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is a city in Lane County, Oregon, United States, separated from Eugene, Oregon primarily by the I-5 highway. Springfield was named after a natural spring located in a field or prairie within the current city boundaries. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 52,864. The 2008 estimate is 58,005 residents.
Springfield was settled when Elias and Mary Briggs and their family arrived in 1848. They were among the first party to travel to the region via the "Southern Route" by Klamath Lake, over the Cascades, into the Rogue Valley, then north to the Willamette Valley. Elias Briggs along with William Stevens ran a ferry on the nearby Willamette River.
According to donation land claim records, Stevens was the first settler to stake a claim in the Springfield locale, arriving in October 1847. He commenced building a house with his three oldest sons, and when the house was completed in December, the rest of his family joined him on Christmas Day that year.
Another early arrival in the Springfield vicinity was Captain Felix Scott, Sr. who settled between the McKenzie and Willamette rivers in 1847.
In 1854 Springfield School District No. 19 was formed. A small schoolhouse was built near the corner of south 7th and B streets; it served the community until the 1880s. Miss Agnes Stewart, a young woman from Pennsylvania, was the first teacher. She had arrived in Springfield via the Lost Wagon Train of 1853.
In 1871 the main line of the Oregon and California Railroad bypassed Springfield for Eugene. The story goes that a group of prominent Eugene businessmen paid railroad financier, Ben Holladay, $40,000 to bypass Springfield by crossing the Willamette River near Harrisburg instead of Springfield. Thus began a rivalry that lasts up to the present day.
Springfield was incorporated as a city in 1885. Albert Walker, a blacksmith in town, was Springfield's first mayor.