Capital punishment in Oregon the gallows, "Did not your missionaries teach us that Christ died to save his people? So we die to save our people." Capital punishment was made explicitly legal by statute in 1864, and executions have been carried out exclusively at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem since 1904. The death penalty was outlawed between 1914 and 1920, again between 1964 and 1978, and then again between a 1981 Oregon Supreme Court ruling and a 1984 ballot measure. Oregon voters amended the Constitution in 1914, to repeal the death penalty, by a margin of 50.04%. The repeal was an initiative of
Oregon State Capitol was transplanted to the capitol in 1976 from Oregon State University. On the east side of the building is Capitol Park, which includes a bronze equestrian statue by A. Phimister Proctor called "The Circuit Rider", statues of Jason Lee ("Jason Lee") and John McLoughlin ("John McLoughlin") by Gifford Proctor, and portions of the Corinthian columns of the second capitol building. Lee established the Methodist Mission and what would become Willamette University. McLoughlin, of the Hudson's Bay Company, was proclaimed the Father of Oregon. "The Circuit Rider" was added in 1924 as a monument to early preachers. During the Columbus Day