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QuickTake:
Cal Young was, among many other things, the University of Oregon's first football coach, founder of the Lane County History Museum and creator of the Oakway Golf Course.
The origins of University of Oregon football go back to Charles and Mary Young, who settled on Kalapuya land in 1852, and had a son, Calvin “Cal” Young, born in 1871. Their homestead was across the Willamette River from city of Eugene founders Eugene and Mary Skinner.
Oregon football begins
I spoke with Robin Myers, executive director of the Lane County History Museum, about Young. She told me he attended Portland’s Bishop Scott Academy in 1886, at the age of 15, tried football, and stayed two more years to teach. When he returned to Eugene, he was asked to help organize Oregon’s first football team, and was hired as the coach.
That Oregon team started practice in late 1893 but soon tired of scrimmaging against each other. Coach Young arranged for Albany Collegiate Institute, later to become Portland’s Lewis & Clark College, to take the train down for Oregon’s first game, played on March 24, 1894, on a field where the Lillis Business Complex is today.
Oregon dominated 44-2. Young then handed off the coaching reins for the fall season, finishing with an undefeated career record of 1-0. He was 22, making him the youngest Oregon football coach of all time. If you’ve heard that Dan Lanning, at age 35, was Oregon’s youngest coach, that refers to the modern era.
Lane County History Museum
In addition to his love of football, Young had a passion for history. He heard stories from his parents about the Oregon Trail and knew many other pioneers. To ensure that history wouldn’t be lost, he collected early wagons, farm equipment, clothing, costumes and more.
And to help the stories come alive for others, in 1926 Young created the annual Oregon Trail Pageant. Each one was a festival of local history lasting several days, with plays, costumes and parades down Willamette Street. A pageant sometimes included more than 2,000 community members, along with many oxen and horses pulling authentic wagons and carts.
Myers explained that the last pageant took place in 1950, and it was no accident that the museum was finally built a year later to house the large vehicles and other props that were used in the pageant. They were authentic pioneer artifacts, mostly specific to Lane County. Before the museum existed, Young stored this monumental collection in several large barns.
An example of Young’s collection, front and center at today’s museum, is the Reed Wagon, one of the best-preserved Oregon Trail covered wagons. That famous wagon was the mobile birthplace of Bianca Reed, born in 1850 on the rough Barlow Road segment of the Oregon Trail near Mount Hood. Fast-forward to Reed at age 83, when she rode in the same wagon as an honorary queen of the 1934 parade.
Mr. Lane County
Known as “Mr. Lane County,” Young, 85, died Jan. 30, 1957, and is buried at Gillespie Cemetery, near the road that bears his name. During his lifetime he worked as football coach, historian, farmer, miner, police chief, school board member, county commissioner, and Eugene opera house manager.
Golf may seem an unlikely addition to that resume, but if you’ve ever visited the Oakway Golf Course, you were on land that he owned and farmed. He began turning part of that farmland over for golf in 1929 so that “anyone could play his favorite sport,” according to the Oakway Golf Course company history.
Ferry Street, before the bridge
This photo reminds me how fortunate we are to have bridges. Local history provides a new way of seeing such simple but important things. Perhaps that’s a reason Cal Young worked so hard to preserve our past.
