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The Most Famous Person from Each County in Oregon

If you think Oregon only runs "Portlandia"-deep, think again. It takes all kinds in the Beaver State, a place that's been home to Hollywood icons, championship athletes, a Nobel Prize winner, a sneaker genius, a U.S. president and one infamous guru. To celebrate Oregon's colorful history, we've gathered the most famous figures we could find who spent time in every one of the state's 36 counties. Some were born here, others were just passing through, and some still call it home. To narrow down this list, we left a number of people on the cutting room floor: let us know if we missed your county's biggest name.

-- David Greenwald

dgreenwald@oregonian.com

503-294-7625; @davidegreenwald

Instagram: Oregonianmusic

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Baker County

Baker City-born Leo Adler was a lifelong entrepreneur: he started selling magazines at age 9 and never stopped, building a business stretching across seven states. Known for his charity, his namesake foundation has given away millions in scholarships and community fund grants. Following his death in 1993, Baker City honored Adler with the Leo Adler Memorial Parkway in 2001; his 1889 home is now a museum.

Runner up: Henry Griffin, namesake of Griffin Gulch, who discovered a gold nugget there in 1861 and prompted the Eastern Oregon gold rush.

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Benton County

Known as "The Glove," NBA Hall of Famer Gary Payton got his start at Corvallis' Oregon State. In 1990, Sports Illustrated put the college point guard on the cover and named him Player of the Year: he still holds a number of school records.

Runners-up: Jacoby Ellsbury, the $153 million Yankees outfielder took Oregon State to the College World Series in 2005. "Into Thin Air" author Jon Krakauer learned his love of the outdoors as a kid in Corvallis.

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Clackamas County

Figure skater Tonya Harding was once a national champion who practiced at the Clackamas Town Center Mall—before being tied to a plot to attack Olympic rival Nancy Kerrigan in 1994. (She still denies direct involvement.)

Runners-up: NBA star and former Lake Oswego Lakers player Kevin Love; actress and Bruce Springsteen ex Julianne Phillips, who wed the Boss at the Our Lady of the Lake Parish.

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Clatsop County

Before he was the "Gone with the Wind" leading man, Clark Gable was another Oregon stage actor, performing with the Astoria Players Stock Company in the 1920s. In Astoria, he met Josephine Dillon, his first wife and acting coach: the two split in 1930, just as his Hollywood career was about to take off.

Runner-up: Holly Madison, "Girls Next Door" reality star, was born in Astoria in 1979.

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Randy L. Rasmussen

Columbia County

Influential writer Raymond Carver, whose short stories and poetry examined blue-collar life, was born in Clatskanie before a childhood in Yakima, Washington.

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Coos County

Track great Steve Prefontaine, whose career was cut short in a 1975 car accident, was born in Coos Bay. An Olympian and NCAA star at the University of Oregon, he set a number of U.S. records and became the athlete Runners World called "the most influential American runner ever." He's buried in his hometown, at Sunset Memorial Park.

Runner-up: Bandon author Timothy Zahn, whose bestselling "Star Wars" books expanded the galaxy far, far away beyond George Lucas' movie universe.

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Crook County

Journalist and former Oregon governor Tom McCall grew up in both Massachusetts and at Westernwold, his family's Oregon ranch. His legacy lives on in environmental efforts such as 1971's "Bottle Bill," Senate Bill 100's land-use regulatory system and Portland's own Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

Runners-up: Body-building legend Bill Pearl was born in Prineville, as was baseball player Wally Backman, who won a World Series with the 1986 Mets.

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Curry County

Actor Gregory Harrison, known for "Logan's Run," Trapper John, M.D." and "One Tree Hill," called a 45-acre Gold Beach estate home for years, alongside actress wife Randi Oakes.

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Deschutes County

"I got a DUI in Bend, Oregon, where I live now, very happily," "Lost" actor Matthew Fox told Ellen DeGeneres in 2012. "I was not happy about the DUI at all." Fox has also starred on "Party of Five" and films including "Alex Cross."

Runner-up: Thomas Beattie, the transgender activist and Bend resident who made headlines and an "Oprah" appearance as the "pregnant man" in 2008.

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Douglas County

Pittsburgh Steelers star and two-time Super Bowl winner Troy Polamalu spent his early days at Winston's Douglas High, where he was a top running back alongside baseball and basketball success.

Runner-up: Roseburg's Alek Skarlatos, the National Guardsman who made international news when he helped stop a gunman on a Paris-bound train in 2015—and went on to "Dancing with the Stars."

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Gilliam County

Linus Pauling grew up in Condon before a career in science and activism that saw him win both the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the Nobel Peace Prize. The Condon State Airport, also known as Pauling Field, is named in his honor.

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Courtesy of Library of Congress

Grant County

Writer and frontiersman Joaquin Miller became known as the "Poet of the Sierras" in the 1800s, with his verses bringing visions of the American west as far as England. His cabin still stands in Canyon City, where he was one of the county's earliest judges.

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Harney County

San Diego Chargers quarterback Kellen Clemens, a pro since 2006, grew up in Burns where he threw for a state-record 8,646 yards with the Burns Hilanders.

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Hood River County

Science fiction writer Damon Knight, a contemporary of Isaac Asimov and others, is best known for "To Serve Man"—the short story that became a classic "Twilight Zone" episode. Born in Baker, he spent his childhood in Hood River before landing in New York.

Runners-up: Sammy Carlson, the X Games freestyle skiing medalist; swimmer Kim Peyton, born in Hood River, won an Olympic gold medal in the 400-meter relay in 1976. The athlete died of a brain tumor at just 29.

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Jackson County

Ginger Rogers, the glamorous, Oscar-winning Hollywood star famous for her roles (and footwork) alongside Fred Astaire, bought a 1,000-acre ranch along the Rogue River in 1940. Roberta Olden, her former personal secretary, called the Oregon property "her hideaway."

Runners-up: "Vertigo" actress Kim Novak still lives in Southern Oregon; director David Fincher spent his teen years in Ashland; cult actor Bruce Campbell has a home in Jacksonville; innovative Olympic high jumper Dick Fosbury grew up in Medford; Vladimir Nabokov worked on "Lolita" in Ashland in the summer of 1953.

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Associated Press

Jefferson County

Actor River Phoenix was born in Madras in 1970, and found his Hollywood breakthrough in the Brownsville-filmed "Stand By Me." But the child star turned promising leading man's career was cut shot when he died of a 1993 drug overdose.

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Josephine County

"Modern Family" actor Ty Burrell was born in Grants Pass, and though he's since moved to New York and Los Angeles, he still loves Oregon: "It's the coolest place on Earth," he told the Oregonian in 2009.

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Klamath County

James Ivory, the Oscar-nominated director and co-founder of production company Merchant Ivory, has spent almost every summer since 1941 at his family's cabin on Lake of the Woods.

Runner up: 1996 Olympic gold medalist and decathlete Dan O'Brien is a Klamath Falls native who graduated Henley High School. Both the school's football field and a Klamath Falls street, Dan O'Brien Way, bear his name.

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Lake County

Two-time Olympic medalist Jean Saubert (center) picked up her silver and bronze in skiing events at the 1964 games, not long after her 1960 graduation from Lakeview High. The Oregon State grad stayed an Oregonian: she taught in the Hillsboro School District for 22 years.

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Lane County

Grunge star Courtney Love, who rose to fame and controversy alongside late husband Kurt Cobain, spent a hippie childhood in Eugene and Marcola before becoming Seattle royalty.

Runners-up: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" writer and Springfield native Ken Kesey; quarterback Marcus Mariota, who won the 2014 Heisman Trophy with Eugene's Oregon Ducks and fell just short of a national championship.

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Lincoln County

Sports memorabilia dealer Bruce Fromong, immortalized in ESPN's "O.J. Simpson: Made in America," was robbed by the former athlete and murder suspect in 2007. But before that, he was born in Lincoln City, where he graduated Taft High School.

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Dave Killen

Linn County

All those Californians moving to Oregon can thank Leonard Shoen: the founder of U-Haul operated an Albany barbershop during his college days at Oregon State.

Runners-up: Decathlete and Olympian Dave Johnson; NFL brothers Paul and Pat McQuistan.

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Boris Chaliapin

Malheur County

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and poet Phyllis McGinley was born in Ontario in 1905: in 1965, she made the cover of Time magazine.

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Marion County

Actor Jon Heder, "Napoleon Dynamite" himself, grew up in Salem before Hollywood stardom.

Runner up: Guitarist John Fahey, one of "acoustic music's true innovators and eccentrics," according to AllMusic, made his mark from Salem, where he died in 2001.

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Morrow County

DeeAnn Angell and Kay Rene Reed made national headlines in 2009 when news emerged that the two women, born in Heppner's Pioneer Memorial Hospital in 1953, were switched at birth.

Runner up: Barbara McLarty, the longtime Portland gallerist and art scene advocate, taught school in Morrow before heading west.

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Multnomah County

If there's one person who's brought Oregon to the world, it's Phil Knight—the Nike co-founder whose '70s track shoe business has become a Beaverton-based global behemoth, with its iconic brand associated with top athletes from Michael Jordan to Tiger Woods. Though Nike's faced controversies, including 1990s protests over labor practices, Knight's also been a major philanthropist, with he and wife Penny making a $500 million donation to launch Oregon Health & Science University's cancer detection program.

Runners-up: Cooking mogul James Beard; Trail Blazers great Damon Stoudamire; Mel Blanc, the shape-shifting voice of Bugs Bunny, Barney Rubble and dozens more animated favorites; Monica Lewinsky, the Lewis & Clark grad who become embroiled in a White House scandal; and countless other musicians, athletes and actors; and Ursula K. Le Guin, the influential writer of classics such as "The Left Hand of Darkness" and the Earthsea series.

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Polk County

'50s singer Johnnie Ray, who had hits with "Cry" and "Please, Mr. Sun," was born in Dallas in 1927.

Runner-up: College football great and Oregon Sports Hall of Famer Johnny Kitzmiller.

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Sherman County

The DeMoss Family, a multi-generation singing group that played thousands of concerts across America for six decades, settled in Sherman in the 1880s. At the time, the DeMoss Springs settlement took their name: now a park and road honors their legacy.

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Tillamook County

Holly Madison isn't the only Oregonian Playboy star: fellow "Girls Next Door" celeb Bridget Marquardt was born in Tillamook.

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Umatilla County

NFL great and "Mr. Cowboy" Bob Lilly helped lead Dallas to two championship games, making a historic 29-yard sack of Miami's Bob Griese in a Super Bowl VI victory. But before that he was a senior star at Pendleton High School, where he was all-state in football and basketball.

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Union County

Born in La Grande, Dallas McKennon was a familiar presence on film and TV for decades, thanks to voice work in "The Lady and the Tramp," "One Hundred and One Dalmatians" and countless other roles—including Kellogg's enthusiastic Tony the Tiger.

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Wallowa County

John Fogerty, former leader of Creedence Clearwater Revival, spent years as a regular in Troy: he was interviewed there by a young Cameron Crowe for a 1976 Rolling Stone feature. Rock fans can even rent what claims to be his former cabin on Airbnb.

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Douglas Perry | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Wasco County

In one of Oregon's most curious tales, expatriate Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh gathered thousands of followers in a 64,000-acre ranch before a bioterror attack aimed at throwing the 1984 Wasco County elections. A $400,000 fine later, he was deported back to India.

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Washington County

KISS guitarist Tommy Thayer, an Oregon native, has been an active presence in Forest Grove: he serves on the board of directors for Pacific University, and does charity work and school appearances across the region.

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Wheeler County

Bill Bowerman, the lauded University of Oregon track coach and innovative Nike co-founder, spent his early years in Fossil, and died in the city in 1999 at age 88. Nike's "mad scientist," Bowman's breakthrough sneaker was 1974's Waffle Trainer: a shoe with a sole he designed in a waffle iron.

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Yamhill County

The Iowa-born Herbert Hoover, the U.S.'s 31st president, arrived in Oregon as a child in 1885: he spent three years living in Newberg before moving on to Salem. The former president dedicated his childhood residence as a museum, the Hoover-Minthorn House, in a Newberg homecoming in 1955.

Runner-up: Beloved author Beverly Cleary, whose books include "Ramona Quimby, Age 8" and "Dear Mr. Henshaw," was born and raised in McMinnville before a childhood move to Portland.