By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member

Linn County, West Linn and the Linnton neighborhood in north Portland are all named for a man who never visited the state…

By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member

Orphaned at age 10, James Knox Weatherford was passing the time three years later in 1864 at a mercantile in Unionville, Mo., when a friend of the family casually said to him:

“Jimmy, I’m leaving for Oregon tomorrow and you ought to come along and drive a team for me.”

By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member

Unlike the characters in the movie “Back to the Future,” Oscar B. Hult is taking the 108-year-old building that houses his upscale men’s clothing store back to the past.

By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member

Ninety-seven years ago, a national women’s group arranged to build and then run a facility on Highway 20 between Albany and Corvallis for children caught in a variety of difficult situations.

The Children’s Farm Home continues to operate to this day but under different ownership and with a different focus.

By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member

To escape the memories of a heart-breaking tragedy that occurred in Lebanon on New Year’s Eve 1887, John and Lottie Ralston left the town John Ralston’s father founded and moved to Albany.

Here’s what happened that night:

By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member

Controversial. Contentious. Quarrelsome. Argumentative. Bold. Took part in feuds. Always ready to defend with “tongue, pen, or pistol.”

Those words describe Jesse Quinn Thornton, who arrived in the Willamette Valley from Illinois in 1846, later practicing law in Albany.

By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member

If you thought that the historical sign on the Linn County Courthouse grounds marks a site on the Applegate Trail you would be wrong.

In fact, the trail north from Southern Oregon never came through Albany nor did it pass through Linn County.

By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member

Bill Maddy, Mike Franklin and Barbara Wallace Cullicott still have fresh memories of going to drive-in movie theaters while growing up in Albany and Corvallis.

And now a new generation of young and old is heading to the impromptu drive-ins setting up in business parking lots around the country.

The trend gives people the chance to escape from the confines of their homes during the pandemic, and it allows property owners to make extra money.