Eugene is named after its founder, Eugene Franklin Skinner. In 1846, Skinner erected the first cabin in the area. It was used as a trading post and was registered as an official post office on January 8, 1850. At this time the location was known as Skinner's Mudhole.[8] Skinner founded Eugene in 1862 and later ran a ferry service across the Willamette River where the Ferry Street Bridge now stands.
The first major educational institution in the area was Columbia College. It was founded a few years earlier than the University of Oregon. It fell victim to two major fires in four years, and after the second fire the college decided not to rebuild again. The part of south Eugene known as College Hill was the former location of Columbia College. There is no college there today.
The town raised the initial funding to start a public university, which later became the University of Oregon, with the hope of turning the small town into a cultural center of learning. In 1872, the Legislative Assembly passed a bill creating the University of Oregon as a state institution. Eugene bested the nearby town of Albany in the competition for the state university. In 1873, community member J. H. D. Henderson donated the hilltop land for the campus, overlooking the city.
The University first opened in 1876 with the regents electing the first faculty, and naming John Wesley Johnson as president. The first students registered on October 16, 1876. The first building was completed in 1877; it was named Deady Hall in honor of the first Board of Regents President and community leader Judge Matthew P. Deady.
The University of Oregon has been a leader in diversity since its very beginning. Its inaugural class included two Japanese students.
Willamette Street circa 1920Eugene is the home of Oregon's largest publicly owned water and power utility, the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB). EWEB got its start in the first decade of the 20th century, after a typhoid epidemic was traced to the groundwater supply. The city of Eugene condemned the private utility and began treating river water (first the Willamette; later the McKenzie) for domestic use. EWEB got into the electric business when power was needed for the water pumps. Excess electricity was used for street lighting.
-Xephorius
