The Willamette University School of Medicine, OHSU's earliest predecessor, was founded in the 1860s in Salem, and was relocated to Portland in the 1870s. In 1915, Willamette University and the University of Oregon merged their medical programs to form the University of Oregon Medical School, and in 1919 the school moved to its present location on Marquam Hill in Southwest Portland. The Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation Company donated and C.S. "Sam" Jackson, publisher of the now-defunct "Oregon Journal" donated the remaining to the school two years prior to the move after the property had been deemed unsuitable for the construction of a railroad yard.