Carl Hilding Severinsen
Arlington, Gilliam County, Oregon
Marker Inscription
Carl "Doc" Severinsen. The People of Arlington, Gilliam County, dedicate this to a native son Carl Hilding Severinsen born in Arlington July 7, 1927 Graduated Arlington High School May 1945
Erected by Arlington Lions Club
The Story
Arlington, a small town on the Columbia River in Oregon's dry wheat country, put up this plaque in 1981 to honor its most famous native son, Carl "Doc" Severinsen. Born here in 1927 and a 1945 graduate of the local high school, he went on to become one of America's most celebrated trumpeters, best known as the flamboyant, dazzlingly dressed bandleader of the NBC Orchestra on Johnny Carson's "The Tonight Show." A marker like this is small-town pride cast in metal: proof that a world-class talent can begin on a quiet Main Street far from any spotlight.
Why it matters
It captures a distinctly American story — the local boy whose gifts carried him to a national stage — and reminds travelers that even the smallest towns have sent their sons and daughters into the country's cultural life.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Carl "Doc" Severinsen
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Joseph Wood Hill Park
Portland, OR
This Portland park was donated to the public in 1935 in honor of Dr. Joseph Wood Hill, an educator who came to Oregon in 1878 to run the Bishop Scott Grammar and Divinity School. He introduced military training, renamed the institution Bishop Scott Academy in 1887, and founded Hill Military Academy in 1901. His sons dedicated the park for educational, scientific, and recreational purposes.
Vancouver Firsts Memorial
Vancouver, WA
Erected in 1925 by the Washington State Historical Society, this marker at Vancouver records a string of "firsts" that trace the beginnings of American settlement in what became Washington. It centers on Dr. John McLoughlin, the Hudson's Bay Company chief factor whose Fort Vancouver became the commercial and social hub of the Pacific Northwest in the 1820s and 1830s. From this outpost came the region's first school (taught by John Ball in 1833), its first Protestant sermon (Jason Lee, 1834), an early American marriage, and, in 1849, the first U.S. military post — milestones marking the transition from fur-trade frontier to organized American territory.
Charles A. Sprague
Portland, OR
This memorial carries the words of Charles A. Sprague, an Oregon newspaper editor and governor of the early 1940s who was widely admired for his principled essays on democracy and liberty. Writing and governing during the anxious years surrounding the Second World War, he championed individual freedom at a moment when that idea felt very much at stake in the world.
Challenger Memorial Rose Garden
Washington County, OR
This rose garden was dedicated in April 1986, weeks after the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart shortly after launch on January 28, 1986, killing all seven aboard. Its plaque lists the crew—including teacher Christa McAuliffe, chosen to be the first ordinary citizen in space—and carries her words, "I touch the future; I teach." The disaster was witnessed live by millions of schoolchildren.