Catalog of British Columbiana and Pacific Northwest Americana

Marks the bicentennial of Astoria in 2011. Each of nine essays presents a literary biography of a figure who looms large in Astoria's history, from Comcomly, the powerful, one-eyed leader of the Chinook Tribe when Lewis and Clark arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1805, to the “Salmon Kings”, who capitalized on the region's natural bounty from the 1870s to the 1910s.

272 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm

Not all of Oregon’s pioneers were Christian farmers or bachelor prospectors. Indeed, many of the first brick buildings on Oregon’s newly platted Main Streets were built by Jewish merchants whose services were essential to town founding and growth. In Embracing a Western Identity, Ellen Eisenberg places Jewish history in the larger context of western narratives, challenging the traditional view that the “authentic” North American Jewish experience stems from New York. The westward paths of Jewish Oregonians and their experiences of place shaped the communities, institutions, and identities they created, distinguishing them from other American Jewish communities. Eisenberg traces the Oregon Jewish experience from its pioneer beginnings in the mid-nineteenth century to the highly concentrated Portland communities of the mid-twentieth century. Drawing on extensive archival resources at the Oregon Jewish Museum, this historical commentary explores patterns of migration and settlement, the place of Jews in the state’s ethnic landscape, their engagement in politics, the development of institutions, and their relationship to Zionism. Departing from familiar treatments of the Jewish experience, Embracing a Western Identity provides a critical look at the impact of place and opportunity upon the identities of migrants both as Oregonians and as American Jews. Readers and scholars interested in western history—religious, ethnic, expansionist, and otherwise—will enjoy Eisenberg’s accessible writing style and rich photograph collection.

x, 292 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

This is the first book to look at the life and times of Elise Olmstead, wife of Roy Olmstead, Seattle's notorious "Gentlman Bootlegger." The newspapers crowned her Seattle's "Queen of the Bootleggers" during Prohibition and she became an endless object of fascination, speculation and interest for reporters. It sold newspapers. But what was myth and what was merely mystery? Did she leave behind a dark secret when she came from England to Canada? Did she illegally enter the U.S.? Was she an informer for Prohibition agents before she married, or, did she become the brains of Roy's business after? Was it true that she used her radio show to send coded messages to Roy's rum-running ships while reading bedtime stories for children over the air? Who was the real Elise? On trial with Roy and dozens of her cohorts for violating Prohibition laws, she was acquitted, but Roy went to jail for four years. How did she survive? Why didn't their marriage last? This is the true story of an independent woman, ahead of her time, an entrepreneur running a radio station and bringing live orchestra music to the airwaves. An intensely private and secretive person, Elise's story has never been fully or accurately told until now. back cover

280 pages, 18 pages of plates (pages 80-97) : black and white portraits, facsimiles, photographs ; 23 cm

Gene Harris, the “Blues Man From Boise,” as the Wall Street Journal once called him, died at the start of a new millennium, but he left a legacy of music that will outlive us all. He played on more than 80 recordings and shared the stage or recording studio with many legends and luminaries. Gene's wife, Janie, and veteran writer Bob Evancho detail the career of this gifted entertainer.

279 pages : illustrations (some color), portraits (some color) ; 21 x 26 cm

Conde Balcom McCullough ranks as a modern bridge builder of national and international acclaim. This first major study of McCullough traces the Professional life of a brilliant engineer and builder renowned for his elegant, cost-efficient, custom-designed spans. McCullough's legacy lies in the nearly 600 bridges he and his staff designed and built in Oregon during the years between the two world wars, most notably several beautiful bridges along the Oregon Coast Highway, bridges he called "jeweled clasps in a wonderful string of pearls." Trained as a civil engineer, McCullough came to Oregon in 1916, drawn by the state's dire need for bridges and its drive to "lift its feet out of the winter's mud and summer's dust." After developing the engineering program at Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University), McCullough was named the state's bridge engineer. He became an impassioned promoter of state-sponsored bridge building that incorporated engineering efficiency with economic practicality and aesthetic appeal. McCullough's long career with the State Highway Department left a legacy of bridge building in Oregon unequaled in the twentieth century. In 1999, Engineering News-Record recognized McCullough as one of the most important bridge engineers of the past 125 years. He was an innovator in twentieth-century reinforced-concrete arch construction and built one of the first concrete tied-arch bridges in the United States. McCullough's bridges are rich in aesthetic detail; the finest among them are embellished with arch crowns, Art Deco-inspired pylons and obelisks, Gothic piers, towering spires, and arched railing panels. Illustrated with historic photographs and drawings, Robert Hadlow's definitive and highly readable biography will delight bridge buffs and engineering enthusiasts everywhere. It will also be of great interest to Oregon coast visitors and residents, and to students of transportation and technology history.

xi, 211 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

"Eleanor Baldwin and the Woman's Point of View is an intellectual biography of a long-forgotten radical female journalist in Portland, whose daily women's columns provide a window into the breadth of intellectual radicalism in Progressive Era journalism. Baldwin was one of an early generation of female journalists who were hired to lure female readers to the daily newspaper's department store advertisements. Instead of catering to the demands of consumerism, Baldwin quickly brought an anti-capitalist, antiracist agenda to her column, "The Woman's Point of View." She eschewed household hints and instead focused on the immorality of capitalists and imperialists while emphasizing the need for women to become independent and productive citizens. A century before the Occupy movement and the Women's March, Baldwin spoke truth to power. Imbued with a New Thought spirituality that presumed progressive thought could directly affect material reality, she wrote to move history forward. And yet, the trajectory of history proved as hard to forecast then as now. While her personal story seems to embody a modern progressivism, blending abolition with labor reform and anti-banker activism--positions from which she never wavered--her path grew more complicated as times changed in the aftermath of World War I, when she would advocate on behalf of both the Bolsheviks and the Ku Klux Klan. In this deeply researched and nuanced account of Eleanor Baldwin's intellectual journey, historian Larry Lipin reveals how even the most dedicated radical can be overcome by unforeseen events. Eleanor Baldwin and the Woman's Point of View restores a missing chapter in Portland's Progressive Era history and rescues this passionate, intriguing, and quixotic character from undeserved obscurity."-- Provided by publisher

xiv, 253 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

These are stories about an extraordinary array of women of different ethnicities and regions of Idaho, whose lives span six decades and more. With gusto and hard work they created their lives in their own ways and challenged the social mores of their times, intent on living meaningful and purposeful lives.

ix, 268 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Contains over 300 photographs by Edward Sheriff Curtis from his inspirational work on the North American Indian. The book includes many regions, tribes and ages of people, and in some ways even some of the more negative aspects of his photographs are invaluable because they informed much of the mainstream American (worldwide, really) mythology that surrounds First Nations peoples of North America. The photos are somewhere between documentary and romanticism. Where he could have taken straight documentary photos of poverty and tattered Western/white clothing, he instead staged warrior meetings on horseback and the like.

256 pages : chiefly illustrations, color map, portraits ; 25 x 36 cm

"An intimate look at the life and climbs of Swiss alpine guide Edward Feuz Jr., patriarch of Canadian alpinism and genuine lover of mountains." --Bookmanager

318 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Ray V. Cloud’s Edmonds, the gem of Puget Sound: a history of the city of Edmonds chronicles the arduous pioneer colonization and localized industrial subjugation of a densely forested maritime enclave carved directly into the volatile eastern shoreline of Puget Sound. The narrative maps how the severe environmental realities of this coastal topography—defined by impenetrable, towering stands of old-growth cedar and Douglas fir plunging directly into the deep-water tidal currents of the marine basin—initially completely severed early homesteaders from overland transit, forcing them to rely exclusively on the region's aquatic highway. By detailing the grueling transition from precarious, isolated logging camps to the aggressive deployment of heavy shingle-milling infrastructure, the text illustrates how the massive extraction of the region's colossal timber wealth was strictly dictated by the urgent necessity of engineering robust shoreline wharves to accommodate specialized, steam-driven mosquito fleets. Ultimately, the account demonstrates that violently clearing this formidable coastal rainforest and artificially anchoring mechanized maritime and transcontinental rail networks along its narrow beaches were the absolute prerequisites for transforming a geographically detached wilderness outpost into a highly integrated, commercial anchor of the Pacific seaboard.

227 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 24 cm

"The coastal Pacific Northwest of North America is home to a multitude of edible and medicinal plant species, edible mushrooms, and marine plants--from Black Gooseberry to Western Tea-Berry, from Golden Chanterelle to Yellow Morel Mushroom, and from Sea Asparagus to Winged Kelp. Now revised and updated with additional species and recipes, this compact, full-color forager's guide offers clear photography, descriptions, safety tips, and warnings, as well as culinary and medicinal uses from Indigenous Peoples and settlers, for more than 150 wild-growing flora species in the region. Practical, user-friendly, and safe, Edible and Medicinal Flora of the West Coast is an indispensable guide for beginner and experienced foragers alike"-- Provided by publisher

264 pages : color illustrations, color maps ; 22 cm

This compelling anthology gathers together personal impressions of the Malheur-Steens country of southeastern Oregon, known for its birding opportunities, its natural beauty and remoteness, and, more recently, for the 2016 armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Contributors of poetry and narrative nonfiction include biologists, students, tourists, birders, and local residents, thus reflecting the perspectives of both visitors and residents. Edge of Awe celebrates the immense variety of human experience in the Malheur-Steens region. This high-desert marsh country has long been a place of human habitation, work, and recreation, but this compendium is weighted toward the writing of visitors over the past one hundred years. It encompasses a wide range of experiences, such as fishing the Blitzen River, attending the Steens Running Camp, leading a mule train on Steens mountain, looking for rare migrant birds, boating on the great marshes, and much more. Anyone who has visited the awe-inspiring Malheur-Steens country or plans to do so, and anyone with an interest in the region, will find inspiration in this literary companion.

xxxi, 190 pages ; 23 cm

Oregon has long been a destination for those seeking new beginnings. Since the establishment of the Aurora Colony in 1856, the state has been the home of nearly three hundred communal experiments. Eden Within Eden is the first book to survey this utopian history, from religious and Socialist groups of the nineteenth century to ecologically conscious communities of the twenty-first century. James Kopp examines Oregon’s communal history in the framework of utopian and communal experiences across America. Eden Within Eden provides rich detail about utopian communities – some realized, some only planned – many of which reflect broader social, political, economic, and cultural aspects of Oregon’s history. From the dawn of communal groups in Oregon – the German Christian colony at Aurora – to Oregon’s most infamous communal experiment – Rajneeshpuram – Kopp describes the range of attempts to establish ideal communities in the state. These include the Jewish agrarian colony of New Odessa in the 1880s as well as the “new pioneers” of the 1960s who captured the spirit of the counterculture and gave voice to growing concerns about the environment. Kopp explores other areas of Oregon’s utopian heritage as well, including literary works and idealistic city planning. The book’s appendix is a rich compilation that will guide students, scholars, and other interested readers to additional information on the profiled – and many other – communities.

xiii, 370 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

ix, 327 pages, 4 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Published in 1934 in La Grande, Oregon, and compiled by Eldridge Huffman, Echoes of the Grande Ronde is a collection of regional poetry and prose by Bert Huffman, a prominent newspaperman widely celebrated by his contemporaries as the "Poet Laureate of Eastern Oregon". The volume operates as a literary tribute to the landscapes and pioneer heritage of the Grande Ronde Valley and the broader Inland Empire. Through highly romanticized verse, Huffman mythologizes the overland migrations, the rugged endurance of early homesteaders, and the region's sweeping transition from "untamed" wilderness to a productive agricultural basin. Frequently appropriating Indigenous mythology and historical figures—such as his framing of Sacagawea as a "patron saint" of American empire—the collection weaves the narrative of westward expansion into a grand, almost biblical epic of Manifest Destiny.

A keen insight drawn from the work is how regional poetry and romantic literature functioned as a profound emotional mechanism to naturalize colonial displacement. By heavily utilizing the "Vanishing Indian" trope—most notably in wistful verses lamenting the fading presence of the Umatilla, Cayuse, and Nez Perce peoples—Huffman's poetry effectively aestheticizes the violence of settler colonialism. This literary maneuver transforms active, systemic territorial dispossession into a tragic, natural, and inevitable melancholic fading, akin to the passing of the seasons. Consequently, the text allows the descendants of white settlers to indulge in a sentimental, guiltless nostalgia for the region's original inhabitants, all while morally validating the permanent agricultural enclosure of the Grande Ronde Valley as the glorious, divinely ordained triumph of American civilization.

87 pages illustrations (portrait) 24 cm

Torger Birkeland’s Echoes of Puget Sound chronicles the symbiotic pioneer industries of maritime transit and timber extraction that defined early settlement within the deep glacial fjords of western Washington. The narrative maps how the impenetrable biological mass of the ancient temperate rainforest completely precluded early overland road construction, forcing isolated coastal logging camps to rely entirely on a sprawling network of shallow-draft steamers for basic survival. By detailing the grueling, daily navigation of this vital Mosquito Fleet, the text illustrates how the physical constraints of the rugged shoreline required the mastery of dynamic tidal currents to tow massive log booms to centralized regional mills. Ultimately, the account captures the profound geographical determinism of the inland sea, demonstrating that conquering these volatile aquatic highways was the absolute prerequisite for unifying a fragmented, wilderness-bound frontier into an integrated timber empire.

251 pages illustrations 22 cm

"Four scholars draw from oral histories to focus on experiences of non-white groups such as the Wanapum, Chinese immigrants, interned Japanese Americans, and African American migrant workers, whose lives were deeply impacted by the Hanford Site. Each group resisted segregation and discrimination, and in the process, challenged the region's dominant racial norms"-- Provided by publisher

x, 261 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.

"Most of Oregon east of the Cascade Mountains is a raw and inhospitable land, largely the product of recent volcanic activity. Railroad builders constructed a couple mainlines skirting the edges of the regioni and some branchlines into agricultural communities, but found very little else to attract their interest. Over time, however, a small collection of interesting shortline railroads built or bought rail lines, either in conjunction with the developing timber industry in the Blue, Ochoco, and Wallowa mountains or to connect a few existing communities with the mainline that bypassed the town. This book tells the stories of these small railroads and the roles they played in the development and economies of the region ..."--Cover

176 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Published in local editions by bibliographer Wayne Kee, Eastern Oregon Books and Print, Volume II serves as an annotated historical bibliography and cartographic guide dedicated to the literary and geographic records of the state's vast interior. The volume catalogs rare books, manuscripts, regional pamphlets, and historical maps, providing concise publication histories and contextual notes for collectors and researchers alike. By capturing the paper trail of eastern Oregon's settlement, resource extraction, and exploration, the text preserves the foundational documentation of a sparsely populated landscape. A keen insight drawn from the work is how comprehensive regional bibliographies reveal the ideological biases of early print culture; by highlighting which frontier narratives were preserved in print and which were omitted, the bibliography exposes how historical archives actively constructed a romanticized mythos of the high desert while erasing marginalized voices.

xi, 206 pages : illustrations, facsimiles, maps ; 23 cm

Published as an annotated historical bibliography by Wayne Kee, Eastern Oregon Books and Print catalogs the diverse literary output, regional imprints, and historical texts documenting the high desert and mountain landscapes of eastern Oregon. The work compiles comprehensive descriptions of rare books, pamphlets, and promotional literature ranging from early exploration journals and settlement guides to local histories and indigenous accounts. By structuring these bibliographic entries chronologically and topically, the text maps how print culture mirrored the region's economic and social transformation from an isolated frontier into an organized agrarian and resource-based society. A keen insight drawn from the work is how regional bibliographies function as meta-histories of ideological expansion; the catalog reveals that the printed word was not merely a passive record of eastern Oregon's development, but an active promotional tool deliberately used to tame an intimidating arid landscape into a welcoming destination for homesteaders and investors.

xxi, 286 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

103 pages : color illustrations ; 22 x 28 cm.

"A sly, sentimental, and wickedly funny memoir about growing up at the local fair. The PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) is a Vancouver tradition, an annual fair started in 1910 that is famous for its farm animals, dog trick shows, and amusement park - highlighted by Canada's oldest wooden roller coaster still in existence. In 1980, when Nick Marino was twelve years old, he started working at the PNE and quickly learned that there was more to the fair than winning stuffed animals and eating mini donuts. He had to contend with belligerent bosses, unhinged carnies, and teenage hustlers. In this funny, charming memoir of fair life, Marino revisits the "Wild West" of the city's East Side, home to the PNE, sharing stories from his six summers working at the fair, where arcade bouncers went on midnight roller coaster rides, riots broke out at concerts, and local kids helped themselves to everything. With beguiling and at times poignant humour, he pulls back the curtain on the culture of carnivals and fairs, an unpredictable and eternally young world of players, scammers, and dreamers."-- Provided by publisher

235 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Phil F. Brogan’s East of the Cascades provides a comprehensive historical and geological chronicle of the vast, arid plateaus and volcanic landscapes that define Central Oregon. The narrative meticulously maps the stark topography lying in the massive rain shadow of the Cascade Mountains, stretching across jagged lava fields, expansive pumice plains, and the deeply entrenched rimrock canyons of the Deschutes River basin. By detailing the profound challenges faced by early indigenous populations, sprawling pioneer cattle ranches, and transient Basque sheepmen, the book illustrates how the severe, dry climate and rugged geological barriers forced early inhabitants to rely entirely on isolated springs and the vital riparian lifeline of the Deschutes. Furthermore, the text chronicles the region's industrial transition from open-range livestock grazing to the immense ponderosa pine logging operations that eventually capitalized on the area's unique high-elevation forests. Ultimately, the book captures the formidable environmental realities of Oregon's inland empire, demonstrating how the imposing volcanic topography and arid conditions fundamentally shaped the resilient cultural and economic development of the state's high desert frontier.

304 pages illustrations, portraits, map (on lining paper) 23 cm

Ralph N. Preston’s cartographic compilation, Early Washington atlas: overland stage routes, old military roads, Indian battle grounds, old forts, old gold mines, serves as an essential spatial record of the rapid territorial and military re-engineering of the Pacific Northwest. By assembling nineteenth-century federal survey charts, military route maps, and mining plots, the atlas visually documents how Euro-American frontier infrastructure was systematically superimposed directly over the ancient overland trails, river fords, and mountain passes long maintained by the Yakama, Spokane, Palouse, Colville, and Coast Salish peoples. Federal garrisons—such as Fort Simcoe, Fort Colville, and Fort Walla Walla—alongside vital arteries like the Mullan Road and the military trail across Naches Pass, were constructed directly along these pre-existing indigenous communication corridors to control regional trade and resource transit. The atlas’s explicit cataloging of territorial battlegrounds delineates the violent friction points where federal boundary lines and mineral extraction forcefully encroached upon indigenous geographic sovereignty. In mapping the vast distances between isolated stage stops, mining camps, and garrisons, Preston’s collection underscores how early overland logistics and frontier survival remained deeply dependent on navigating an established indigenous landscape and relying on local geographical knowledge.

68 unnumbered pages : chiefly illustrations, maps ; 44 cm