Oregon Encyclopedia

It's the birthday of Charles Ray Jordan, born on September 1, 1937. Jordan was a towering figure in Portland history. The first African American to serve on the Portland City Council, he was the director of Portland Parks and Recreation for fourteen years. “He was just a giant in this city,” former City Commissioner Mike Lindberg told the Oregonian when Jordan died in 2014. “He made contributions that helped every neighborhood, every single citizen.” Nationally, Jordan worked to include people of color in the environmental and land conservation movements through his engagement on national parks and conservation groups.

Learn more about Charles Jordan's legacy in Portland with this OE entry by Mary Oberst. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/jordan-charles/

Photo: Charles Jordan, 1976. Courtesy City of Portland, A2001-081.

In the summer of 1928, German Expressionist filmmaker F. W. Murnau rented a wheat farm six miles south of Athena, Oregon, to film scenes for what would be his penultimate movie, City Girl. Murnau—best known for his German silent film Nosferatu, adapted from Bram Stoker’s Dracula and released 1922—is considered to be one of the greatest filmmakers of the silent film era. City Girl was one of only four films he made in Hollywood before his untimely death.

In August 1928, a production company of seventy-two people traveled from Hollywood to Pendleton to film outdoor scenes at Thorn Hollow, six miles south of Athena, at a wheat farm owned by Harold Barnett. Filming began on August 30. Charles Kirk furnished the farm equipment and animals for the film, the Athena Press reported, “including 80 head of mules, two combine harvesters, wagons, trucks, cookhouse, etc.” Kirk also worked as an extra in the movie, along with his brother Tom Kirk, Dudley Rogers, and other “Athena men.” Filming concluded in Oregon on September 30, and the production company returned to Hollywood.

Learn more about the film City Girl and the community of Athena with this OE entry by Jim Scheppke: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/city-girl-film/

Athena’s Gem, Inc.

Photo: Gem Theater in Athena, Oregon, 2023. Courtesy Jim Scheppke.

Ivan L. Collins created historically accurate models of horse-drawn vehicles using painstaking research to ensure that every detail was authentic. Built at one-eighth scale, these models represent transportation technology before the automobile, from wagons used in Euro-American westward migration to those used in industry and for personal use. Collins saw this work as more than a hobby; his models were a way to preserve history for future generations.

Models in Motion: The Ivan L. Collins Collection of Historic Vehicles in Miniature showcases a majority of the wagons that Collins made during his lifetime. Don't miss you chance to visit before the exhibition closes Sunday, September 8!

https://www.ohs.org/museum/exhibits/models-in-motion-ivan-collins-miniature-vehicles.cfm

Image Credit: This gooseneck dray (1939) is modeled after a wagon Ivan Collins’s father used for merchandizing and freight business in The Dalles, Oregon, in 1895. Collins rediscovered the wagon in Corvallis, Oregon, and was able to make drawings for his model. OHS Museum, 71-119.66.1-.16.

On August 26, 1791, the U.S. Government granted two federal patents for the steamboat. About one-hundred years later, the Bailey Gatzert was constructed in Seattle in 1890. Built when racing was popular among passenger steamboats, the stately Bailey Gatzert was a contender. It was one of the most famous Columbia River excursion boats and was commemorated with a song and a stamp.

Learn more about the Bailey Gatzert and steamboat travel with with OE entry by Kathy Tucker: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/bailey_gatzert/

Photo: Excursion steamer Bailey Gatzert on the Columbia River, 1910. Courtesy OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Oregon State University. "Excursion steamer, Bailey Gatzert, on the Columbia River" Oregon Digital.

The Minnesota State Fair opens today in St. Paul, MN. One of the favorite food stalls at the fair since 1947 is Pronto Pups. A Pronto Pup is a popular fast food invented in Oregon and marketed nationwide, beginning in the 1940s. It consists of a hot dog impaled on a stick and deep-fried after being dipped in a cornmeal-based batter. Pronto Pups were the brainchild of George Boyington, who founded a successful Oregon company that is still operating today.

Pronto Pups were a huge success. During the 1940s, Boyington sold franchises throughout the country, including to returning GIs looking for a small business start-up. One of the most successful franchisees was Jack Karnis, who ate his first Pronto Pup after he was discharged from the Merchant Marines in Portland. He bought one of the first franchises, which he opened in Chicago. In 1947, he took Pronto Pups to the Minnesota State Fair, setting off a craze that continues to this day—the Karnis family operates eight Pronto Pup stands throughout the fairgrounds and goes through thirty-six tons of dogs and well over a hundred tons of batter during an average twelve-day fair.

Read all about Pronto Pups history with this OE entry by Jim Scheppke: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/pronto-pup/

Photo: Pronto Pups franchise at the Minnesota State Fair, 1947. Courtesy Minnesota State Fair.

Check out the next History Pub at McMenamins Kennedy School in Portland on Monday, August 26, 2024. Vivek Shandas and Joshua Howe will discuss the historic and contemporary relationships among Oregon’s trees, rural and urban forests, and climate change.

Learn about the event here:
https://www.ohs.org/events/trees-landscapes-climate-and-what-comes-next.cfm

Read Josh Howe's essay on Climate Change in Oregon here:
https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/climate-change-in-oregon/

Visit the Climate Change in Oregon Digital Exhibit on The Oregon Encyclopedia's website here:
https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/climate-change-oregon/

Image: Map of temperature anomalies, higher or lower than average, during 2021 heat dome. Courtesy U.S. Department of Agriculture, NASA Earth Observatory.

On August 16, 1896, gold was discovered in Canada's Yukon Territory. Oregon author, Ella Rhoads Higginson spent four summers in the Yukon, beginning in 1904, to research her book Alaska, the Great Country (1908).

Ella Rhoads was born in Kansas in about 1862 (she never revealed her birth date). She moved with her family to La Grande in 1864 and then to Portland, Milwaukie, and Oregon City. As a young woman during the 1870s, she began writing poems and short stories, some of which appeared in Portland's West Shore magazine. She benefitted from special tutoring from working journalists. At age fourteen she published her first poem in the Oregon City Enterprise, which hired her two years later. She learned to write for the general public through her work as a journalist. Somewhat unsure of her writerly status, she published under several pseudonyms. Proud of her Oregon background, Higginson later wrote: “I believe that my childhood and girlhood in Oregon influenced my work more than anything else.”

You can learn more about Higginson with this OE entry by Richard Etulain. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/higginson-ella/

Photo: Ella Rhoads Higginson. Courtesy Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Western Washington University.

On the morning of August 15, 1975, about 100 Native American protesters took over the Portland offices of the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), a federal agency that markets power produced by federal dams in the Pacific Northwest. This action was the culmination of almost two weeks of activities organized to protest what Native activists considered to be federal repression on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge and Rosebud Indian reservations.

To learn more about this event visit the Oregon History Project:
https://www.oregonhistoryproject.org/.../bpa-office.../

Read Claudia Welala Long's (Nez Perce) section on "Activism and Community" in her OE essay on Urban Indians in Oregon.
https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/arti.../urban_indians/...

Photo: BPA Office Takeover, 1975. Oregon Historical Society Research Library, CN 022653.

Thank you The Museum of Natural and Cultural History for the shout out!

Oregon Encyclopedia is a digital public history resource. It collaborates with scholars and experts, publishing hundreds of entries, from the Ah Hee Diggings to the Zigzag Ranger Station. The Oregon Historical Society Research Library supports the encyclopedia by making the content accessible and free to all.

The Oregon Encyclopedia was a finalist for the museum's 2024 Oregon Stewardship Award, which recognizes a project that involves the community in stewardship of our collective past, present, and future.

It's the birthday of Fredrik Wilhelm Lönegren, born on August 13, 1860, in Wederlöf’s parish in Kronoberg’s County, Sweden. Lönegren moved to Minnestoa in 1889 and eventually to Portland on October 3, 1908, to start a Swedish newspaper. Through Oregon Posten, he had a considerable effect on the local Swedish community. Not only did he help increase the Swedish population in Oregon during his twenty-six years of promoting the state, but he also played a role in strengthening the sense of community by supporting Swedish organizations.

Learn more about Lönegren with this OE entry by Victoria Owenius. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/lonegren_fredrik_wilhelm/

Photo: Fredrik Wilhelm Lönegren. Courtesy Minnesota Historical Society.

The Enchanted Forest opened on this day in 1971. Located in Turner, Oregon, just south of Salem off Interstate 5, the park has been a favorite roadside attraction for generations of Oregonians. It was the dream of Roger Tofte, whose job as a young draftsman at the State Highway Department in Salem did not allow him to exercise his considerable creativity and ambition. In 1964, he and his wife Mavis purchased twenty wooded acres on a hillside next to the interstate for $4,000. On evenings and weekends, they built a trail on the property that led to storybook characters, handmade with rebar, cement, wire mesh, and plaster.

Learn more about the Enchanted Forest with this OE entry by Jim Scheppke. Post about your favorite Enchanted Forest memories in the comments section.
https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/enchanted-forest/

Image: Oregonian article featuring the Enchanted Forest, July 27, 1972. Courtesy Portland Oregonian.

Enchanted Forest The Enchanted Forest theme park in Turner, Oregon, just south of Salem off Interstate 5, has been a favorite roadside attraction for generations of Oregonians.…

You can find more information about Gertrude Jensen with this OE entry by Katrine Barber.
https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/jensen_gertrude/

In 1950, Gertrude Glutsch Jensen, a former Oregonian reporter, was disheartened to see logging spoiling the scenery along the Columbia River Highway. Jensen took her grievances to her peers at the Portland Women’s Forum, and members uncovered tracts all over the gorge being sold for private logging.

In 1952, Jensen led the Oregonian on a tour of gorge logging tracts. On hand was photographer Al Monner, who documented clear-cuts at gems such as Latourell Falls. The next year, the Oregon Legislature created the Columbia River Gorge Commission, which Jensen chaired for 16 years. Although she died in 1986 — the same year Congress established the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area — Jensen helped lay the groundwork for the continued protection of the Columbia River Gorge that we enjoy today.

View more images on OHS Digital Collections, which now features more than 42,000 archival materials from our research library collections.

https://digitalcollections.ohs.org/informationobject/browse?mediatypes=136&topLod=0&query=save+the+gorge+committee&sq0=save+the+gorge+committee&sort=relevance&sortDir=desc

Image Caption: Latourell Falls viewed from the Columbia River Highway after logging operations removed trees in the area. Al Monner captured this and a series of photographs published in the Oregon Journal on April 6, 1952. OHS Research Library, Org. Lot 1284, box 41, 1964-9.

The City of Hiroshima recognizes over 160 trees that survived inside the two-kilometer radius of the hypocenter of the atomic bomb that was detonated by the United States on August 6, 1945.

From 2019 through 2022, thirty-four communities in Oregon planted a total of fifty-one Hiroshima Peace Trees, the progeny of Hibaku Jumoku, trees that survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. As part of the United Nation’s Green Legacy Hiroshima Project (Mirai-Isan), communities across the globe planted the trees as a reminder of the horrors of nuclear war and as a symbol of the resilience of humankind and the natural world. The seeds collected by affiliate members of the Green Legacy Hiroshima Project were imported, germinated, and distributed to communities in Oregon and other states through a partnership of One Sunny Day Initiatives (OSDI), the Oregon Department of Forestry, and Oregon Community Trees.

Learn more about Hiroshima Peace Trees with this OE entry by Dave Hedberg.
https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/hiroshima-peace-trees/

Photo: Peace Tree, Alton Baker Park, Eugene, 2019. Courtesy One Sunny Day Initiatives.

The Portland International Airport is opening a new main terminal in 2025. Did you know that Portland has used two locations for its major commercial airport? Swan Island from 1927 to 1940 and the floodplain of the Columbia River since 1940. Construction of the airport by the Port of Portland began in 1926, and Swan Island Municipal Airport opened for limited use on September 14, 1927, with ceremonies that included a landing by Charles Lindbergh, who was on a nationwide tour flying The Spirit of St. Louis.

This photo shows a crowd at the Swan Island airport terminal on August 2, 1930, waiting for the arrival of the Northwest Air Tour.

Photo courtesy Oregon Historical Society Research Library Digital Collections, Oregon Journal Negative Collection; Org. Lot 1368; Box 371; 0371N5562. https://digitalcollections.ohs.org/crowd-at-swan-island-airport-portland-for-arrival-of-northwest-air-tour

Learn more about the history of the Portland International Airport with this OE entry by Carl Abbott. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/portland_international_airport/

In 2023, Oregon House Bill 2955 designated August 4 as Bracero Program Day to recognize those who participated in the program. The Mexican Farm Labor Program, also known as the Bracero Program, was created in 1942 through a series of agreements between the United States and Mexico in response to the demand for agricultural labor during World War II. It contracted nearly 500,000 Mexican people to work in the United States from 1942 to 1947, primarily as maintenance workers.

On Friday, August 2, OHS is excited to partner with the Oregon Commission on Hispanic Affairs and Gresham Historical Society to host a Bracero Program Celebration Day from 6pm to 9pm at OHS to honor Bracero Oregonians past and present.

Learn more and RSVP for the event here: https://www.ohs.org/events/bracero-program-day-celebration.cfm

Image Credit: Braceros farming sugar beets in Oregon in 1943. OHS Research Library, OrHi 62395.

Read Lucy Capehart's OE entry on Anzen to learn about Portland's oldest Japanese grocery store and gift shop. This entry is not just an overview of a business, but also explores Japanese Immigration to Oregon and how the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII affected their personal and professional lives.

Anzen was Portland’s oldest Japanese grocery and gift shop, first in Nihonmachi (also known as Japantown) and then on the east side of the Willamette River on Northeast Union Avenue. Opened at the turn of the twentieth century by Mosaburo Matsushima (1869–1940), a Japanese immigrant from Okayama, Anzen sold supplies to Japanese laborers. By the time the shop closed 109 years later, it had become a destination for Asian Portlanders and others interested in Asian food and culture.

Read the entry here: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/anzen/

Photo: Interior of the Anzen store (then named Teikoku) in Portland, 1902. Courtesy Yoji Matsushima, Japanese American Museum of Oregon.

Over a decade ago, The Oregon Encyclopedia (The OE) editors asked former Portland Trail Blazers coach Jack Ramsay to write entries on the history of the team and biographies of key players from the 1977 championship team. This recently-published digital exhibit features Ramsay's essays in their original first-person form; they are detailed and often funny, with stories that lived in Ramsay’s head for over 40 years.

https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/digital-exhibits/jack-and-blazers/

Image Credit: Portland Trail Blazers, 1977–1978. OHS Research Library.

On July 25, 1974, the Portland City Council withdrew its support for the construction of the Mount Hood Freeway through southeast Portland. In 1976, the U.S. Department of Transportation agreed to exchange the approximately $180 million, once targeted for the construction of the freeway, for a similar amount that could be used on other transportation projects, including mass transit.

The Mount Hood Freeway, if constructed, would have passed through southeast Portland, from the Marquam Bridge at the Willamette River to about S.E. 122nd Avenue. Changes in political leadership coupled with new federal environmental legislation and grass-roots opposition prevented the freeway's approval and construction.

Learn more about the Mount Hood Freeway, with this OE entry by Val Ballestrem here: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/mt__hood_freeway/

Image: Mount Hood Freeway map. Image from publication "I-205 and Mount Hood Freeways: Facts and Alternatives." Proposed freeway is signified by dashed line running horizontally in center of image. Oreg. Hist. Soc. Research Lib., bb005623

You know how your grandpa used to tell stories of how he had to walk through miles of snow in the winter to get to school and you vaguely believed him? Well, Emmitt Marcus Tucker of southern Oregon literally did trudge through the snow on his way to school. When Tucker was a young boy in northwest Jackson County, he walked to school in the deep snow, just like his schoolmates. What was different about Tucker is that he did something about it. The founder of Tucker Sno-Cat® Corporation of Medford one of the world's oldest and most successful makers of snow vehicles, Tucker built snow machines. The company’s motto is "No snow too deep. No road too steep."

Emmitt Marcus Tucker was born on this day (July 24) in 1892, on Jump Off Joe Creek near Grants Pass, and he grew up near Trail. As a young man in the 1920s, he recognized that there was a market for machines that would travel on snow. He developed several snow vehicles based on a spiral-drive that corkscrewed through the snow.

Read more about Emmitt Tucker and Tucker Sno-Cat Corporation with this OE entry by Edwin Battistella.

https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/tucker_sno_cat_/

Travel Medford

Photo: Tucker family and friends at Crater Lake, 1949. Courtesy Tucker Sno-Cat Corporation.

July 23 is Stand By Me Day in Brownsville, OR. In 1985, scenes for the movie Stand By Me were filmed in Brownsville and fans from all over the world continue to visit the movie’s locations.

The City of Brownsville (Linn County) is in the southern Willamette Valley on the banks of the Calapooia River and in the foothills of the Cascade Range. The landscape is characterized by flat lands and deep soils in the valley, timbered hills to the east, and an abundance of year-round water. The town was known as a center for wool and agricultural production, which included wheat and then hops, grass seed, filberts, and walnuts. Today, antique stores and cafes operate in historic buildings constructed during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century on Main Street. Brownsville’s population was 1,800 in 2024.

Learn more about the history of Brownsville with this OE entry by Mandy Cole.
https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/brownsville/

Photo: Brownsville, Oregon, 1909. Oregon Historical Society Research Library, 59146, photo file 179A.

Check out The OE's new entry on Hood River Irrigation, by Kelsey Doncaster. A variety of pears, apples, cherries, and flowers and vegetables are a result from irrigation practices beginning in the early twentieth century.

Irrigation in the Hood River Valley, about sixty miles east of Portland on the Columbia River, was once a matter of supplementing nature. During the mid-nineteenth century, orchardists could grow fruit without additional water; but as the dense, timbered land in the valley was cut over (logged), irrigation was a way to ensure the growth of the local fruit industry. Unlike most other agricultural areas, however, irrigation stayed local, following the establishment of the orchard industry instead of being its catalyst. Through cycles of constant improvement of its irrigation systems, the Hood River Valley became a famous fruit-producing area.

Learn more here: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/hood-river-irrigation/

Photo: Hood River Valley orchards. Oregon Historical Society Research Library, photo file 522.

If you are in the Portland area, check out the new exhibit at the Oregon Historical Society, "A Fountain of Creativity: Oregon's 20th Century Artists and the Legacy of Arlene Schnitzer." The exhibit features the collection of Arlene's son, Jordan D. Schnitzer and the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation.

One of the first artists you learn about when you walk into the gallery is Clayton Sumner (C.S.) Price (1874-1950). Price was pioneering American expressionist and made his most important paintings while he lived in Portland, from 1929 until his death in 1950.

Learn about C.S. Price, with this OE entry by Roger Saydack.
https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/price_clayton_sumner_c_s_1874_1950_/

Learn more about "A Fountain of Creativity" exhibit. https://www.ohs.org/museum/exhibits/a-fountain-of-creativity.cfm

Image: Painting by C.S. Price, "Cattle in Sunlight," c.1922-1927. Oil and palette knife on canvas. Oregon Historical Society Museum Collection, 82-173.1.1,.2.

Enjoy a "milktoast" in honor of Nan Wood Honeyman on her birthday (July 15, 1881). Nan Honeyman made history as the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Oregon, serving from 1937 to 1939. Her friendship with Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt connected her, and many Oregon Democrats through her, to national Democratic Party politics and policies from the 1930s to the 1960s.

In 1936, Honeyman won a seat representing Oregon’s 3rd District in the U.S. House of Representatives. A strong supporter of Roosevelt’s New Deal, she served on three House committees—Indian Affairs, Irrigation and Reclamation, and Rivers and Harbors—and was an advocate for Bonneville Dam as a benefit to Oregon’s economy. She also supported public-owned power cooperatives and pushed for oversight of the Bonneville Power Administration by the Department of the Interior and congressional funding for building more power transmission lines to supply future energy needs. She supported New Deal policies that benefited Oregonians, including loans to farmers to continue crop production during the Great Depression.

Learn more about Nan Wood Honeyman, with this entry by Kimberly Jensen: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/honeyman_nan_wood/

Photo: A "milktoast" between Nan Wood Honeyman and Rep. Caroline O'Day (NY), 1937. Courtesy Library of Congress.

The 37th Summer Fishtrap Gathering of Writers is taking place at Wallowa Lake Lodge. Fishtrap had its beginnings in 1987, when writers Kim Stafford, of the Northwest Writing Institute, and Peter Sears, at the Oregon Arts Commission, convened a Northwest Writers Gathering at Lewis & Clark College in Portland. Writers George Venn, David Memmot, and Rich Wandschneider represented Oregon’s east side at the Gathering. The next year, with encouragement from Stafford and Sears and help from Alvin Josephy, who owned a ranch near Joseph, the Gathering was moved to Wallowa Lake. It was renamed Fishtrap, and Wandschneider became the director.

Learn about 2024 Fishtrap events here: https://fishtrap.org/summer-fishtrap-2024/ #

Read The OE entry on Fishtrap Inc., by Rich Wandschneider here: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/fishtrap_inc_/

Photo: Wallowa Mountains, 1960. Oregon Historical Society Research Library.

Recently published on The OE. Columbia City, by Cessna (Duke) Smith.

Columbia City is on the west/left bank of the Columbia River about thirty miles northwest of Portland and two miles north of St. Helens, the seat of Columbia County. A riverfront community of about two thousand residents, Columbia City is known for its pioneer museum complex, more than eighteen acres of parks, and Columbia City Days, an annual summer celebration that helps fund the community library.

Learn more about Columbia City here:
https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/columbia-city/

Photo: Crown Zellerbach lumber products from Columbia City, Oregon, c. 1950. Oregon Historical Society Research Library, Spokane, Portland, and Seattle Railway photographs; Org. Lot 78; Box 2, Folder 4; 020. https://digitalcollections.ohs.org/crown-zellerbach-lumber-products-shipped-from-columbia-city-oregon

The City of Columbia City, Oregon

It's the birthday of David C. Duniway, born on July 9, 1912. Duniway was the first Oregon State Archivist and a champion for historic preservation in Salem. He had a deep interest in local history and historic preservation and was a founding officer, in 1940, of the American Association for State and Local History and a founding member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, chartered by Congress in 1947.

Duniway began his career at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., in 1937. While working as a field supervisor in San Francisco, he was recruited to the newly created post of State Archivist at the Oregon State Library in 1946. With one assistant and a budget of $15,000, he began the daunting task of collecting and organizing the records of the State of Oregon, going back to the beginning of statehood. Some records had been lost over the years because of careless handling, and others had been destroyed in the 1935 Capitol fire. While some records were held by the State Library, others were being kept by individual agencies and the Legislative Assembly. All had to be secured and moved to the new State Archives, located in the basement of the State Library building in Salem.

Learn more about David Duniway with this OE entry by Jim Scheppke. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/duniway_david/

Photo: David Duniway, 1952. Oregon Historical Society Research Library, 005285.

It's the birthday of author Craig Lesley, born on July 5, 1945, in The Dalles, Oregon. In both his fiction and nonfiction, writer and teacher Craig Lesley speaks for his fellow rural western workers. His novels and short stories assert the power of unobtrusive virtues, such as skill, hard work, group loyalty, courage, and dogged persistence. A three-time winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, Lesley sets much of his writing in central and eastern Oregon.

Born in The Dalles in 1945, Lesley was raised by a single mother in the central and eastern Oregon towns of Pendleton, Baker City, and Madras. While doing fieldwork at age fourteen, he suffered life-threatening injuries when he was run over by a peppermint chopper, a trauma he later wrote about in a short story. Lesley also worked in his uncle’s sporting goods store in Madras, was a guide on the Deschutes River, longshored in Alaska, and worked at the Bunker Hill Lead and Zinc company in Kellogg, Idaho.

Read The OE entry on Craig Lesley, by John Davies here:
https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/lesley_craig_1945_/

Image: Cover to Craig Lesley's book "Burning Fence." Courtesy Craig Lesley.

Psychiatrist, activist, and author Ralph Shelton Crawshaw was born on July 3, 1921. He was an internationally recognized pioneer in health reform and physician education. He designed the Oregon Health Plan with John Kitzhaber and founded nonprofit organizations that advanced health policy in the public interest.

In 1982, Crawshaw founded the nonprofit Oregon Health Decisions. The group held a series of town hall meetings that sought to give the public a voice in health policy. John Kitzhaber, then a state senator and emergency room doctor, was one of many who were inspired by Crawshaw’s advocacy. Kitzhaber and Crawshaw crafted the Oregon Health Plan, which sought to make health care accessible to low-income individuals, while prioritizing services to control costs. Under Kitzhaber’s political leadership, the plan entered into law in 1993.

Learn more about Ralph Crawshaw's life and work with this OE entry by Maija Anderson. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/crawshaw_ralph_1921-2014/

Photo: Ralph Crawshaw. Courtesy Oregon Health & Sciences University Archives, Library Blog.

It's the birthday of architect Herman Brookman, born on July 2, 1891. With a career that spanned more than fifty years, Herman Brookman designed several landmark buildings in the Portland area from the 1920s to the 1950s. His work has long been recognized as much for its artistry as for its design quality.

Brookman made a name for himself with his residential designs in the mid-1920s, but the project that is arguably his masterpiece is not a home at all. In 1927, he began work on Temple Beth Israel, at 1931 Northwest Flanders Street in Portland. Brookman designed the building in collaboration with architects Morris H. Whitehouse, John V. Bennes, and Harry A. Herzog.

Learn more about Herman Brookman with this OE entry by Val Ballestrem here: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/brookman_herman_1891_1973_/

Photo: Temple Beth Israel, Portland. Oregon Historical Society Research Library, bb007121.