Down by the River, Part 3: Honoring history, nature and more in Eugene’s Riverfront District

This story is part of KLCC's "Down by the River" series. To read the entire series, click here .

If you travel into the new Riverfront District via Mill Street, you may notice a name change shortly after you cross under Coburg Road. Mill Street ends and Annie Mims Lane begins.

A little ways down, there is an intersection with Wiley Griffon Way.

“They were named for Black pioneers,” said historian Randy Gudeika.

During a tour of the area, he quoted a 2019 editorial in the Register-Guard that noted how Black people were no less pioneers than white people.

“When white people came to Oregon, the worst they usually had to contend with was the wilderness,” he said, reading from the editorial. “Early Black residents of Oregon and Eugene faced the far more pernicious and insidious h