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Map of Pacific Northwest

 “I saw the Columbia River and the big Grand Coulee Dam from just about every cliff, mountain, tree, post, and every other angle from which it can be seen." 

          ~Woody Guthrie 

While working for the Bonneville Power Administration in Portland, OR, he traveled up and down the Columbia River. He stayed in a Hooverville, and rented out an apartment in the Lents neighbored. He worked in an office on the second floor of a building on NE Oregon street, recording the songs in the basement.

Monuments and tributes to Guthrie populate the Portland area, a few our highlighted on the Travelin' with Woody in the Pacific Northwest map. More landmarks will be added to the map.

 
View Travelin with Woody in the Pacific NW in a larger map

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BPA History Page

Created by an act of Congress in 1937, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is a federal non-profit agency based in the Pacific Northwest.  As part of the U.S. Department of Energy, BPA markets electric power from the Bonneville Dam and markets wholesale electrical power from thirty-one federal hydro projects along the Columbia River to and provides power to eight western states:  Oregon, California, Idaho, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada.  The fourth largest river on the continent, the Columbia generates more power than any other river in North America. 

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Woody Guthrie History

Woody Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma on July 14, 1912.  He taught himself to play guitar and harmonica early in life, and by the mid-1930s, had traveled to Texas and California where he gained notoriety on radio performing “old-time” and county music songs.  In the 1940s, ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax recorded Guthrie’s repertory for the Library of Congress; worked for the Bonneville Power Administration; wrote and performed music with Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers, and recorded songs for Folkways Records, including his most celebrated composition, “This Land is Your Land.”  During the 1950s and 1960s, appreciation for Guthrie’s music grew, having a profound influence on younger folk and rock artists including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Jack Elliott.  Guthrie died on October 3, 1967.

During his lifetime, Woody Guthrie composed nearly 3,000 songs; he also published two books created artwork, and wrote prose works, poems, plays and news articles. 

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