Eugene

Boundaries: The Southern Willamette Valley, from the ruins of Lebanon to the North, to the various passes across the Cascades to the East, to the coast (in places) to the west, to Sutherlin to the south.

Government: Constitutional Republican City State.

Legal Code: Old US.

Climate: Eugene lies in the Marine West Coast climate zone (Koppen Cfb), with some Mediterranean characteristics

Population: 250,000

Economics: Trade, Agriculture, Herding, Timber, Minerals, Textiles, Manufacturing, brewing and wineries.

Agriculture: The Willamette Valley is one of the most agriculturally productive regions on the planet. As a result there is more arable farmland than people even to this day. Eugene is a net exporter of wheat, maize, oat, barley, hops, wine, textiles, cheese... the list goes on and on.

Trade: Extensive with Portland, Cascadia and New Sacramento via the ports of Umpqua and New Florence. (Medford is another story).

Religion: Post Rapture Order of the Redeemer 15%, Gaianism, 25%, Wiccan 50%, Unaffiliated 10%.

Standard of Living:

Gender Equity: Pretty close to equal.

Armed Forces: Stronghold militias in each community, with general militia training as the norm amongst the farming community.

Dominant Magical Tradition: Wiccan / New Age Shamanism

History: With the fall came Damn-busting bombs. The Willamette and Columbia were hit particularly hard. So while most of the population centers avoided direct damage, most people were wiped out in the floods that ravaged this populous farming region. Eugene is unique within the Willamette in that it is built near significant foothills, several hundred feet above the plain. As a result several hundred people survived the flood with sufficient food stores on hand and in markets which enabled them to rebuild a community centered on Skinners Butte near the football stadium. 

So imagine if you will, the southern Willamette valley after the disasters. Most of the main population centers were washed away - Eugene and Springfield for the most part, Corvallis, Albany, Lebanon, Salem, All of Portland Metro.. But here and there are pockets of survivors - South Eugene, Parts of the University, Everything west of the Territorial Highway up to Monroe, Marcola and parts of Pleasant Hill to the East. Drain in the far south, and lots of little farms. What of all these places have in common? Farmland. thousands and thousands of acres of arable land. It stands to reason that in the first years after the Rapture the thousands of groups that survived went back to Farming. Feed stores and grain silos were raided for their stock. Untended herds rounded up. Soon a new town of Eugene emerged; it made sense really as all the roads led there and it was basically smack in the middle of the different communities that survived.

New Eugene quickly group up around the old halls of the University and downtown, which came out, more or less from the flooding. Soon came the river ferries, and the canoe builders, and the traders, and eventually 5th street market (although no one really knew where the original 5th street was) was reborn as the Great Market. And as things go, the central meeting place eventually became the seat for the central government of the region. It also became the center for industry (not only because of the pre-fall roads, but also for the rivers which made shipping logs easy) and the center for scholarship, thanks to the efforts of those who were able to recover a good number of texts from the various libraries and dorms around the U district.

Not all was goodness, peace and tranquility though. Raiders and Reavers from 'Warmside' (as East of the Cascades is called) and survivalist troupes out of the mountains south forced the construction of motte-and-bailey stockades throughout the region. Soon towers made out of cement rose from the highpoints: Skinner's Butte, Pisgah, South Ridge, near Veneta, North of Eugene on Egge road, Washburn Heights... and more.

Noteworthy things:

University of Oregon Library

The Citadel on Skinner's Butte

Border dispute with Medford