In 1859, Oregon became the 33rd state in the Union. Road to statehood celebrates Oregon's 150th birthday by exploring the lives of Native peoples already living here and the missionaries determined to change them, the mountain men and fur trappers who came for adventure and wealth and the pioneers who brought their hopes and prejudices with them over the Oregon Trail.

By 1941, a nascent statehood movement began to coalesce into an active and explicit secession campaign seeking to carve from Northern California and Southern Oregon a new State of Jefferson. Yreka, California, home of the secession movement, was named the temporary state capital. Local proponents, Members of the State of Jefferson Citizens Committee, began to stop traffic along Highway 99 at armed roadblocks to pass out political broadsides — their...