Robert Somers Brookings - Brookings, OR
Posted by: 
silverquill
N 42° 03.074 W 124° 17.014
10T E 393782 N 4656261
The town of Brookings, Oregon, was little more than a collection of stores, farms, and hotels at the mouth of the Chetco River until Robert S. Brookings established a lumber company here in 1915. He sold it in 1921, but the name Brookings stuck.
Waymark Code: WM5W14
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 02/18/2009
Views: 9
From the
THE BROOKINGS:
Robert S. Brookings was born and acquired his early education in Cecil County, Maryland, before moving to St. Louis, Missouri at age 17. He began as a clerk and later traveling salesman for Cupples and Marston, manufacturers and distributors of woodenware. In less than four years he became a partner in the firm at age twenty-one and helped build the business into one of the largest wholesale traders in the United States.
He achieved remarkable success in business at an early age, and began to reach out for a broader perspective through education and travel. At 24, he spent a year in Berlin and traveled throughout Europe, nursing a dream to become a musician. He eventually returned to America and resumed his successful business career that carried him into the twentieth century.
Learn More
As a civic leader and philanthropist, Brookings turned his creative energy to building Washington University and other St. Louis institutions until, with the coming of World War I, he moved to Washington, D.C. and onto the world stage. He served on the new War Industries Board as commissioner of Finished Products and chairman of the Price Fixing Committee. In this role he became the link between the government and hundreds of industries. He achieved remarkable results under very difficult circumstances, and for his war service he was recognized with the U.S. Distinguished Service Medal, the French Legion of Honor, and Italy's Commander of the Crown.
His work within the government during the war showed him the need for improved economic research and a trained corps of civil servants. In 1916, Brookings worked with other government reformers to create the first private organization devoted to the fact-based study of national public policy. The new Institute for Government Research became the chief advocate for effective and efficient public service and sought to bring "science" to the study of government.
Brookings created two sister organizations: the Institute of Economics in 1922 and a graduate school in 1924. In 1927, the institutes and the school merged to form the present-day Brookings Institution, with the mission to promote, conduct and foster research "in the broad fields of economics, government administration and the political and social sciences."
Brookings is located at the mouth of the Chetco River in southwestern Oregon. It was originally explored in the late 16th Century by European explorers, but was not colonized. The land was the home of the Cheti, which were a native hunter-gatherer society.
All this would change in 1853, when white settlers came up the river and set up a small town. They renamed the native population the Chetco, as well as the river that they lived along. Three years after setting up shop, the settlers forced the Chetco Tribe off their land and onto the Siletz Indian Reservation near Newport.
The town of Chetco set up a modest logging industry, taking advantage of the abundance of forested land in the area. The main camp for this operation was on the south bank of the river, near Harbor, Oregon. In 1907, Robert Brookings (of Brookings Institution fame) spent 5 million dollars to set up a logging operation on the north bank of the Chetco. In 1914, Brookings hired Bernard Maybeck, who designed Golden Gate Park, to design a town on the north bank for his employees to life in. This plan would eventually develop into the town of Brookings.
CENTRAL BUILDING
Built in 1915 by Robert S. Brookings, this building served as the administrative building for California and Oregon Lumber Co. which he founded in 1915 and sold six years later. It is now houses a mini-mall, a real estate office, and small museum. It has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
After World War I, the company started running into problems. There was little infrastructure connecting Brookings with any other towns in the area, let alone the rest of the country. The isolation meant paying workers more to come and work at the mill. In 1921, Robert Brookings sold his stake in the company to the Stout Lumber Company. Eventually, even the new ownership fell into disarray, and the mill was shut down in the summer of 1925. The day the mill closed, the population of Brookings dropped from 1500 to 200.
A minor gold rush occurred shortly after. A local found about $18,000 worth in the Chetco River. While no other large finds of gold have ever been found, there were reports of big finds well after.
History from: Everything2
The Japanese Attack on Oregon
On September 9, 1942, the Japanese made their first direct attack on the U.S. mainland near Brookings when small planes launched from an offshore submarine dropped two incendiary bombs in a failed attempt to start massive forest fires.