Early in 1868, Francis �Barney� Prine arrived in the Crooked River Valley of Central Oregon, established a blacksmith shop made of logs, and dispensed spirits from the back of the cabin. Prine saw the potential for development and industry along the lush banks of Crooked River and Ochoco Creek, and as more and more settlers arrived, the post office of Prine was established in 1871. The community soon emerged as a major commercial center for Central Oregon, one of the last frontiers in the ...

**Now a Major Motion Picture Directed by George ClooneyThe #1 New York Times–bestselling story about the American Olympic rowing triumph in Nazi Germany—from the author of Facing the Mountain.**For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the...

In 1836, Irving published " Astoria ; or, Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains ;" a somewhat curious example of literary skill. A voluminous commercial correspondence was the dull ore of the earth which he refined and wrought into symmetry and splendor. Irving reduced to a regular narrative the events to which it referred, bringing out the picturesque whenever he found it, and enlivening the whole with touches of his native humor. His nephew, Pierre M. Irving, lightened his...

In this true story of adventure, author Jack Nisbet re-creates the life and times of David Thompson—fur trader, explorer, surveyor, and mapmaker. From 1784 to 1812, Thompson explored western North America, and his field journals provide the earliest written accounts of the natural history and indigenous cultures of the what is now British Columbia, Alberta, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. Thompson was the first person to chart the entire route of the Columbia river, and his wildern...

Betty Bard MacDonald (1907–1958), the best-selling author of The Egg and I and the classic Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle children’s books, burst onto the literary scene shortly after the end of World War II. Readers embraced her memoir of her years as a young bride operating a chicken ranch on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, and The Egg and I sold its first million copies in less than a year. The public was drawn to MacDonald’s vivacity, her offbeat humor, and her irreverent take on...

A lyrical, lovely, and deeply touching adaptation of an authentic journal kept by an orphaned six-year-old girl--later believed to be a French princess--living in an Oregon lumber camp at the turn of the century. 24 black-and-white photographs.

Desperate for laborers to keep the trains moving during World War II, the U.S. and Mexican governments created a now mostly forgotten bracero railroad program that sent a hundred thousand Mexican workers across the border to build and maintain railroad lines throughout the United States, particularly the West. Although both governments promised the workers adequate living arrangements and fair working conditions, most bracero railroaders lived in squalor, worked dangerous jobs, and were su...

Landscapes of Promise is the first comprehensive environmental history of the early years of a state that has long been associated with environmental protection. Covering the period from early human habitation to the end of World War II, William Robbins shows that the reality of Oregon's environmental history involves far more than a discussion of timber cutting and land-use planning.Robbins demonstrates that ecological change is not only a creation of modern industrial so...

During a blistering 1903 summer, Portland’s steam laundry women are working ten hellish hours a day. Exhausted and ill, they demand a nine hour workday. Sage Adair, and his mother, Mae, join their fight until the women begin disappearing. Desperately searching for the missing women, Sage and Mae face grave danger midst suffragettes, prostitutes, social workers, white slavers. arsonists and heartless bosses. Inspired by actual historical events, this is the sixth book in the award-winning S...

An amalgamation of fact and legend that creates a portrait of rural Native American life in the 19th centuryFirst published in 1890, The Bridge of the Gods is a tale of the American Indians of the Northwest. Frederic Homer Balch describes missionaries attempting to convert Native Americans to Christianity, warring tribes who try to form an alliance to drive out the white settlers, and Native American legends of how the land—its mountains and rivers—came to...

During the early weeks of 1848, as U.S. congressmen debated the territorial status of California, a Swiss immigrant and an itinerant millwright forever altered the future state’s fate. Building a sawmill for Johann August Sutter, James Wilson Marshall struck gold. The rest may be history, but much of the story of what happened in the following year is told not in history books but in the letters, diaries, journals, and other written recollections of those whom the California gold rush drew...

Stevens County was first inhabited by a Paleo-Indian culture that occupied Kettle Falls along the Columbia River for 9,000 years. A gathering place for several Salish Indian tribes, the area called Shonitkwu, meaning �Falls of Boiling Baskets,� was an abundant resource for fishing�specifically salmon. Traveling downriver from Kettle Falls to the trading post Spokane House in 1811, Canadian fur trapper David Thompson described the village as �built of long sheds of 20 feet in breadth� and n...