Book Review/The Oregon Companion
The Oregon Companion
By Richard H. Engeman
Timber Press
Oversized Paperback $27.95
By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review
Richard H. Engeman, former historian of the Oregon Historical Society, has written an in encyclopedia style gazetteer beginning with an intriguing story of George
Abernethy, the first and only governor of Oregon’s provisional government that preceded the Oregon territorial status. The A to Z historical documentary of Oregon concludes with the Zigzag River in Clackamas County which Engeman reveals is not named for the many twists and turns the ten mile river takes before it empties into the Sandy River. The name comes from the town of Zigzag, a name derived Joel Palmer’s description in his 1845 diary of his zigzag decent and crossing of the ravine in which the river flows.
The 432-page book answers many of the questions about Oregon’s 150 anniversary of statehood. It is an invaluable addition to the state’s history because Engeman meticulously separates fact from fiction about the state’s glorious history. Interestingly, as comprehensive as the book is it takes the reader goes through the alphabet with snippets about the state, Engeman revealing many of the facts with a sense of humor. He leaves no facts out about Douglas County and includes a brief discussion about every city and community in the county with facts that perhaps are little known even to its own residents.
The book will be published in April and answers such odd ball questions as what is the difference between a hoedad and a webfoot? A hoedad, Engeman explains, comes from the mythical imps of folklore, creatures of the conifer forest invented by loggers. In Oregon lingo they are tree planters who restored the logged over terrain. On the other hand, a webfoot is the early nickname for Oregonians and surprisingly was the name of the University of Oregon athletic teams before webfoot morphed into a duck.
Other trivia included is the origin of the intriguing name “Jumpoff Joe,” on the Oregon Coast at Nye Beach in Newport. “A large rocky formation known as a sea stack, Jumpoff Joe, is a rock shaped like a shoe with an open arch at the heel. It was made of sandstone and eventually eroded to near-nothingness,” Engeman wrote, but the name remains, even though, as he says, “it is a small lump described as looking like a seal sunning himself.”
“The Oregon Companion” is a book about people, places and things all connected to the state of Oregon, whose name has been a topic of speculation for centuries and is a disputed even today. There are 167 black and white, mostly historic, pictures sprinkled throughout the book as illustrations, including a 1911 photo of the Franz family poultry farm near Sutherlin, a photo said taken by the Southern Pacific Company to promote an agricultural settlement in Douglas County.
The book has a page devoted to the history of Douglas County, which it says was carved out of the doomed Umpqua County in 1851. Umpqua County is mentioned in the book as being created by the territorial legislature in 1851 and was later broken up to become Douglas County with portions of it becoming part of Lane County. Engeman said it is the only “vanished county” in the state. Scottsburg, Elkton and Yoncalla played an important role in what was then Umpqua County.
A brief history of each city and community in the county rates a mention in the book, for example Canyonville is described as a haven for northbound travelers on the old California-Oregon Trail when they reached there after a tortuous decent of some 1,300 feet that was frequently strewn with fallen trees and washouts. Another interesting anecodote about the Russian-Jewish commune established in the 1880s near Glendale. This story is told in a section called Jews in Oregon and the ugly influence of the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon that was hostile to both Jews and Catholics.
Sutherlin got a larger mention than Roseburg including a half-page picture of Oregon Woods Camp, a structure built in the 1930s from 3,200 logs milled out of 464 trees. It was once illuminated with colored lights. Engeman notes its fate is not known.
The final black and white photo in the book is of the covered bridge over Mill Creek near Scottsburg along the lower Umpqua River. It was built in 1925 and demolished in the 1950s.
Engeman has proved his mettle as a Pacific Northwest historian and archivist in this tremendous undertaking to coincide with Oregon’s sesquicentennial.
(Bill Duncan can be reached at bduncan@nrtoday.com or by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470)