oregon. Early life Olcott was born in Keithsburg, Illinois. He was educated at a Keithsburg elementary ...

and

Treasurer A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The significant core functions of a corporate treasurer include cash and liquidity management, risk management, and corporate finance. Government The treasury ...

Thomas B. Kay. On January 12, 1915, James Withycombe became Governor and replaced Oswald West on the commission. The 1917

redesigned the State Highway Commission, with citizens appointed to replace the elected officials. The new commissioners held their first meeting on March 6, and the commission was then known as the Oregon Highway Division. As Oregon's transportation needs started to grow, the division expanded and, in 1919, it employed their first State Bridge Engineer,

Conde McCullough Conde Balcom McCullough (May 30, 1887 – May 6, 1946) was an American civil engineer who is primarily known for designing many of Oregon's coastal bridges on U.S. Route 101. The native of South Dakota worked for the Oregon Department of Tr ...

Events

By 1920, Oregon had of paved roads and of

plank road A plank road is a road composed of wooden planks or puncheon logs. Plank roads were commonly found in the Canadian province of Ontario as well as the Northeast and Midwest of the United States in the first half of the 19th century. They were oft ...

s for a population of 783,389 and, by 1932, the work that had been started on the

Oregon Coast Highway Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

(also known as

U.S. Route 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, on the West Coast of the United States. It is also known as (The Royal Roa ...

) in 1914 was completed, except for five bridges, which meant greater responsibility for the division. This work was complete when the construction of the bridges over the Yaquina,

Alsea The Alsea are a Native American tribe of Western Oregon. They are (since 1856), confederated with other Tribes on the Siletz Reservation, Oregon, and are members of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz. Their origin story says that the Yaquina, Al ...

, Siuslaw, and Umpqua rivers and

Coos Bay Coos Bay is an estuary where the Coos River enters the Pacific Ocean, the estuary is approximately 12 miles long and up to two miles wide. It is the largest estuary completely within Oregon state lines. The Coos Bay watershed covers an area of abou ...

were completed, closing the last gaps in the highway. By 1940, the highway division was managing more than of state, market and country roads in Oregon, with nearly being hard-surfaced. ODOT Regions

In 2018, the city government of

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous ...

and ODOT entered into an intergovernmental agreement in which the Portland city government takes over the cleanups of transient camps on ODOT right-of-way in select locations in Portland in exchange for payments from ODOT. In 2019, ODOT installed boulders at five locations in Portland to deter transient camps around the freeways. The installations have received support from neighbors while criticized by homeless advocacy groups.

Exploding whale incident

On November 12, 1970, the department was tasked with disposing of a dead

sperm whale The sperm whale or cachalot (''Physeter macrocephalus'') is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the genus ''Physeter'' and one of three extant species in the sperm whale famil ...

that washed ashore on the beach near

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

. The department exploded the dead whale using half a ton of dynamite to blast it off the beach. Pieces of dead whale went everywhere including the beach, bystanders, a parking lot and a park, severely damaging at least one car. ''

Willamette Week ''Willamette Week'' (''WW'') is an alternative weekly newspaper and a website published in Portland, Oregon, United States, since 1974. It features reports on local news, politics, sports, business, and culture. History Early history ''Willam ...

'' reports "The decision to publicly dynamite an enormous mammal has become one of Oregon's all-time most bizarre moments." This became known as the " exploding whale incident".

Directors

* John Fulton — July 1, 1969 – December 31, 1970 * George Baldwin — January 1, 1971 – June 30, 1971 * Sam Haley — July 1, 1971 – July 8, 1973 * George Baldwin — July 9, 1973 – April 30, 1976 * Bob Burco — May 1, 1976 – January 8, 1979 * Fred Klaboe — January 9, 1979 – December 31, 1981 * Fred Miller — January 1, 1982 – February 16, 1987 * Bob Bothman — February 17, 1987 – June 30, 1991 * Don Forbes — July 1, 1991 – 1995 *

Grace Crunican Grace Crunican (born 1955) is a mass transportation specialist who most recently served as General Manager of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District. She had previously worked for the Oregon Department of Transportation, the Feder ...

— 1996 – 2001 * Bruce Warner — 2001 – 2005 * Matthew Garrett — December 19, 2005 – June 30, 2019 * Kris Strickler — September 2019 – Present

Slogans

* 1913 - "Get Oregon Out of the Mud"Business Services History Center
* 1957 - "Building Oregon Thru Better Highways" * 1958 - "Oregon Freeways...Symbol of 2nd Century Progress" * 1961 - "Freeways are Easier" * 1967 - "Fifty Years of Building Better Highways in Oregon" (not technically correct; the department was formed in 1913) * 1978 - "Keep Oregon Green and in the Black" * 1986 - "ODOT on the Move" * 2006 - "The way to go!"

References

External links

Exploding whale video on YouTube, linked from Willamette Week news article

Oregon Department of Transportation Museum online

Oregon Transportation Commission
{{authority control 1913 establishments in Oregon Motor vehicle registration agencies Transportation, Oregon Department of State departments of transportation of the United States Transportation in Oregon