Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 12.djvu/201

NOTES. 193 The banquet, the annual address and the other exercises were all fitted to bring- keenest enjoyment to the heroes and heroines who won Oregon and laid here the foundations of a most promising civilization. Colonel Robert A. Miller was elected president; Joseph Buchtel, vice president; George H. Himes, secretary, and Charles E. Ladd, treasurer. STATE PARK AT CHAMPOEG. The Champoeg meeting of May 2, 1843, at which was ef- fected the first political organization of American settlements on the Pacific Coast, was of the highest order of historic im- portance. Mr. Joseph Buchtel's patriotic efforts to secure ade- quate public grounds at Champoeg for surroundings for an appropriate monument, auditorium and park are reported as crowned with success. A ten-acre tract has been secured to be added to the three acres already owned by the state. The funds were raised through private subscription. A growing historical sense will enable our future legis- latures to see the propriety of having this financial burden as- sumed by the state and also provision made for the erection of suitable monumental structures.