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If your graduation celebration involves balloons, make sure they are secured with a weight. Otherwise, they can float away and come into contact with overhead power lines.
Find Out MoreThe rising cost of gasoline and growing consequences of climate change are driving more and more people to look for alternatives to gas-powered vehicles. And EVs offer benefits that go beyond the gas pump.
Find Out MoreElectric mobility seems to be everywhere these days, but does availability equal accessibility? Here at EWEB we’ve determined that the answer is ‘no’ and are working to bridge that gap through EV car shares, community grants and electric bike rebates.
Find Out MoreIn Eugene, we take pride in knowing we have one of the cleanest power portfolios in the nation. Roughly 90% of Eugene's power comes from carbon-free hydroelectric energy. And EWEB has a long history offering robust conversation programs. But we wanted to do more, so we launched Lead Green, a suite of programs for climate innovators looking to support renewable energy and take action on climate change. In the year since Lead Green was launched, we've accomplished a lot we can be proud of.
Find Out MoreLearn some of the many ways EWEB customers support local schools and help inspire kids to explore the wonders of watershed health and clean energy resources.
Find Out MoreOur skilled journeymen are experts in their field, with thousands of training hours and real-world experiences.
Find Out MoreBy upgrading substations – key nodes in the electric grid – EWEB is investing today in a resilient electric grid for the future.
Find Out MoreA wrap up of the May 2nd EWEB Board of Commissioners Meeting
Find Out MoreSeventh graders in the Bethel School District put their handmade wind turbines to the test in a wind power challenge supported by EWEB grants last week.
Find Out MoreThe application period is now open for the Electric Mobility Community Grants. Mobility Grants of up to $25,000 will be awared to five nonprofits, schools and academic intitutions, government and other public agencies to cover costs associated with their electric mobility projects.
Find Out MoreEWEB's Greenpower subscribers voted to award this year's Greenpower Grant to Friends of Trees, a local nonprofit that brings trees to areas of Eugene and Springfield with low tree equity.
Find Out MoreFollow along as the Currin Substation, the first of 10 substations in 10 years, is rebuilt from the ground up as part of EWEB's Capital Improvement Plan for major infrastructure investments to rehabilitate, replace, and install new infrastructure.
Find Out MoreToday and every day, we celebrate and honor the hard work, innovation and dedication of electrical line workers.
Find Out MoreThe EWEB Board of Commissioners discussed prefunding Leaburg, the 2022 State of the Watershed report, and the General Manager's performance evaluation at their April 4th, 2023 meeting.
Find Out MoreIt’s spring-- the time of year when birds are nesting in our trees. EWEB crews take special care to avoid disrupting birds when they’re trimming trees. But tree trimming is a necessary part of delivering safe and reliable power. We went out with a crew to find out how it's done.
Find Out MoreFebruary 10, 2023 • Rachael McDonald, EWEB Communications
You may have noticed a plaque along the sidewalk on East 4th Avenue near the entrance to the employee parking lot at EWEB’s former headquarters building. It commemorates Wiley Griffon. He’s not considered the first Black resident of Eugene. But he is the first one mentioned by name, according to scholars.
Griffon was born in 1867. Despite Oregon’s exclusion laws that prohibited nonwhite citizens in the state, Griffon moved here from Texas in 1890. He served as the driver of Eugene’s streetcar service, which was powered by a mule, and ran from the train station to the University of Oregon. Griffon was, “driver, conductor, dispatcher, and largely the motive power by persistently shoving along the ambling mule.”
After the mule-driven streetcar shut down, Griffon worked at the University of Oregon, where he was the first African American employee. He worked as a janitor at the Men’s dormitory, Friendly Hall on campus.
Griffon was known to have worked several other jobs including serving as a waiter on a railroad dining car. In 1909, he purchased a home on the riverfront on the site of what’s now the EWEB employee parking lot. He died in 1913 at age 46.
Griffon was buried in the Eugene Masonic Cemetery, but his tombstone went missing sometime over the years. Recently, Eugene residents and students raised money to erect a historic monument at his gravesite.
The plaque was dedicated at EWEB Headquarters in 2017. It was funded by EWEB and the Eugene-Springfield NAACP. EWEB General Manager Frank Lawson, Eugene City Councilor Greg Evans, and then-Executive Director of the Eugene-Springfield NAACP, Eric Richardson spoke at the event.
“I'm really excited to move this story from oral tradition into a confirmed solid history for our community,” Richardson said at that event. “It's important to remember to look back at where we've been and how things have changed so we can continue to move the ball forward.”
Richardson shared some additional comments this week as we remember Wiley Griffon for Black History Month:
“It is important for us to remember Wiley Griffon because he was an early Black American who came as part of the “immigrants” coming seeking work and a place to practice his own agency a common reality based in our understanding of the great Black migrations of the late 19th and early 20th century,” said Richardson. “The memorial gives us a sense of place and belonging in the bigger picture. The “modern” history of the Willamette Valley is relatively new and understanding this story gives us more context to historic times. Understanding the arc of justice, as Dr. Martin Luther King put it, is important as well an attempt to raise the awareness and consciousness of our space and struggles.”
Richardson said many of the African American laborers, like Griffon, who came to Oregon were skilled workers from the south who found the same old racism or worse here than what they were escaping from in the south.
Numerous community members and organizations, including the Lane County Historical Museum, have contributed to telling Wiley Griffon’s story. Much of the information for this article comes from the University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives.
If you’re interested in learning more, check out the Strides for Social Justice app, which provides historic routes that you can walk, run, bike or wheelchair to learn about the people, places and events that shaped the experience of Black residents in Eugene.
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