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The Great Flood: A Geologic
Event Which Shaped Salem
Salem is located at the confluence of Mill Creek and the
Willamette River. Since its settlement in the 1840’s
the city has grown north and east onto the flat valley
floor and expanded south and west into the Salem and Eola
Hills. Twelve thousand years ago horses, camels, mammoths,
bison, deer, bear, panthers, tigers, and lions roamed
the valley. Thousands of birds, including giant condors,
hawks, eagles, geese... Learn
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Ice Age In The Willamette
Valley
Although no glaciers got into the Willamette Valley during
the ice ages between 2 million years ago and about 12,000
years ago the effects of this cold interval were profound
on this area. Glacial ice is probably the most effective
agent to wear and grind down rock ever devised by nature.
The ice ages saw incredible amounts of material being
flushed into the valley from the east out of the Cascades.
As this great mass of sand, silt and gravel flowed into
the valley born on streams it began to clog and plug the
natural stream system creating a network of shallow ponds...
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Hugh "Tip" Hennessey Recounts Salem's
Mammoth Discovery
I have been involved in the cattle business for the
past forty years, and in the Spring of 1994, I purchased
a 285 acre farm in southeast Salem, just north of Turner,
for both business (and) pleasure, and the beauty of
the country. We feed a lot of cattle and from Spring
through Fall most of that feed comes from pasture. So
it did not sit well with me when the Northwest Natural
Gas Company informed me that they intended to dig a
ten foot deep, four foot wide trench through our land.
We would be losing a large area of our pasture for the
better part of a year. However, the work began in the
Spring of 1995, and by July, the trench was about halfway
completed. This is when an unfortunate situation turned
into a "mammoth" discovery.
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Woolly Mammoths In Salem
A long time ago huge beasts wandered the land on which
Salem is built. In 1995 that theory was proven correct
by the discovery of the remains of two tusks and a jaw
bone on the southeast Salem farm of Tip and Mary Ann Hennessey.
The remains were discovered by surprised workmen who were
digging a trench for a gas company pipeline. Later, a
paleontologist identified the samples as being from a
Woolly Mammoth. Learn More
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