Richard H. Engeman - The Oregon Companion: An Historical Gazetteer of the Useful, the Curious, and the Arcane

The Oregon Companion

AN
Historical Gazetteer
OF
The Useful, The Curious,
AND
The Arcane

Richard H. Engeman

Front cover: (top) Harney County, 1941 postcard. J. H. Eastman photograph.
Steven Dotterrer collection; (small images, clockwise) Oregon Historical Society,
OrHi 4785-a; Walter S. Bowman photograph. University of Washington Libraries, Special
Collections, UW27645z; Mason collection; Oregon Historical Society, CN 007874; Oregon Journal
photograph. Oregon Historical Society, OrHi 106089.

Back cover (from top): Oregon Journal photograph. Oregon Historical Society, OrHi 106089;
Mason collection; Schminck Memorial Museum; Everett Olmstead/Elite Studio photograph.
Historic Photo Archive, 9305-A4311-A; Steven Dotterrer collection.

Spine: Oregon Journal photograph. Oregon Historical Society, OrHi 106089.

Frontispiece: Umatilla County exhibit, Lewis and Clark Exposition.
Image courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, PH037_0646

Opposite: The Skiway between Government Camp and Timberline Lodge.
Sawyers photograph. Steven Dotterrer collection.

Page 6: The Union Pacific Railroad streamliner City of Portland in 1935.
Everett Olmstead/Elite Studio photograph. Historic Photo Archive, 9305-A4311-A.

Page 14: Ezra Meeker poses with his wagon tent in 1913.
Albert H. Barnes photograph. University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Barnes 1889.

Map by Allan Cartography, Medford, Oregon.

Copyright 2009 by Richard H. Engeman. All rights reserved.

Published in 2009 by Timber Press, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America
Reprinted 2009

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Engeman, Richard H.

The Oregon companion : an historical gazetteer of the useful, the curious, and the arcane / Richard H. Engeman.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-88192-899-0

1. OregonHistoryEncyclopedias. 2. OregonHistory, LocalEncyclopedias.
3. OregonDescription and travelEncyclopedias. 4. OregonGeography
Encyclopedias. 5. OregonBiographyEncyclopedias. 6. OregonMiscellanea
Encyclopedias. I. Title.

F876.E64 2009

979.503dc22

2008032991

A catalog record for this book is also available from the British Library.

To my parents,
Bud and Jerre Engeman

In one sense, this work is based on the downloading, if you will, of more than three decades of mental accumulation of information about Oregon, acquired in the course of both school and workand, of course, meticulously sifted, evaluated, arranged, and arrayed. It is also an outcome of many years of interaction between the author and an immense number of other people. My decades of professional work with archival and library materialsphotographs, books, brochures, drawings, architectural plans, letters, diaries, business ledgers, maps, postcards, magazines, leaflets, sheet music, posters, menus, newspapers, timetables, recipes, scribbles, lithographsalmost always occurred in conjunction with questions from other people, or projects that other people were undertaking. Much of the information that I absorbed came before my eyes in the course of finding it for someone else.

So my first thanks go to the (literally) thousands of people I have worked with in the course of their research. Alas, I can not name them all, though many of them named me in their own acknowledgements. Their fascinating array of questions, problems, postulations, suppositions, and projects kept me occupied, personally and professionally, for many fruitful years.

Very special thanks go to Dale Johnson, former botanical editor at Timber Press, who first posited this book to me and whose unflagging support and encouragement (even after he left Timber Press to pursue studies in horological adjustment, becoming a watchmaker certified by the Watchmakers of Switzerland Training and Education Program) have a great deal to do with the fact that I finally did it. Eve S. Goodman, editorial director at Timber Press, also deserves thanks for seamlessly picking up the reins and calmly persuading me to continue and complete the book. James E. Eckenwalder of Toronto, distinguished taxonomist and author of the definitive reference on the conifer family (Timber Press, forthcoming), also deserves thanks. My college colleague, and a university colleague of Dale Johnson, Eckenwalder is himself a storehouse of arcane knowledge on many topics; he seems to have convinced Dale that I was similarly stuffed full of Oregon arcana and that I should be persuaded to lighten my burden through writing.

Glenn Mason and Steven Dotterrer, dealer and collector, respectively, of and in regional historical photographs and paper ephemera, have my thanks for their excellent advice and suggestions, and for lending many images for use in this book. Heartfelt thanks are due to G. Thomas Edwards, Nicholas Starin, Kathy Tucker, and Steven Dotterrer for their detailed reading of the manuscipt and for literally hundreds of helpful suggestions and questions. The staff, past and present, of the research library of the Oregon Historical Society, have been helpful to me over many years, especially Susan Seyl, Mikki Tint, Michelle Kribs, Geoff Wexler, Shawna Gandy, Elizabeth Winroth, Arthur C. Spencer, Ken Lomax, and Steve Hallberg. Those historical society staff who worked on the Oregon History Project also deserve thanks: Marianne Keddington-Lang, the project instigator; and George Eigo, Kathy Tucker, Joshua Binus, Cain Allen, Melinda Jette, Dane Bevan, Trudy Flores, Sarah Griffith, Robert Donnelly, and Cara Ungar-Gutierrez. I hope I made good use of your good work. Thanks to David Milholland for many creative sparks. And I must reach back and extend tribute also to former colleagues at the University of Washington Libraries and the Southern Oregon Historical Society: you all helped me.

Finally, I am ever grateful for the support, love and encouragement of Terry E. Jess. I could not have done it without you.

Oregon counties, county seats, and incorporated places with populations over 5,000 based on 2003 U.S. Census Bureau estimates. For reasons of space, many cities in the Portland metropolitan area have been omitted.

What is a wigwam burner, and what did it burn and why did we burn it? Have bicycles always been such a big deal here? What is a Mazama? Why is Lincoln City such a long and dreary string of stores and parking lots? What is the story on the Donner und Blitzen, that Thunder-and-Lightning River that flows into the Lake of Bad Times? Why are Salems busses called Cherriots?