[4] In addition to the newspaper's offices and printing press, in 1922 the building became the home of Portland's first commercial radio station, KGW, which was owned by the Oregonian Publishing Company.

A second radio station, KEX, was acquired by the paper in 1933, and joined KGW in new, shared studios in the Oregonian Building.

The Oregonian began publication in 1850, and in 1878 its office and printing facilities moved to a then-new brick building at the intersection of Front and Stark streets.

In 1890,[6] the Oregonian Publishing Company began construction of a much larger headquarters building, to accommodate the paper's continuing expansion.

When the building opened, its site was well west of the central business district, but within a few decades, expansion of downtown had shifted the center westwards.

[6] From October 1892 until June 1902, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's official weather recording station for Portland was located in the Oregonian Building.

[4] A jewelry store, Jaeger Brothers, that had occupied a portion of the ground floor was displaced in the early 1920s when the newspaper needed room for a new three-story printing press made by Goss, which came into use in 1923.

The sign's manufacturer, Electrical Products Corporation, of Los Angeles, expressed the belief that it was the largest of its kind in the U.S. at the time.

[16] In 1922, the Oregonian Publishing Company launched Portland's first commercial radio station to feature regular broadcasting, KGW (620 AM).

[17] Initially, the aerials were attached to the 60-foot flagpole atop the building's roof,[21] but later the same year, the station upgraded its signal with larger, more powerful equipment.

[27] As with the 1892 move, this relocation also afforded the opportunity to upgrade to a newer model of printing press, a higher-capacity one made by R. Hoe & Company.

Twenty-two years earlier, the mansion home of prominent Portland businessman and former mayor William S. Ladd had occupied the site, until demolished in 1926.