The Last Video Stores of Oregon

Kate Hagen, the author of the viral essay “In Search of the Last Great Video Store,” contributed to our book Movie Madness: 30 Years Behind the Counter at Portland’s Iconic Video Store, first released in 2021. For Video Store Day 2026, she updated her piece in conjunction with the release of our “Last Video Stores of Oregon” map which was made using her important research and illustrated by Portland artist Leigh Kaisen.

We see this map as a community resource: an invitation for people to visit, support, and celebrate video stores across Oregon, while also serving as a living document that tracks the remaining video stores throughout the state.

As Kate Hagen writes: “There can be no more waiting and seeing when it comes to video store preservation; this is a critical, crucial period in our cultural history, and if we let video stores become obsolete, every new generation of watchers will be deprived of the wonder and majesty that a trip to the video store can provide.“