Oregon Books

Although born and raised in the beautiful State of Oregon, I found Janice Marschner's Oregon 1859 overflowing with interesting facts, rewarding stories, and tails of tragic events that filled our State's history up to Statehood in 1859. I found her historic accounts of the events, and the people of our early history both entertaining, and historically informative. What is absent in this book, is the tedious, verbose text, which makes most historical non-fiction's comparable to a massive dose of sleeping pills. County by county, the interesting people and significant events of the day evolve, and you become more intimate with the locations and structures you only thought you knew. Every Oregonian, especially those newly `minted', should read `Oregon 1859' to understand the rich heritage we have, and the struggles and sacrifices our forbearers made to settle this beautiful place we call Oregon.

This is a fine read. Gets a liitle redundant with the 4 stories compiled together. But, very enjoyable.

Oregon Byways is an excellent book. The trail descriptions are extremely accurate, concise and helpful. I liked the photographs because they give a perspective on a drive. The list of resources, parks and places of interest in the back of the book is invaluable. I wish I had time to go on all the drives. Good job.

The author of this book, Steve Knutson, made his first trip to Oregon Caves in the winter of 1961-1962, and he has been exploring the caves every since. There is probably no one else alive who could describe the caves in the detail that he has achieved in this book.

The book falls into three parts: The first part covers the discovery of the caves by pioneers in 1874 and their subsequent exploration of the caves up through 1894. This section of the book is lavishly illustrated with period photographs of the explorers and delighful drawings that were made by a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner in 1891. Modern maps show details of the portions of the caves explored during this time period.

The second part covers the development of Oregon Caves into a National Monument, begining in 1907. Originally, the caves were very difficult to reach and the tales of early visitors trips to the National Monument are fascinating to read. A road was finally built in 1921, and access to the caves became more practical and Oregon Caves became what modern visitors would recognize as a "commercial cave".

The third part covers the modern exploration and mapping of Oregon Caves, beginning in 1959 by Bill Halliday and the Western Speleological Survey. This section includes photographs of the modern exploration of the caves and the techniques that they used. Numerous maps of the various sections of the caves are included along with photographs of the explorers.

It is hard to imagine that anything of significance about Oregon Caves has been left out of this book.

The American landscape, both natural and human, offers a wealth of beautiful imagery that expert photographers with an artist's eye have captured in full color within the pages of "Central Oregon Impressions". Part of the visually outstanding 'Impressions' series published by Farcountry Press, "Central Oregon Impressions" is a compilation of captioned photographs that evoke the emotions and conceptual inspirations that the region offers its local residents and vacationing visitors alike. Also very highly recommended are other visually celebratory photographic compendiums from Farcountry Press including "Boston Impressions" (1560374373, $[...]); "Missoula Impressions" (156037442X, $9.95); and "Omaha Impressions" (1560374330, $[...]). Students of photography and armchair travelers are encouraged to visit the Farcountry Press website at www.farcountrypress.com for a complete listing of their invaluable locally-oriented photographic tributes to American cities and landscapes.

The intro gives a little history of the author and about what he wrote. The story was interesting to me because I like reading about agricultural communities in Oregon. It takes place in the 1930's when it was written so you get a feel of what life was like then. I usually read non fiction but really enjoyed the story.

There is a fascination in reading about disasters, especially ones that are close to home. So when I came across Oregon Disasters: True Stories of Tragedy and Survival at a gift shop, I snatched it up to see what the book had to say about disasters that have occurred in the state where I live.

In Oregon Disasters Rachel Dresbeck covers 20 incidents that span the time period from 1903 to 2003 and include a number of different types of disasters: a shipwreck, a sinking, floods, fires, a wind storm, mountain climbing accidents, blizzards, a tsunami, a massive chain-reaction car accident, and an airplane crash. She even covers the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State because "many of the fifty-seven official dead were from Oregon."

Like any good story-teller, particularly one telling stories of tragedies, Dresbeck emphasizes the impact of these events on the people involved and on their friends, families, and communities. Though the chapters are short - any one of them could easily be developed into a book of its own - Oregon Disasters is engrossing and well-written.

While the chapters can be read in any order, reading them in sequence (from oldest to most recent) gives more of a feel for the flow of history, which is an important element of the book. As important as the people in the stories are to the reader, Dresbeck herself writes that "the stories in this book were chosen for their scale and scope - not necessarily for how many people died, but whether the event had a deep or long-lasting influence, whether it wrought changes to landscapes, lives, practices, or policies."

Whether you focus on the individuals whose lives were changed by these disasters or on the influences and aftermaths of these incidents, Oregon Disasters makes for a good read.

I used this as my main reference book on a trip to Oregon last summer (1998). The info was current, easily understandable, directions were very accurate. I loved the list of radio stations at the end of each chapter - it eliminates searching around the dial while you drive. And I contacted cities from the list of Chambers of Commerce and received a lot of additional helpful info. The best recommendation that I can give is that I'm headed for California this summer and the Martin's book is at the top of my short list of books to buy! PS - There is a 1999 update available now.

Theodor Kirchhoff wrote many pieces about the American West for nineteenth-century German magazines; among them were excellent and insightful articles about Oregon. In this volume seventeen of his best are published in English for the first time. Kirchhoff offers a cornucopia of information about those early times, rendering many profiles of picaresque characters and rough towns....Kirchhoff did live in Oregon for a time, owning a store in The Dalles. His essays give life to that town, as well as Portland, the Willamette Valley and southern Oregon. The influence of new mining strikes in both Oregon and Idaho are among the fascinating tales.
--- from book's back cover

This guidebook is old, hard to find, and often spendy but that doesn't change the fact that it's the best Oregon mountaineering guidebook you can get. It contains some pretty obscure routes and covers all the major peaks. This is as close as you can get in Oregon to a Beckey Guide (why couldn't Fred have made one for us? It's a shame).