The area became popular with fur traders. John Jacob Astor founded a fur depot at Astoria in 1811. Russian fur traders were also known to have been in the area for many years and agreed to cease operations in the 1820s. American and British traders continued to compete for influence in the area, agreeing to joint ownership in 1818. (Captain George Vancouver had explored Puget Sound and claimed it for Great Britain, and British explorer David Thompson had explored the area as well.)

The original capital of the Oregon Territory was Oregon City, at the northern end of the Willamette Valley; Dr. John McLoughlin's British Hudson's Bay Company built the city.

Settlers began coming to the Oregon area in larger numbers in the 1840s. They came on the Oregon Trail and by other ways, with a majority of them setting in the Willamette Valley. The discovery of gold on the coast diverted some settlement to that area. The Oregon Treaty, in 1846, resulted in Great Britain renouncing all claims to the region.

Congress created the Oregon Territory in 1848; this territory also included all of what is now Idaho and Washington and parts of both of what is now Montana and what is now Wyoming.

The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 brought in more settlers, as did the forced relocation of Native Americans. Oregon became a state on Feb. 14, 1859; its capital was Salem.