Book Review/The State of Jefferson
Book Review
The State of Jefferson
By Bernita L. Tickner and Gail Fiorini-Jenner
Arcadoa Publishing
Paperback $19.99
By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review
Thirty years ago when I was traveling north on Interstate-5 in search of my Shangrila I began to see billboards advertising the State of Jefferson. I was pretty good at geography and U.S. history, but had never heard of a U.S. state named Jefferson. It took me so time to realize it was a spoof, although it was very real to the early settlers of an area too far north in California and too far south in Oregon to get much attention from either of the two statehouses.
Those settlers declared the State of Jefferson for their territory and even today the same border county residents of that northern portion of California and the southern most portion of Oregon where the readers of this book review live have that independent spirit of a separate state.
Thus the mythical state is rekindled by Bernita Tickner and Gail Fiorini-Jenner in a unique book entitled "The State of Jefferson." What unfolds in the pages of the book are priceless black and white historic photos of the area the pioneers wanted to carve from California and Oregon into a separate state. It is definitely a photographic history of the early years of the region.
The very first picture is of Agnes Pitchford and friends in a wagon being pulled by a team of horse across a bridge over Deer Creek in 1913. The caption under the photo relates that Roseburg was first named Deer Creek. The caption explains: "The town was renamed Roseburg in 1894 and served as a stop for the California and Oregon Railroad. Agnes later served as director of the Douglas County Juvenile Department." The former juvenile detention center was named the Pitchford Boys Ranch in her honor.
From the cover to the back page, the book is filled with historic black and white photos. The authors explain in an introduction that the area was part of the 1849 gold rush, "but has never received the kind of historical reference that the Mother Lode has, even though it contributed as much, if not more, to the coffers of the two states. Moreover, the region was easily overlooked after the gold rush, since it still remains less populated and more rural than the remainder of the two states."
The two authors said they hoped the book would preserve the area’s unique history, in both story and photo most of which is told in the captions under each picture.
Tickner’s interest in local history comes from her childhood. Her family settled in the present Siskiyou County in the 1860s. She is a retired librarian and a genealogical researcher. Fiorini-Jenner’s also interest stems from her marriage into a fourth generation rancher in Etna, Calif. She has a degree in anthropology and is currently an English and history teacher. The two women co-authored an earlier book , also called "The State of Jefferson."
(Bill Duncan is editor of The Senior Times. He also writes a weekly column on the opinion page of The News-Review.)