Brookings

History

In 1906, the Brookings Timber Company hired William James Ward, a graduate in civil engineering and forestry, to come to the southern Oregon Coast and survey its lumbering potential. After timber cruising the Chetco and Pistol River areas for several years, he concluded that conditions were favorable for extensive lumbering operations and advised the Brookings Timber Company accordingly to acquire a suitable townsite to accommodate both a mill and a shipping center. While John E. Brookings was responsible for the founding of Brookings as a company town, it was his cousin, Robert S. Brookings, who was responsible for its actual design. The latter Brookings hired Bernard Maybeck, an architect based in San Francisco who was later involved in the Panama–Pacific International Exposition, to lay out the plat of the townsite. On September 9, 1942, Mount Emily near Brookings became the only site in the mainland United States and the second in the continental territory after the bombing of Dutch Harbor to suffer aerial bombardment during World War II. A Japanese floatplane piloted by Nobuo Fujita was launched from submarine I-25. The plane was armed with two incendiary bombs on a mission intended to start massive fires in the dense forests of the Pacific Northwest. Fujita was invited to Brookings in 1962 and, as a token of friendship, gifted the city his 400-year-old family katana. Fujita later sponsored a trip to Japan for Brookings high school students and returned to the city three more times in the early 1990s. In 1997, Fujita was made an honorary citizen of Brookings by the city council. The Port of Brookings Harbor was damaged by tidal surges from a tsunami on March 11, 2011. The largest surge was estimated to be nearly . The tsunami was caused by the 9.0 MW Tōhoku…

Geography

Brookings is located along the southern Oregon coast at the mouth of the Chetco River. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. Brookings has a mild Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csb). According to the Trewartha climate classification, Brookings has a subtropical climate (Cf) since eight months are above . A weather phenomenon known as the "Chetco Effect" or the "Brookings Effect" can cause the temperature in Brookings near the Chetco River mouth to be much higher than that of the surrounding area. Adiabatic heating increases the temperature and reduces relative humidity as katabatic winds, driven by high pressure on the Great Basin, descend across the west slopes of the Cascade Range and Oregon Coast Range. The heart of Brookings, with its orientation, is protected from sea breezes coming from the northwest and the warm, dry, down-sloping winds that are funneled down the Coastal Range into the deep Chetco River gorge can reach the coast uninfluenced by the effects of the Pacific. This can result in large temperature gradients; when Brookings recorded its all-time record high on July 8, 2008 of , Crescent City, around south of Brookings, recorded a high temperature of just .}} |single line = Y |width = 50% |collapsed = Y |Jan record high F = 80 |Feb record high F = 85 |Mar record high F = 88 |Apr record high F = 92 |May record high F = 99 |Jun record high F = 100 |Jul record high F = 108 |Aug record high F = 101 |Sep record high F = 103 |Oct record high F = 100 |Nov record high F = 88 |Dec record high F = 79 |Jan high F = 53.7 |Feb high F = 54.7 |Mar high F = 55.4 |Apr high F = 57.9 |May high F = 61.7 |Jun high F = 64.6 |Jul high F = 66.6 |Aug high F = 66.4 |Sep high F =…

Race & ethnicity