Oregon Historical Society Hosts Portland Premiere Of The 2025–2026 Oregon Blue Book On Friday, April 18 (Photo) -04/16/25
Portland, OR — Join Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read in conversation with OHS Boyle Family Executive Director Kerry Tymchuk on Friday, April 18 at 12pm at the Oregon Historical Society as he shares highlights from the 2025–2026 edition of the Oregon Blue Book. Attendees will have the opportunity to purchase the first copies available for sale in Portland, and a collection of past Oregon Blue Books will also be on display.’’
Oregon law requires the Secretary of State to publish the Oregon Blue Book “biennially on or about February 15 of the same year as the regular session of the Legislative Assembly.” Each edition features beautiful cover images of Oregon captured by the winners of the Oregon Blue Book Cover Photo Contest. The 2025–2026 Oregon Blue Book front cover features a stunning capture from the Painted Cove in the Painted Hills Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, near Mitchell. Photographer Matt Straite of Keizer made the image which he titled, “The Many Sides of Oregon.” The back cover includes an amazing astrophotography shot titled “Comet/C2023 A” by Nathan Rohde of Shady Cove.
Secretary of State Ben Olcott published the first edition in 1911 in response to an “increased demand for information of a general character concerning Oregon,” and it ran 131 pages. As Oregon has grown and expanded, so, too, has the Oregon Blue Book, with the 2023–2024 edition clocking in at 415 pages.
Contained in the pages you can find almost anything you would want to know about Oregon, ranging from the population of each of Oregon’s cities and counties to the names and addresses of state officials, state agencies, and commissions. For history buffs, the Oregon Blue Book also includes an essay and timeline summarizing Oregon’s complex history as well as the text of the Oregon State Constitution.
About the Oregon Historical Society
For more than 125 years, the Oregon Historical Society has served as the state’s collective memory, preserving a vast collection of objects, photographs, maps, manuscript materials, books, films, and oral histories. Our research library, museum, digital platforms, educational programming, and historical journal make Oregon’s history open and accessible to all. We exist because history is powerful, and because a history as deep and complex as Oregon’s cannot be contained within a single story or point of view.