Oak Creek’s watershed is an area of land whose water drains into Oak Creek and then joins larger watersheds: the Mary’s River, the Willamette River, and the Columbia River, which reaches the Pacific Ocean. Oak Creek begins in the Coast Range northwest of Corvallis and flows through coniferous forests, oak woodlands, residential areas, agricultural lands, and Corvallis before entering the Mary’s River near Avery Park. Among the first human inhabitants of the Willamette Valley, including the Oak Creek watershed, were the Kalapuyans, who used fire to burn grasses and maintain prairie-like habitat for plants important to their diet, such as Camas lily, and for game such as deer and elk, while wetlands and springs along creeks and rivers supported riparian trees and shrubs less influenced by fire. The first Europeans to visit the Willamette Valley were Hudson Bay fur trappers during 1810-1820, and they ran beaver trap lines along smaller tributaries such as the Mary’s River and Oak Creek, capturing over 1-million beaver from the valley. Settlers soon followed, grazing livestock on the prairie-like grasses of the watershed, and logging began in the headwater forests in the late 1800s. These activities changed vegetation, soil, and floodplains in ways that damaged fish and wildlife habitat, degraded water quality, and altered flooding patterns in lower parts of the watershed. Over the last 2 centuries, Oak Creek has continued to change as prairies and wetlands became crop and grazing lands, city streets, residential neighborhoods, stadiums, and bike paths. Rain now carries fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, oil, and detergents from crops, streets, and yards into groundwater, storm drains, rivers, lakes, and streams such as Oak Creek, and water withdrawn for irrigation changes habitat for fish and other aquatic life. Oregon State University faculty, students, and staff, along with citizen volunteers and other partners, are working on projects, especially in the area visible from this site, to protect water quality, fish, and wildlife habitat while operating a viable dairy and research facilities. The future ecological health of Oak Creek and the Willamette Basin remains tied to whether the valley can improve recovery of salmon and watersheds while continuing economic growth and development for homes and communities.