75 years ago, a plane crash changed Oregon politics

The unprecedented event devastated state politics and left a power vacuum.
On Oct. 28, 1947, Republican Gov. Earl Snell, the State Senate President Marshall Cornett, and Secretary of State Robert Farrell Jr. boarded a plane to southeastern Oregon for some goose hunting. It was supposed to be a quick trip to a friend’s sprawling Lake County ranch. Instead, the small, private plane crashed into a ridge. All three politicians and the pilot were killed.

Today the crash site is preserved under the National Register of Historic Places. It’s so remote that wreckage debris remains on the forest floor 75 years after the accident.