TILL BROAD DAYLIGHT
A History of Early Settlement in Oregon's Tillamook County
TILLAMOOK, Oregon -- Wedged between the Coast Range and the Pacific Ocean, the Tillamook country of Oregon's north coast was once days away by either boat or foot from the nearest settlement, a land of isolation and ruggedness in which families faced a life of hardship on the edge of a wilderness. Now the new book Till Broad Daylight: A History of Early Settlement in Oregon's Tillamook County, derived from a manuscript written more than a century ago, describes life on this remote frontier.
After arriving as one of the first white settlers in the area in 1852, author Warren N. Vaughn struggled alongside his few neighbors to overcome such difficulties as threadbare clothing, shoeless children, and long winters of seemingly endless meals of salmon and potatoes.
"Can you blame some of those hardy few," Vaughn writes, "who, when spring came, left the country and shook the very dust from their feet?"
Yet enough stayed through good times and bad that there formed a community of stouthearted individualists who refused to let circumstances control their lives. For example, when no ships were available to bring in supplies or carry out crops, they built their own. And when life became uncomfortable, even downright dangerous, their solution was to pull out the fiddles, push back the tables and chairs, and throw themselves a dance that lasted "till broad daylight."
While in his seventies, Vaughn began writing what he could remember -- and he remembered a great deal -- of the early days of the community's history, of people struggling to make a life for themselves along a frontier that few could reach and even fewer endure.
Published by Bear Creek Press of Wallowa, Oregon, Till Broad Daylight is available for $17.00 at bookstores throughout the region, or from Bear Creek Press at 1-800-355-2554 or www.bearcreekpress.com.