1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Eugene

EUGENE, a city and the county-seat of Lane county, Oregon, U.S.A., on the Willamette river, at the head of navigation, about 125 m. S. of Portland. Pop. (1900) 3236, of whom 237 were foreign-born; (1910 Federal census) 9009. Eugene is served by the Southern Pacific railroad and by interurban electric railway. It is situated on the edge of a broad and fertile prairie, at the foot of a ridge of low hills and within view of the peaks of the Coast Range; the streets are pleasantly shaded with Oregon maples. The city is most widely known as the seat of the University of Oregon. This institution, opened in 1876 and having 95 instructors and 734 students in 1907–1908, occupies eight buildings on a grassy slope along the river bank, and embraces a college of literature, science and the arts, a college of engineering, a graduate school, and (at Portland) a school of law and a school of medicine. In the city is the Eugene Divinity School of the Disciples of Christ, opened in 1895. Eugene is the commercial centre of an extensive agricultural district; does a large business in grain, fruit, hops, cattle, wool and lumber; and has various manufactures, including flour, lumber, woollen goods and canned fruit. Eugene was settled in 1854, and was first incorporated in 1864.