History
Plans to create a military cemetery in the Portland area started as early as 1941, and Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill to establish a national cemetery, but the necessary money to acquire the land was never allocated. Finally, in 1949 the state of Oregon donated 102 acres (41 ha) of land for the establishment of a National Cemetery. Construction was completed in 1950, and Willamette National Cemetery was officially opened on December 14 that year. The first interment did not take place until 1951. In 1952, another 100 acres (40 ha) of land were donated to the cemetery.
Willamette National Cemetery is a Blue Star Memorial Highway site.
Read more about this topic: Willamette National Cemetery
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“If usually the present age is no very long time, still, at our pleasure, or in the service of some such unity of meaning as the history of civilization, or the study of geology, may suggest, we may conceive the present as extending over many centuries, or over a hundred thousand years.”
—Josiah Royce (18551916)
“This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation, because as a result of what happened in this week, the world is bigger, infinitely.”
—Richard M. Nixon (19131995)