Looking Back at Our Town

A Photographic Portrait of Wallowa, Oregon

When some folks in Wallowa, Oregon, decided to do something about saving the memories of their town, the result was Looking Back at Our Town. Containing 170 photographs, some more than 100 years old, the book shows the way things used to be.

ISBN 1-930111-04-5, 88 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, map, 170 photographs. $20.00 cover price.

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"Every home in Wallowa County and many elsewhere in the region will enjoy the book -- fascinating photos." East Oregonian

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Looking Back at Enterprise, Oregon

A Photographic Portrait

The second book in the Looking Back Series, this photographic portrait of Enterprise, Oregon, contains rare historical photographs that show the growth of the town from its beginnings in the 1880s.

ISBN 1-930111-16-9, 84 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, map, 76 photographs. $18.00 cover price.

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Looking Back at Joseph, Oregon

A Photographic Portrait

It was born a frontier town, a bit rough around the edges. But as it grew up beside the blue waters of Wallowa Lake, the town of Joseph, Oregon, found itself changing through the years, evolving from a homesteading community to a ranching center and finally to a tourist destination and art mecca. Now the fourth book in the Looking Back Series recalls the early days and different faces of this historic small city.

ISBN 1-930111-28-2, 56 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, numerous photographs. $15.00 cover price.

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Looking Back at Wallowa Lake

A Photographic Portrait

From the days of Nez Perce tipis to the time of RV parks, northeast Oregon's Wallowa Lake has always drawn a crowd. Born in an age of ice when glaciers plowed their way down the mountains and toward the valleys, the lake through the years has shared its waters and shores with native people, pioneer homesteaders, and modern travelers who have come seeking what the lake offers, from its campsites and salmon runs to its mystery and beauty. As a result, the lake has long been a destination for vacationers as well as a source of geological and historical discovery.

Today, some of the memories of what makes this lake special have been collected in this third book in the Looking Back Series. Looking Back at Wallowa Lake contains almost 80 photographs that trace the changes in the area going back to the time of the Nez Perce. In addition, the photographs' captions -- which come from historical photographs, local authors, and regional newspapers -- record segments of the lake's geology, history, and development.

ISBN 1-930111-14-2, 84 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, map, 77 photographs. $18.00 cover price.

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Looking Back at La Grande, Oregon

A Photographic Portrait

It began as a campsite along the Oregon Trail but quickly grew into the hub of the region -- La Grande, Oregon, a city of brick buildings, shady parks, and enough quiet elegance to prompt one early-twentieth-century visitor to call it "the prettiest town in Eastern Oregon." Now LOOKING BACK AT LA GRANDE, OREGON provides a glimpse into the city's past through approximately eighty historical photographs covering almost a hundred years of change.

ISBN 1-930111-48-7, 83 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, map, approximately 80 historical photographs. $18.00 cover price.

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Looking Back at the Columbia Gorge

A Photographic Journey

For thousands of years after ice age floods had gouged it into a land of plunging waterfalls and thundering rapids, the Columbia River Gorge remained a wilderness crossed only by foot paths and horse trails. And then along came Samuel C. Lancaster.

Beginning in the second decade of the twentieth century, Lancaster set out to do what many believed could not be done -- build a highway through the Columbia Gorge. A "broad thoroughfare," he called it, "a frame to the beautiful picture which God created."

When the Columbia River Highway was finished -- all 73.8 miles, 18 bridges, 7 viaducts, 3 tunnels, and 2 footbridges combined into the first major paved road in the Pacific Northwest -- Lancaster had created a masterpiece that many considered a work of art as well as an engineering marvel. "The best of all great highways in the world, glorified!" exclaimed the Illustrated London News. "It is the king of roads!"

To recapture those days of almost a century ago, this book takes you on a journey from west to east along the old highway in a time when the Columbia River still ran free, the means of travel was the Model T, and the Gorge and its road were treasures worth keeping forever.

ISBN 1-930111-52-5, 97 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs. $19.00 cover price.

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Expanded edition

"This album of photos from the early 1900s is a fascinating journey through time and space." Bill Andrus, East Oregonian

Note: This edition is expanded from the original (below); it contains 20 additional pages of historical photographs.

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Looking Back at the Oregon Coast

A Photographic Journey

The sea may be timeless, but those things that stand beside it -- rocks, dunes, roads, towns, and so much more -- sometimes seem to change almost as rapidly as the tides themselves. What the Oregon coast looked like, say, 120 years ago is uncertain, save for scattered descriptions mined from mariners' logs, explorers's journals, and settlers' diaries.

Move ahead a bit toward the end of the nineteenth century, however, and you find professional photographers lugging hundreds of pounds of cameras, chemicals, and glass plates to numerous beaches to capture thousands of, well, Kodak moments, which didn't actually come along until 1888, when the first Kodak camera hit the market along with the slogan, "You press the button -- we do the rest."

It was the birth of the snapshot and a big reason -- along with one-cent picture postcards-that we now have more than a century-old photographic record of our beloved coast, from seashore waders to main streets, river tours to train depots, resort hotels to campgrounds. Such rare images (this book contains more than 140 of them) comprise a photographic journey across both time and space, dating back more than 100 years -- the earliest photo is from the 1860s and the latest from the 1930s, with the majority coming from the time of Model T's and one-piece bathing suits -- and stretching across approximately 400 miles from Astoria on the Columbia River to Brookings near the California line, with a few sidetrips in between.

ISBN 978-1-930111-66-0, 81 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, 145 historical photographs, 10 maps, index. $18.00 cover price.

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Looking Back at Main Street Eastern Oregon

A Visit to More Than 100 Towns Across More Than 100 Years

Through the decades it has gone by many names and has shown many faces. But whether it's called Wall Street in Bend or Adams Avenue in La Grande, Broadway in Burns or Highway 82 in Lostine, Main Street once was, and in many cases still is, the heart of virtually every community located east of Oregon's Cascade Range. After all, it was here that people gathered to fill the larder, hop the stage, grab a beer, get a haircut, shoe a horse, court a beau, or just spend some time in the company of long-distance neighbors who helped make tolerable the life of toil and seclusion waiting back home on the farm or ranch.

Yet Main Street in Eastern Oregon was sometimes not a street all. In fact, in the earliest days of settlement it often consisted of nothing more than a store or saloon, a stagestop or hotel. And when these were gone, so was the town. As a result, some of the photographs in this book are of places that survive only in memory or history or as names on a map (though some have even vanished from maps), while others have grown into small cities.

But whether the 101 towns shown in these pages are gone or thriving or situated somewhere in between, all of them have for a moment opened a door to their past and invited us in for a visit, for some time spent Looking Back at Main Street Eastern Oregon.

ISBN 1-930111-53-3, 109 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, 126 historical photographs, 101 maps. $20.00 cover price.

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"This book is a true treasure." Statesman-Journal

Neah-Kah-Nie Mountain

A 1909 Journey to the Oregon Coast

Photographs by Benjamin Gifford

In the summer of 1909, Benjamin Gifford, one of Oregon's best known and most accomplished photographers at the turn of the twentieth century, accompanied writer Lewis M. Head on a journey to Neahkahnie Mountain on Oregon's north coast. The visual record of that adventure-the beaches and forests, the meadows and capes and slopes of the 1,600-foot mountain-was first published as a real estate agency's advertisement in 1910, when the only overland route through the area was a footpath eighteen inches wide. Now reproduced as it first appeared almost a hundred years ago, now NEAH-KAH-NIE MOUNTAIN gives us a glimpse of the area as it was in the early years of the last century.

ISBN 1-930111-50-9, 33 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs. $12.00 cover price.

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"Another treasure from Bear Creek Press...a historical gem. It is a must-have for all lovers of Oregon history and an indispensable addition to the library of Oregon coast aficionados...a wonderful treat." Dan Hays, Statesman Journal

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Homesteading Memoirs

Frontier Days

The Life of Winslow Powers and the Early Settlement of Eastern Oregon

by James W. Powers

The life of Oregon pioneer Winslow Powers (18211895) reads like the chapters in the history of the American West. After all, here was a man who at one time or another was an Oregon Trail emigrant, a gold miner, a homestead farmer, a sheep rancher, and a businessman, while along the way he managed to survive Indian wars, epidemics, and all the turmoil that hard labor, brutal winters, and primitive living could throw his way. Now a description of that life appears in this book -- yet it is far more than a pioneer's biography.

Written by Powers' son, James W. Powers, and first published more than sixty years ago, this is a story of what it was like for some of the first families to venture east of the Cascades, building their homes so far from the nearest town in an area so rugged and isolated that its first white settlers didn't arrive until more than a decade after Oregon had become a state. As a result, the history contained within these pages captures a way of living that is all but forgotten now: how we once plowed fields and harvested grain, spun wool and sewed clothes, made soap and brewed coffee.

But because life on the frontier also involved far more than domestic chores, this is also a story about quarrelsome neighbors, vigilante justice and, perhaps most of all, the fierce independence, tenacity, and resourcefulness that such a world demanded from those who lived in it.

ISBN 1-930111-47-9, 75 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs. $11.00 cover price.

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Into the Valley

A Homesteader's Memories of the 1870s

by James W. McAlister

In the early 1870s, young James W. McAlister was lured to northeast Oregon's remote Wallowa Valley by its promise to be the adventure of a lifetime. His subsequent journey as an eighteen-year-old in the fall of 1872, however, also contained its share of misadventures -- wrecked wagons, angry bears, and wary companions who punished him for his unintentional encounters with the Nez Perce.

Yet the valley's attraction proved so strong that McAlister stayed, and his recollections of those early days gives us a rare glimpse at an era when the land was still wild, and those who would tame it were first coming into the valley.

ISBN 1-930111-37-1, 27 pages, 5.5x8.5 inches, saddle-stitched, map, photographs, appendix. $6.00 cover price.

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"Fascinating stories. Everyone in the Wallowa country will want a copy -- so will anyone who's ever spent any time in that wonderful haven." East Oregonian

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The First Winter

A Homesteader's Memories of the 1880s

by Morton Carroll Wolverton

At the age of seven, Morton Carroll Wolverton traveled with his mother and stepfather to their new homestead in northeast Oregon's Wallowa Valley, where they spent the winter of 188485 struggling to survive against cold, snow, and starvation. In this simple but rare account of those trying times, Mr. Wolverton captures the seemingly indomitable spirit that enabled early settlers to endure the hardships of what was anything but "the good old days."

ISBN 1-930111-33-9, 22 pages, 5.5x8.5 inches, saddle-stitched, map, photographs, appendix. $5.00 cover price.

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As It Was

A Homesteader's Memories of the 1890s

by Itol Lathrop Rucker

Born on a 160-acre homestead in the sprawling wheatfields of northeast Oregon's Wallowa Valley, Itol Lathrop Rucker lived a life built from what labor could coax or wrestle from the land. In this world of butter churns, spinning wheels, and kerosene lamps, Itol and her family raised sheep for wool and hogs for meat in an age when fiddles provided the dancing music and midwives delivered the babies. Yet few who lived that life ever recorded their memories of it, which is the reason a memoir such as this is so valuable, giving us a glimpse into the way we lived more than a century ago.

ISBN 1-930111-34-7, 18 pages, 5.5x8.5 inches, saddle-stitched, map, photographs. $5.00 cover price.

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My Days in Northeast Oregon

A Memoir of Wagons Trains & Pack Strings in the 1890s

by Henry C. Brown

In the spring of 1891, Henry C. Brown and his family rounded up their cows, hitched up their wagons, and headed west in one of the last wagon trains to make the journey along the Oregon Trail. When they arrived in northeast Oregon five weary, dusty months later, Henry stepped into a world of pack strings, sheep camps, and bucking horses -- adventures that eventually grew into what he called "a sketch of my life from boyhood on, as near as I can remember it."

Now part of that sketch has grown into My Days in Northeast Oregon: A Memoir of Wagon Trains and Pack Strings in the 1890s. Part diary, part narrative, and all storytelling, Henry Brown's recollections of those bygone years give new life to a now vanished time and a much changed place.

Eventually, Henry C. Brown settled in California, married three times (the third wedding coming in 1959 at the age of 89), raised 12 children and one grandson, and lived to the age of 97. Yet of all that he may have accomplished during his long life, perhaps nothing has greater value to those wanting to catch a glimpse of the region's early years than the story of his days in northeast Oregon.

ISBN 1-930111-18-5, 59 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, map, photograph. $9.00 cover price.

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Grandma's Memories

Remembering the Homestead Days

Flora, Oregon 19001927

by Edith Van Campbell Cattron & Thelma McCulloch

Like a patchwork quilt made up of separate pieces of cloth, this book is composed of individual memories connected to a single fabric of time and place. The time was the turn of the twentieth century; the place, the farthest reaches of northeast Oregon, where homesteaders were staking their claims and building their homes in what some called "the north end wilderness."

Living miles from either stores or doctors and connected to the nearest cities by wagons roads and horse trails, these people shared a fierce self-reliance and an optimistic view of the future. It was their hope as well as their belief that the harder they worked, the better would be the lives of their children. As a result, the homesteaders' experiences with making a living and getting married, giving birth and raising kids, overcoming loss and dealing with grief -- these are all part of this story, which recaptures some of the moments of life from a century ago.

First edition, ISBN 1-930111-39-8, 55 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, map, photographs, appendix. $9.00 cover price.

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"It's difficult now to imagine the everyday hardships of those years, but this memoir paints a vivid picture of life not so long ago -- a touching family story." East Oregonian

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I Remember

A Memoir of Homesteading Days in Oregon's Wallowa Valley

by Kate J. Goebel

More than a memoir of an individual or family, I Remember captures a way of life that few remember and still fewer have ever recorded, describing in rare detail the way people lived and worked in the homesteading years of the early 20th century -- the days of midwives and washboards, livery stables and hitching racks, threshing crews and one-room schools.

ISBN 1-930111-13-4, 75 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, map, photographs. $10.00 cover price.

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A Time, A Place, A River

Memories of the Walla Walla Country

In the foothills of the Blue Mountains near the eastern corner where Oregon and Washington meet, a family consisting of Roy and Anna Wallace and their eight children once found themselves linked by a time, a place, and a river.

The time was the early 1900s; the place, the Wallace home; the river, the North Fork of the Walla Walla, which flowed near the Wallace's farm as it seems to have flowed through their lives, carrying currents of memories about family and friends, work and school. These recollections spring from experiences common to more than a generation of people born to the farms and ranches of the Northwest -- riding a horse to school, getting ready for a dance, sitting down to a fried chicken dinner, picnicking in the mountains and drinking water from a hillside spring.

Yet those memories also contain their share of sorrow -- the house burning down, the family splitting up, the struggle of surviving the Great Depression. In short, the Wallaces capture an era of a simpler and harsher time that belongs to all of us as part of our shared history.

ISBN 1-930111-44-4, 55 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, map, photographs. $9.00 cover price.

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Indian Wars

Battle of the Grande Ronde

The Story of a Long-ago Oregon Valley that Suffered the Pain and the Fury of War

by Mark Highberger

During the 1856 Yakima Indian War, a company of mounted volunteers rode into the Grande Ronde Valley of northeast Oregon, looking for a fight against "hostile Indians." What they found was a battle in a strange land far from home, against a people struggling to protect their families and their lives. Part of the Northwest History Series.

ISBN 1-930111-08-8, 50 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, maps, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $8.00 cover price.

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The Laws of War

A Story of the Modoc War of 1873

by Mark Highberger

They were the Modocs, a people whose mythology assured them, "Though you may be few, even if many and many people come against you, you will kill them." When that mythic promise took shape on the battlefields of the Modoc War in 1873, it generated one of the costliest conflicts of America's western frontier.

The six month campaign to defeat some 50 Modoc warriors and their families found the army deploying more than 1,200 troops and suffering more than 160 civilian and military casualties. But then a fateful decision on the part of Modoc leader Captain Jack led him to his own execution and his people into exile -- all in accordance with "the laws of war."

"I never realized what a horrible thing war is," said an army lieutenant who fought in the Modoc campaign, "until I came out on this trip." Part of the Northwest History Series.

ISBN 1-930111-15-0, 47 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, map, photographs, notes, bibliography, index. $8.00 cover price.

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The Soldiers' Side of the Modoc War

Eyewitness Accounts of America's "Most Costly War"

The odds were staggering, the desperate courage almost inconceivable -- but it happened anyway. For six months during the winter of 1872-73, approximately 50 Modoc warriors and their families fought some 1,200 U.S. Army troops to a standoff in what has been called "the most costly war in which the United States ever engaged, considering the number of opponents."

The Modoc War, which was waged along the Oregon-California border, consisted of a six-month campaign in which careers were ruined, lives shattered, and history made in gruesome ways -- peace commissioners gunned down, Modoc leaders executed as criminals, and newspaper reporters and magazine illustrators capturing life on the battlefield in often sensational and distorted ways.

Even though the complete story of the war, as well of the men who fought it, will probably never be told, the officers who recorded their battlefield memories of that cold and bloody winter have given us something vital to our understanding of this historic event -- a brief glimpse at the soldiers' side of the Modoc War. Part of the Northwest Classics Series.

ISBN 1-930111-38-X, 79 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs. $11.00 cover price.

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"The battles waged along the Oregon-California border created a frontier horror that shattered lives and ruined careers." Virgil Rupp, East Oregonian
"The full story of this dark chapter in American history has yet to be told. But this well-designed and well-printed book takes a major step toward helping us understand what happened. This book is an invaluable record of one side of a terrible event." Dan Hays, Statesman-Journal

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The Death of Wind Blowing

The Story of the 1876 Murder that Helped Trigger the Nez Perce War

by Mark Highberger

In June of 1876, two settlers from the Wallowa country of northeast Oregon rode into a Nez Perce hunting camp, searching for stolen horses. When they rode out, Wind Blowing, a Nez Perce warrior of the Wallowa band, lay dead. And the recoil from the rifle shot that killed him shaped the events that led to a war. Part of the Northwest History Series.

ISBN 1-930111-02-9, 43 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, maps, illustrations, notes, bibliography. $8.00 cover price.

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Chief Joseph's Own Story

A Story of the Nez Perce: How They Lost Their Home, Why They Fought a War

In 1877, the Nez Perce lost their home and their freedom in a tragic war they could neither escape nor win. First published in 1879, this book offers a timeless look at the desperate struggle between Indian and white that raged across the 19th century frontier of the Pacific Northwest. Part of the Northwest Classics Series.

ISBN 1-930111-06-1, 38 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, map, photographs, appendix. $8.00 cover price.

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General Howard's Own Story

A Story of the Beginning of the Nez Perce War

by Major General Oliver Otis Howard

A companion volume and personal rebuttal to Chief Joseph's Own Story, this book presents the viewpoint of General Howard, who led the U.S. Army's campaign against the Nez Perce in the war of 1877. "Chief Joseph's tale appeared to reflect unfavorably upon my official conduct," he wrote in 1879. "Now permit me to present a few simple facts which will show whether, in manner or matter, I have failed to meet the requirements of the situation." Part of the Northwest Classics Series.

ISBN 1-930111-12-6, 27 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, map, photographs. $7.00 cover price.

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Behind the Nez Perce War

Letters and Reports Tracing the Beginning of the Epic 1877 Conflict

Although this book was originally intended for historians and researchers as possibly the first bound collection of historical correspondences tracing the beginnings of the Nez Perce War, it soon became clear that these accounts from army officers, Indian agents, and government administrators are extremely readable, sometimes lively, and often entertaining. In these pages you'll find no ranting about "heathen savages" on the "warpath," no glowing accounts of pioneer heroism in the face of insurmountable odds--only the most "officially" reliable information of the day in the form of reports and letters from army officers, Indian agents, and government administrators-documents that not only describe the situation leading to that epic 1877 conflict, but also reveal some of the humanity and the drama behind the Nez Perce War.

ISBN 978-1-930111-72-1, 93 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, historical photographs, maps. $17.00 cover price.

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The Pursuit & Capture of Chief Joseph

A Story of the End of the Nez Perce War

by Charles Erskine Scott Wood

In 1877, the Nez Perce Indians of the Pacific Northwest fled for their lives and their freedom along a 1,200-mile trail that led them instead to death, exile, and imprisonment. When they reached the end of that tragic journey at the Bear Paw battlefield in Montana Territory, Lieutenant Charles Erskine Scott Wood was there to watch Chief Joseph surrender his rifle and to hear him promise that "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." This, then, is Wood's account of that surrender as well as a revealing chapter in the story of what has been called "the most extraordinary of Indian wars." Part of the Northwest Classics Series.

ISBN 1-930111-22-3, 39 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, map, photographs, illustrations. $8.00 cover price.

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"C.E.S. Wood writes in a clear and surprisingly modern style that helps to illuminate the tragedy of cultures on a collision course, in spite of the best intentions of some of the participants, and the worst intentions of others." Jeff Petersen, The Observer

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The Soldiers' Side of the Nez Perce War

Eyewitness Accounts of "The Most Extraordinary of Indian Wars"

It endures as one of the epic journeys of American history -- the 1877 flight of 750 Nez Perce Indians along a trail that led them, after four months and 1,200 miles, to the Bear Paw Mountains of Montana. There on a freezing October battlefield -- outnumbered, outgunned, and pinned down for more than five days in a relentless barrage of rifle- and artillery-fire -- the Nez Perce at last surrendered to U.S. Army troops. "The close of the war in October," wrote Major W.R. Parnell, "ended one of the most memorable campaigns in the history of Indian warfare."

Fortunately for history, Parnell and others who fought in the Nez Perce War recorded their memories of it, their recollections of the battles as well as of the soldiers and warriors who fought them. Now these eyewitness accounts of people in conflict and men in combat are preserved in The Soldiers' Side of the Nez Perce War.

First published almost a century ago, these eyewitness accounts involve soldiers far from home who found themselves in combat because of duty or circumstances, and who suffered and died on the battlefields of what General William T. Sherman called "the most extraordinary of Indian wars."

The result is compelling and often moving reading, a testament to courage and sacrifice that comes together, at least in part, as the soldiers' side of the story. Part of the Northwest Classics Series.

ISBN 1-930111-27-4, 119 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, historical photographs, $14.00 cover price.

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"Another distinguished volume in the enterprising Northwest Classics Series." East Oregonian

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From Where the Sun Now Stands

The Story of Chief Joseph's Surrender Speech

Based on the Letters of Charles Erskine Scott Wood

"From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." This sentence marks the conclusion of one of the most dramatic chapters -- as well as one of the most famous speeches -- in the history of the American West. Spoken by Chief Joseph during his surrender on the Bear Paw battlefield of Montana, the event that ended the Nez Perce War of 1877, the words have endured because standing near the Nez Perce chief that day was Charles Erskine Scott Wood, a U.S. Army lieutenant. Wood not only recorded Joseph's speech, but also described later in a series of letters the circumstances of the battle and the surrender, as well as of the speech and its fate after the war. Now some of those letters are presented here to recapture that time and place in history that Chief Joseph knew as "From where the sun now stands."

ISBN 1-930-111-51-7, 31 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs, illustrations. $7.00 cover price.

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"Here is a wonderful little book...If you have an interest in American history or Native American facts, this book will find a prominent place in your library." Dan Hays, Statesman-Journal

"There's just enough here to whet the appetite for a more complete and scholarly history of the Nez Perce War, one of the most remarkable stories in the history of the Northwest." Bill Andrus, East Oregonian

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Chief Joseph as a Commander

The Story of the Nez Perce -- A Military Exploit of the First Magnitude

by Lt. Albert Gallatin Forse

Lieutenant Albert Gallatin Forse of the First U.S. Cavalry lived his life as a warrior and mistakenly believed that Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce did, too. But Forse certainly was not alone in his belief.

In fact, of all the mythologies that have sprung from the history of the Indian wars along the Western frontier, perhaps none has lived longer than the notion that during the Nez Perce War of 1877, Chief Joseph served as the commander-in-chief and military strategist who devised a battle campaign so ingenious that West Point cadets still study his tactics. None of it is true.

Yet after spending four months chasing approximately eight hundred Indians (including women, children, and elderly) across fourteen hundred miles during a campaign that often saw the Nez Perce outmaneuver, outfight, and even embarrass the pursuing soldiers, army officers could have found it convenient to blame their showing on a "Red Napoleon."

Now Lieutenant Forse's descriptions of the war's major battles as well as its most enduring figure give us a rare glimpse into an extraordinary historic event -- and into a time when the general public believed that the Nez Perce success in its tragic flight was the result of the genius of Joseph as a commander. Part of the Northwest Classics Series.

ISBN 1-930-111-63-0, 39 pages, 7.5x8 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs, index. $8.00 cover price.

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Nez Perce Exile

Larry D. O'Neal

Although the Nez Perce War of 1877 ended with Chief Joseph's surrender at Montana's Bear Paw battlefield, the desperate struggle of Joseph's people was just beginning. For the next eight years they would experience hunger, sickness, and death during their exile in Indian Territory, a time in which Joseph continued to fight for his people's return to their Northwest home. Until Larry D. O'Neal's Nez Perce Exile, however, those years have often been an overlooked chapter in the history of the war and the people it affected the most. Part of the Northwest History Series.

ISBN 1-930-111-64-9, 51 pages, 7.5x8 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs, index. $9.00 cover price.

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"In this small volume, Larry O'Neal shines a bright light into a dark and little-known corner of one of the most significant episodes in the history of the American West. Through years of quiet, diligent research, O'Neal has uncovered materials that will completely reshape our understanding of what the Nez Perce people suffered during their long and tragic exile in Indian Territory. This book is a gift to historians and readers who care about the true stories of what befell the Indian people during our nation's relentless conquest of lands the Native people once held as their own." Kent Nerburn, author of Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce: The Untold Story of an American Tragedy

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Northwest History

Till Broad Daylight

A History of Early Settlement in Oregon's Tillamook County

by Warren N. Vaughn

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. Here there formed a community of stouthearted farmers and tradesmen 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 -- the Morning Star of Tillamook.

In this book written by Warren N. Vaughn, one of Tillamook's first settlers, the area's history unfolds as a tale of people struggling to make a life for themselves along a frontier that few could reach and even fewer endure. In this way, it's a story of courage and survival, of tenacity and ingenuity. But mostly it's a story of people who faced the adversity in their lives by pulling out the fiddles, pushing back the tables and chairs, and then throwing themselves a dance that lasted "till broad daylight."

ISBN 1-930111-41-X, 99 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, maps, historical photographs, appendix, index, $17.00 cover price.

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"Till Broad Daylight is a delightful book, with humor, history, and interesting facts." The Dayton Tribune

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A Town Wild & Uncultivated

The Story of the Life and Death of an Oregon Boom Town

by Mark Highberger

This is a story that begins with a lost wagon train and ends with a vanished town. And in between, the Baker County community of Auburn -- in 1862 the second largest city in the state -- saw both the glimmer and the darkness that comes from gold. Part of the Northwest History Series.

ISBN 1-930111-09-6, 43 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, maps, illustrations, notes, bibliography. $8.00 cover price.

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Untamed Land

The Death of Pete French & the End of the Old West

by Mark Highberger

In the summer of 1872 when he finally reined in his horse at the end of five hundred dusty miles, twenty-three-year-old Pete French found himself on the edge of a land untamed, unclaimed, and open to any man with enough grit to fight for it -- a fight he would spend the next quarter-century trying to win before dying with his boots on, shot from the saddle and launched into legend as the target of a homesteader's quick trigger finger.

In that relentless twenty-five-year quest to build a cattle empire, French found himself battling the land, the laws, and the people living at a crossroads of history that marked the end of one era and the beginning of another: the fall of the cattle king and the rise of the homesteader in the American West. In this way, the story of Pete French is not so much the biography of a man as it is a history of his era, a world of Indians, buckaroos, and homesteaders in a day when big ranchers seemed as large as the land they tried to conquer, until the arrival of determined people searching for better lives eventually overwhelmed them.

ISBN 1-930111-59-2, 137 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, 84 photographs, 37 maps, 8 illustrations, bibliography and index. $23.00 cover price.

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Frontier Cavalryman

Lt. William Carey Brown's Letters from Fort Klamath, Oregon, 1878-1880

Transcribed & Edited by Cath Clark

Introduction by Richard W. Helbock

Soon after graduating from West Point in 1877 and receiving his assignment to one of the far-flung corners of the West at Oregon's Fort Klamath, Second Lieutenant William Carey Brown began a lifetime of adventure and service in the U.S. Army. "This roving life suits me quite well just now," he wrote in an 1879 letter to his family. "I am seeing plenty of new country, people, and having plenty of 'experience' -- enough that if I were a writer I think I could get up an interesting book."

Even though Lt. Brown never wrote that book, the numerous letters he left behind-more than fifty appear in this volume-serve much the same purpose, giving us a glimpse into what seems today to have been a long-ago time and a faraway land, a personal view of what it was to serve as a soldier on the Western frontier.

While stationed at Fort Klamath from 1878-1880, a period that saw the end of the Indian wars in the Pacific Northwest, Lt. Brown wrote frequently to his mother, father, and sisters living in Denver, Colorado. Taken as a whole, this collection opens a door into the life and times of a man who devoted himself to the service of his country in a career that spanned four decades, stretching from the Indian campaigns throughWorld War I. Yet even more important, those letters also give us a human connection to a chapter in Northwest history as they convey a sense of what life was like for a frontier cavalryman.

ISBN 1-930-111-65-7, 63 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, maps, historical photographs, bibliography, index. $14.00 cover price.

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"Frontier Cavalryman is a fascinating journey into times past." Herald and News

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The Murder of John Hawk

Indians, Stockmen, Vigilantes and the Settling of the Northwest Frontier

by Jon M. & Donna McDaniel Skovlin

Late on a moonlit night in the winter of 1881, a dozen armed men sneaked into the riverside camp of cattleman John Hawk and opened fire.

The ambush and murder, devised and carried out by a group of northeast Oregon vigilantes, serves as the central episode in this dramatic case study of life on the nineteenth-century Northwest frontier.

It's the history of a time that saw the Nez Perce leave and the homesteaders arrive, the stockmen competing for the open range and the vigilantes taking the law into their own hands. And the clash among these three cultures so prevalent in the Old West -- Indians, stockmen, and vigilantes -- eventually leads to the tragic murder of John Hawk.

ISBN 1-930111-58-4, 103 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, numerous maps, historical and contemporary photographs, artwork, bibliography and index. $13.00 cover price.

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"A vibrant tale with exceptionally good prose." Pendleton Record

"Bear Creek Press has released an impressive line of Oregon history books, and this is one of the best." Statesman Journal

"Jon and Donna Skovlin have done it again. Here, in a mere 103 pages, is one of the most delightful little books on the West this reviewer has had the pleasure to read in some time." Roy B. Young, WOLA Journal

"Jon and Donna Skovlin are establishing themselves as the authoriies on Northwestern frontier history." Chuck Parsons, NOLA Quarterly

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Snake River Massacre

The Story of the 1887 Murders They Called "The Crime of the Century"

by Mark Highberger

In May of 1887, seven outlaws ambushed the Snake River camp of some Chinese gold miners in what has been called "one of the bloodiest and most spectacular mass murders in American history." This is the story of those murders. Part of the Northwest History Series.

ISBN 1-930111-11-8, 46 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, maps, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $8.00 cover price.

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Stagecoach Days

Recollections of Rugged Roads & Runaway Horses

by Grover C. Meek

Before trains linked the frontier towns of the Northwest, travel by stagecoach involved a combination of arduous journey and spirited adventure, an odyssey in which grizzled drivers steered their four- and six-horse teams into some of the most remote corners of the American West. Now Stagecoach Day glances back at those times through the recollections of Henry McElroy, a northeast Oregon liveryman who worked in the world of stagecoaches and whose memories help bring that world back to life.

ISBN 1-930111-35-5, 27 pages, 5.5x8.5 inches, saddle-stitched, map, photographs. $6.00 cover price.

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300 Miles Awheel

The Story of an 1898 Bicycle Trip Across a Corner of the Northwest

by Homer Clark

On a summer day in 1898, Homer Clark felt "desirous to take an outing through Wallowa county in order to see the country." And so he and a friend hopped on their bicycles and began a 300 mile journey that would take them through the canyons and over the mountains of some of the wildest land in the Pacific Northwest. This is the story of their adventure as well as a glimpse at the region more than a century ago.

ISBN 1-930111-07-X, 27 pages, 5.5x8.5 inches, trade paper, map, photographs, illustrations. $6.00 cover price.

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Days of Sorrow

The Story of the Heppner Flood of 1903

Oregon's Most Deadly Natural Disaster

by Mark Highberger

For more than a thousand people living in the town of Heppner, Oregon, in the year 1903, the end of the world began with a gathering of clouds in the southern sky. Soon the rain poured, the creeks rose, and a torrent of water roared toward town.

"Days of Sorrow in Heppner," proclaimed the headline of the Heppner Gazette, which carried the story of the flood that tore through the community on a summer evening. "Without a second's warning, a leaping, foaming wall of water, 40 feet in height, struck Heppner at about 5 o'clock Sunday afternoon, sweeping everything before it and leaving only death and destruction in its wake." When it was over, the flood had swept away the lives of more than 200 people as well as 140 homes and 30 businesses.

Yet even though the story of the flood is a tale of death and loss and heartbreak, it's also one of courage, as two men raced their horses against the water, galloping downstream to warn other towns; of compassion, as people from around the Northwest donated food, medicine, and labor to the rescue; and of endurance, as the survivors buried their dead, restored their town, and rebuilt their lives.

ISBN 1-930111-21-5, 108 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs. $20.00 cover price.

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A Wild Night Ride

Two Men's Heroic Race Against the Heppner Flood of 1903

by Leslie L. Matlock and O.M. Yeager

When a June cloudburst unleashed a wall of water and debris that almost destroyed Heppner, Oregon, in 1903, a tale of heroism seemed to rise from the rubble the flood left behind. That story involved two men, Bruce Kelley and Leslie Matlock, who saddled their horses and raced the floodwaters down the Willow Creek Valley to warn the ranchers and townspeople who stood in its path. It was an event that made nationwide news and almost immediately took the shape of a legend.

Now three different versions of that episode make up A Wild Night Ride, the story of one of the most deadly natural disasters ever to strike the region and of the two men who rode into Northwest history. Part of the Northwest Classics Series.

ISBN 1-930111-23-1, 43 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs, appendix. $8.00 cover price.

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The Train Comes to Wallowa County

A Brief History

With the chug and huff of the first locomotive to enter any town of early America, the lives of the people living there changed forever. Steel rails and steam engines shrunk the world and eliminated the boundaries to travel. The plod of a horse no longer dictated either the length or course of a day's ride, and mountains, rivers, and distance no longer isolated families, businesses, and communities from one another.

This is the story, told through early-twentieth-century photographs and newspaper articles, of one of those communities -- northeast Oregon's Wallowa County, where on a September Sunday in 1908, a world of change rode into the valley on its first locomotive.

ISBN 1-930111-45-2, 55 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, map, photographs. $9.00 cover price.

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The Elk Killers

The Near Destruction & Ultimate Rescue of Elk in the American West

by Mark Highberger

Beginning in the mid-19th century, three waves of killers rode across the plains and mountains of the American West -- the hide hunters, who killed game for the skins; the pot hunters, who killed for the meat; and the tusk hunters, who killed for the teeth. Together they carried out the systematic slaughter of millions of animals. Now The Elk Killers tells the story of those days when the West's buffalo and elk were hunted almost to extinction.

By 1900, for instance, only 500 buffalo were left from herds that once numbered as many as 300 million animals, and less than one-half of one percent of America's original 10 million elk, which once roamed from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to Mexico, survived in a handful of Western states.

Yet the story has a happy ending when conservationists restore elk to their former homes in parts of the West. In fact, some of the first elk transplanted from Wyoming's Jackson Hole came by train to northeast Oregon's Wallowa County in 1912, and the herds that resulted soon grew strong enough to provide elk for other parts of the Northwest.

ISBN 1-930111-19-3, 59 pages, 7x8.5 inches, saddle-stitched, maps, photographs, illustrations, bibliography, index. $9.00 cover price.

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"The words and deeds of frontier hunters take root in Highberger's story and grow into a living history tale, transporting us as good literature does, enabling us to feel as if we're living those times." Don Burgess, Hunting Editor, Bugle magazine

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Homesteading the Oregon Desert

by Barbara Allen Bogart

By the hundreds they came, in horse-drawn wagons and Model T Fords, following a dream that today seems doomed from the start -- to build their farms and their futures in Oregon's high desert. Even though the land was free, this new wave of pioneers who arrived in the first years of the twentieth century found they paid a dear price for their homesteads.

"It usually took five years for a man to arrive," said one of the homesteaders, "build a house, fence some land, break it, put in a crop, wait in vain to harvest it, lose his money, get tired of jackrabbit stew, and leave."

Yet in spite of their failures -- no matter where they staked their claims across the high desert of the country's last frontier -- these desert homesteaders became part of the story, as well as the spirit, of the American West.

ISBN 978-1-930-111-47-7, 116 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, numerous maps, historical photographs, bibliography, index. $19.00 cover price.

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The Backwoods Teacher

Life in the Days of the One-Room Schoolhouse

by Edna Justin Renfrow

Teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in the rural West was one of the toughest, loneliest, and most disagreeable jobs of its day. The hours were long and the pay low, while textbooks were scarce and discipline problems severe. Teachers boarded with local families, toiled in schoolhouses that were teeth-chattering cold in winter and sweltering in spring, and tackled a work load that would exhaust a mule.

Now Edna Renfrow Justice presents a sketch of what life was like at school as well as at home in the days of the one-room schoolhouse in Oregon, a time when "the backwoods teacher had to be unsinkable to survive."

ISBN 1-930111-56-8, 23 pages, 5.5x8.5 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs. $6.00 cover price.

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The Town That Was Maxville

The Story of a Vanished Oregon Logging Town and the People Who Called It Home

by Mark Highberger

In the early 20th century, logging camps and communities seemed to grow from the forests of Eastern Oregon. It was a time when men's muscle cut the timber, steam donkeys gathered it, and trains hauled it to the sawmills of the region. Since those days, the years have erased the towns, and all that's left are the memories of the places that many people once called home. This is the story of one of those towns.

ISBN 1-930111-05-3, 35 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs, notes. $7.00 cover price.

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Road of Difficulties

Building the Lower Columbia River Highway

by Michael C. Taylor

From Portland to the Pacific once ran a road that climbed mountains and crossed rivers, an engineering marvel and a scenic wonder that carried travelers across some of the most rugged land in the Northwest. But as the age of the Model T slipped away, so did the highway, until it was erased from the landscape and soon forgotten -- until now. In spite of its short life, the story of the Lower Columbia River Highway -- the twin of the famous upper route that winds through the Columbia Gorge -- is one of determination and conflict, of technological genius and artistic vision that came together to create a seemingly impossible road to the sea.

ISBN 978-1-930111-70-7, 100 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, numerous historical and contemporary photographs, maps, bibliography, index. $19.00 cover price.

Nominated for the Oregon Book Award in General Nonfiction, 2008

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"Fascinating but little-known history, terrific historic photos, a book that's great for armchair travelers and people wanting to explore a forgotten highway." Herald and News

"The road is mostly gone now, but, thanks to Taylor, it's not forgotten." The Bulletin

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Lifting Oregon Out of the Mud

Building the Oregon Coast Highway

by Joe R. Blakely

In 1913, a time of few roads and little pavement, the fledgling Oregon Highway Commission had a single goal captured in a simple slogan -- "Get Oregon Out of the Mud." Nowhere in the state was this more important than along the coast, where a journey through this isolated land meant a struggle with trees and brush, with tides and sand -- but mostly with mud. "I don't see how there can be any Christians," said an early-twentieth-century traveler, "where roads such as this exist!"

Yet in an era when the best of coast roads were built of wooden planks or ran along the beach, and when an excursion by automobile could take a dozen hours to travel the same number of miles, the problem was punching a highway more than four hundred miles through some of the most rugged and remote terrain on the continent. Now Lifting Oregon Out of the Mud tells the story of how this historic achievement evolved when, starting in the early 1920s and lasting into the Great Depression, determined leadership, millions of dollars, and years of labor built the Oregon Coast Highway.

ISBN 1-930111-60-6, 71 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, numerous historical photographs and maps, index. $16.00 cover price.

(Note: Beginning April 10, 2008, an expanded version of this book, which includes more pages, photos, and an index, results in a $1 increase in cover price to $16.)

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"Blakely's book is a fascinating retrospective...tells a fascinating story." Herald and News

"After reading Lifting Oregon Out of the Mud by Oregon author Joe R. Blakely, driving the ocean-side route between California and Washington won't be the same again..a dramatic, long-running story with a rich selection of often dramatic contemporary photographs." Northwest Senior News

"Lifting Oregon Out of the Mud is an engrossing narrative." Westside Newspaper

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The Bellfountain Giant Killers

The Story of a Small Oregon High School and its Miraculous Championship Season

by Joe R. Blakely

They seemed to come from nowhere and to do the impossible, these young men who appeared to be anything but extraordinary until they stepped onto the basketball court -- but then magic happened.

Hailing from a Willamette Valley mill town described as "a wide spot in the road" and from a school that was among the smallest in the state, these eight remarkable athletes and their two special coaches spent the basketball season of 1937 defeating the best teams from the biggest schools in Oregon. And when the season had ended, the Bellfountain Giant Killers had created a new chapter in Northwest sports history.

"This is a fine book. It brings back memories of the way it was back then." Harry Wallace, starting guard, 1937 Bellfountain Giant Killers

ISBN 1-930111-24-X, 66 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs, appendix. $10.00 cover price.

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"Joe Blakely's book passionately preserves one of those David-vs.-Goliath sports stories that must be remembered, not only for its historic significance but for what it says to all of us who face life's giants." Bob Welch, The Register Guard
"Anyone who believes that truth is stranger than fiction will enjoy the story of the Bellfountain Giant Killers, Joe Blakely's epic tale of courage, discipline, and caring that led to one of the greatest upsets in Oregon sports history." Jeff Petersen, The Observer

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The Tall Firs

The Story of the University of Oregon & The First NCAA Basketball Championship

by Joe R. Blakely

Sportswriters nicknamed them the Tall Firs, and their coach called them the team of a lifetime -- but to basketball fans around the Northwest they were the University of Oregon Ducks, and in 1939 they became part of America's sports history by becoming the first NCAA basketball champions. Now "The Tall Firs" tells the story of this remarkable team.

"There came to the University of Oregon in the 1930s," says author Joe Blakely, "a pensive, detailed, progressive coach in Howard Hobson, and five basketball players who blended together so smoothly on the court that few college teams could stop them."

Those five players and their six teammates, all of whom came from the Northwest, raised college basketball to a new level of popularity during the dark days of the Great Depression.

ISBN 1-930111-40-1, 67 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, map, photographs, appendix. $10.00 cover price.

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"Blakely manages to sketch out a fact-driven yarn with some interesting details and snapshots." James K. Yu, The Oregonian
"One of the book's outstanding elements is the way it puts in relief the many differences between then and now, both in basketball and in life outside the sporting world." David R. Newman, Northwest Senior News

"A must-read for any college basketball fan. It's the story of the most famous group of 'Tall Firs' to ever come out of the Pacific Northwest. The boys finally get their due in a great book by Joe Blakely." Gary Henley, Daily Astorian
"I thought Joe Blakely had done it all with his first book The Bellfountain Giant Killers. Now he's done it again! Graduating from his tale about an amazing high school basketball team to tell the equally riveting story about the University of Oregon basketball team's march to the first-ever NCAA Championship in 1939 in his new volume The Tall Firs." Pat Wilkins, West Side Newspaper and author of Somewhere in Oregon

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The Gift of a Horse

The Story of a Nez Perce Chief, an Army Officer, and the Gift that Took a Century to Arrive

by Mark Highberger

In 1893, fourteen-year-old Erskine Wood made a mistake that would haunt him for the rest of his life: When his father, former U.S. Army officer C.E.S. Wood, tried to repay Chief Joseph for letting Erskine live with the Nez Perce leader's family through parts of two years, the young boy failed to convey Joseph's request for "a good stallion to improve the breed of his pony herd." As a result, more than a century would pass before Wood's descendants discovered the misunderstanding -- but then they set out to deliver the overdue gift. It was to be a quest that brought together two cultures, and that proved "A man's word is still good after 105 years."

ISBN 1-930111-32-0, 31 pages, 5.5x8.5 inches, saddle-stitched, maps, photographs, drawings. $6.00 cover price.

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Northwest Life

Somewhere in the Northwest

On the Road in Oregon & Washington

by Patrick C. Wilkins

Through four decades, Pat Wilkins was a familiar face and voice to thousands of Northwest television viewers who tuned in his newscasts, yet Wilkins' true calling lay outside the studio and along the less traveled roads of Oregon and Washington. Here, far beyond the usual range of TV cameras and crews, Wilkins searched for the people, places, and events that shaped what a colleague calls "his first love, feature reporting."

In following this love, Wilkins spent twenty years of his working life on the road somewhere in the Northwest, traveling the countryside in search of stories that capture the history and heart of the region. "Kind of like Charles Kuralt," he says, "but with a smaller territory."

Contained within these pages are more than thirty of Wilkins' favorite stories collected from thousands of miles of travel, with subjects ranging from a red rooster that captured the heart of a town to a man who defied a volcano, from a desert cave that reveals ancient secrets to an underground city that shelters the homeless, from a herd of goats that predict the weather to a restaurant that serves the "worst food in Oregon."

Toss in some native mythology, regional history, and modern technology -- and you have a recipe for a series of armchair excursions that will steer you along the road to adventure, somewhere in the Northwest.

ISBN 1-930111-46-0, 115 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs, artwork. $14.00 cover price.

"Wilkins is a craftsman and an artist in his own right. And his affection for his subject matter shines through in every word." Dan Hays, Statesman Journal

"Wilkins has a way with a tale. He offers nuggets of history and snapshots of life off the beaten path in the Northwest, and peoples them with folks from the region's past and present. The collection is a pleasant stroll through the myths, history and people of the Northwest." Bill Andrus, East Oregonian

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Pat Wilkins is a fine storyteller. This is a collection of his best, and I envy you if you're about to experience Pat's stories for the first time." Paul Linnman, author of The Exploding Whale: And Other Remarkable Stories from the Evening News

"If you're fairly new to the Northwest, you'll love Pat's tales and the bits of history that may have otherwise slipped under the threshold of time. If you've lived in the Northwest for a long time, you'll love them for the memories they evoke. If you've just purchased this book, you're are about to experience hours of the best kind of storytelling by a classic storyteller." Adam W. Wiktorek, author of Boomerang

"Once again Patrick Wilkins brings us tales of unique people and places in Oregon and beyond, as only the master storyteller can. You will enjoy this book." Dr. Jerry McGee, author of The Lewis River High Scalers & the Dam Kid

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Somewhere in Oregon

On the Road Across the State

by Patrick C. Wilkins

For more than twenty years as an on-the-road TV reporter, Pat Wilkins traveled the highways and backroads of Oregon in a quest to find the people, places, and history that make the state so special. Now with thirty of his favorite stories collected here, Wilkins takes readers along for the adventures to be found somewhere in Oregon.

ISBN 1-930111-55-X, 114 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs, artwork. $14.00 cover price.

"A good book! Interesting, compelling." Chris McCartney, West Side Newspaper

"The stories are delightful for both newcomers and fifth-generation Northwesterners." Rodger Nichols, The Chronicle

"Offers fascinating peeks at odd tales and leaves readers craving for more. Much more." Lee Juillerat, Herald and News

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"Wilkins' stories are informative, often fascinating, and sometimes infused with the touch of the poet. They are also stories of the heart and they nearly always reach deeply into the indefinable something that says 'Pacific Northwest.'" Dan Hays, Statesman-Journal

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Somewhere in Eastern Oregon

On the Road East of the Cascades

by Patrick C. Wilkins

Eastern Oregon is a land of distant horizons, endless sagebrush--and countless stories about the people and places that make this region unique. For more than twenty years, it was Pat Wilkins' job as an on-the-road TV reporter to track down these stories, to travel the roadways in a quest to capture the character and the history of the dry side of the state. Compiled here is a collection of those tales that range from the Columbia River to the California border, and from the flanks of the Cascade Range to the depths of Hells Canyon.

ISBN 978-1-930111-69-1, 114 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs. $14.00 cover price.

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Accidental Cowgirl

A City Slicker's Life on an Eastern Oregon Ranch

By Kristy St. Clair

In 1973 when Kristy St. Clair and her husband Phil, two hippies who had never been east of the Cascades, swapped their big-city lives in Portland for a four thousand-acre cattle ranch in Izee, they found themselves embarking on an adventure that would change them forever. It was to be a journey that involved learning how to ride, brand, and hunt; to drive cows, deliver calves, and endure frozen pipes; to fix fences and cut firewood, endure isolation and accept even death. But mostly it was a time to find a home between distant horizons and among good neighbors -- the perfect place to change a city slicker like Kristy into an accidental cowgirl.

ISBN 978-1-930111-68-4, 99 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper. $13.00 cover price.

Nominated for the Oregon Book Award in Creative Nonfiction, 2008

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"A hilarious and touching story. Few can spin tales like St. Clair." Herald and News

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Oregon Trail

The Last Wagon Train

An Emigrant's Story of Death & Survival on the Oregon Trail

By Emeline L. Fuller

When the last wagon train of 1860 left Idaho Territory's Fort Hall and resumed its westward journey on the Oregon Trail, it soon found itself ensnared in a deadly battle that evolved into one of the most gruesome chapters in the history of the American West. The tragedy began on a September day when a group of Bannock Indians attacked the wagons, and it ended 49 days later when cavalry troops rescued the survivors from their struggle against murder, starvation, and cannibalism.

Of the 44 emigrants in the wagon train, only 12 survived, one of them 13-year-old Emeline Trimble, who lost the other 11 members of her family during the seven-week ordeal. It is because of Emeline that this first-hand account of the tragedy exists, a remarkable tale of courage, endurance, and survival on the old Oregon Trail. Part of the Northwest Classics Series.

ISBN 1-930111-36-3, 39 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs, illustrations. $8.00 cover price.

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"We are fortunate to have this account -- It is a terrifying and heartwrenching tale." McKenzie River Reflections

"A worthy addition to the Northwest Classics Series." East Oregonian

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Ezra Meeker's Oregon Trail

One Man's Historic Journey to Save the Oregon Trail

After traveling by covered wagon to the Northwest in 1852, Ezra Meeker found himself 54 years later, at the age of 76, following the same route backwards, east to his boyhood home in Indiana. It was a long journey with a serious purpose -- to save the Oregon Trail.

At the time, the Trail had almost vanished. Cut by plows, eroded by weather, and covered with highways and towns, the route the pioneers had used in what was perhaps the largest human migration in world history had been reduced to a dim memory, a situation Ezra was determined to change. And so traveling in a covered wagon pulled by two oxen, Ezra stopped along the way to make speeches, raise money, and erect more than twenty monuments that marked the path of the old pioneers and kept alive the old Oregon Trail. Part of the Northwest History Series.

ISBN 1-930111-30-4, 51 pages, 7x8.5 inches, trade paper, map, historical photographs. $9.00 cover price.

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Oregon's Trail

Following the Path of the Pioneers from the Snake River to the Willamette Valley

by Mark Highberger

Oregon. It was more than a name -- it was a promise of free land and fresh opportunities that lured hundreds of thousands of people across two thousand miles of plains, mountains, and deserts to the far edge of the continent. And now for those who want either to see the trail for themselves or to capture a modern version of this historical experience, Oregon's Trail serves as a guide to the path of the pioneers from the Snake River to the Willamette Valley.

ISBN 1-930111-57-6, 111 pages, 8.5x11 inches, high-quality trade paper, numerous maps, historical and contemporary photographs, artwork, index. $19.00 cover price.

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"This is a superior guide book, a nice easy read and a good source of facts. A must for anyone who wants to maintain a complete Oregon history library." Dan Hays, Statesman-Journal

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Oregon Travel

Roads Less Traveled in Northwest Oregon

A Guide to Back Roads & Special Places

by Steve Arndt

From the foothills of the Cascade Range to the banks of coastal rivers, the northwest corner of Oregon is laced with miles of back roads that lead to new worlds of quiet adventures. Now Roads Less Traveled in Northwest Oregon shows modern explorers seven routes to follow through the region and explains what they'll find along the way. The first of six books in the Roads Less Traveled in Oregon series.

ISBN 1-930111-49-5, 100 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs. $17.00 cover price.

"The book is a delightful read." Charity D. Darnall, Spring Hill Review

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"It is a true delight -- a book crammed with where to go and what to see if you are interested in history, scenery or simply a nice, relaxing drive. Roads Less Traveled in Northwest Oregon is a treasure, a welcome addition to travel and history libraries." Dan Hays, Statesman-Journal

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Roads Less Traveled in Southwest Oregon

A Guide to Back Roads & Special Places

by Steve Arndt

From the rolling surf of the Pacific coast to the whitewater rivers of the Cascade Range, the southwest corner of Oregon is a land rich with history and stunning in its natural beauty--especially along its back roads and byways. Now Roads Less Traveled in Southwest Oregon shows modern explorers six routes to follow through the region and explains what they'll find along the way. The second of six books in the Roads Less Traveled in Oregon series.

ISBN 1-930111-54-1, 91 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs. $17.00 cover price.

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"Arndt's book is precise and useable. His choice of routes and things to takes note of are excellent. If you don't know Southwestern Oregon, let Arndt be your guide to some unique places." Dan Hays, Statesman-Journal

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Roads Less Traveled in North-Central Oregon

A Guide to Back Roads & Special Places

by Steve Arndt

From the alpine slopes of Mount Hood to the vast wheatfields and grasslands of the interior, north-central Oregon is a region of distant horizons, scenic wonders, and pioneer history. Now Roads Less Traveled in North-Central Oregon shows modern explorers seven routes to follow through the region and explains what they'll find along the way.

ISBN 1-930111-62-2, 98 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, maps, photographs. $17.00 cover price.

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The Long Road to Lonesomeville

A Guide to Small Town Eastern Oregon

by Mark Highberger

For travelers who want to explore the quieter places and simpler times found in eastern Oregon's small towns, for those who want to visit communities that stand alone and sometimes lonesome along the region's backroads and blue highways, The Long Road to Lonesomeville has arrived to serve as a guide.

Yet the road to any Lonesomeville is long only in terms of the time it holds. Here the tick of a clock, the arc of the sun, and the flow of the seasons seem to slow down and wait for you. Sometimes they even nudge you back a bit, for all the stories in this book are about towns secluded but not empty, remote but not abandoned. And those who take the journey will find places that show us what we once were, not long ago, in the morning of our lives.

ISBN 1-930111-29-0, 90 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, historical and contemporary photographs. $16.00 cover price.

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"It's a great book that's too short." East Oregonian

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Steens Country

An Explorer's Guide to Oregon's Steens Mountain Area

by Mark Highberger

Standing almost 10,000 feet high and more than 30 miles long, Steens Mountain serves as the snow-white center of a far-reaching, breathtaking land in Oregon's southeast corner -- and Steens Country is a guide for those who want to explore the main routes, back roads, and natural wonders of this remarkable region.

Built from the upheaval of natural forces dating back millions of years and shaped by a parade of human history stretching through 100 centuries, Steens Country is home to what many believe are some of the most awe-inspiring spans of landscape on the continent.

95 pages, 7x8.5 inches, ISBN 1-930111-26-6, trade paper, photographs, maps. $12.00 cover price.

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"The book will leave you hungry to know more." East Oregonian

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Exploring Northeast Oregon

An Explorer's Guide

by Mark Highberger

A journey across northeast Oregon means leaving behind the traffic and following the backroads through a countryside of furrowed fields and small towns, of blue mountains with sky-high summits and steep-walled canyons. In this land formed from ancient seas and fiery volcanoes, you'll find yourself traveling through a world that still remembers a frontier Oregon.

ISBN 978-1-930111-71-4, 109 pages, 8.5x11 inches, trade paper, contemporary and historical photographs, maps, index. $19.00 cover price.

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Exploring Southeast Oregon

An Explorer's Guide

by Mark Highberger

FORTHCOMING

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Special Orders

When a book's sales diminish to the point where we no longer keep it in regular stock, we will still reprint the title in the following minimum quantities:

5.5x8.5 inches: 30 copies

7x8.5 inches: 30 copies

8.5x11 inches: 20 copies

These minimum orders can be shared by two or more bookstores, as long as they are placed as one order shipped to one address.

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Bear Creek Press

With its World Headquarters located at the old Abbie Riggle Place on Bear Creek Road just one mile from downtown Wallowa, Oregon, Bear Creek Press is the largest publishing house on the southwest bank of the Wallowa River.

"Well-designed and well-printed books."

Statesman-Journal (Salem, Oregon)

"There could be nothing so important as a book can be."

Editor Max Perkins in a letter to author Thomas Wolfe

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Bear Creek Press produces only organic, free-range books containing no pesticides, herbicides, preservatives, or growth hormones. Ask your bookseller if Bear Creek Press books are right for you.

Bear Creek Press

Books unique to the Northwest

CATALOG OF CURRENT TITLES

SUMMER 2008

"Sometimes it's the little things that count. Take Bear Creek Press for example.

So far, everything it's done is worth seeking out...their product is superior in its content."

Dan Hays, Statesman Journal

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RECENT RELEASES

Fall 2007

Winter 2008

Spring 2008

Summer 2008

Oregon Historical Maps: 1778-1940

Release date to be announced.

Forthcoming Titles

Roads Less Traveled in Northwest Oregon: Book II

Exploring Southeast Oregon

Release dates to be announced.

Contents

Historical Photographs

Looking Back at Our Town

A Photographic Portrait of Wallowa, Oregon

Looking Back at Enterprise, Oregon

A Photographic Portrait

Looking Back at Joseph, Oregon

A Photographic Portrait

Looking Back at Wallowa Lake

A Photographic Portrait

Looking Back at La Grande, Oregon

A Photographic Portrait

Looking Back at the Columbia Gorge

A Photographic Journey

Expanded edition

Note: This edition is expanded from the original (below); it contains 20 additional pages of historical photographs.

Original edition

Looking Back at the Oregon Coast

A Photographic Journey

Looking Back at Main Street Eastern Oregon

A Visit to More Than 100 Towns Across More Than 100 Years

Neah-Kah-Nie Mountain

A 1909 Journey to the Oregon Coast

Photographs by Benjamin Gifford

Homesteading Memoirs

Frontier Days

The Life of Winslow Powers and the Early Settlement of Eastern Oregon

Into the Valley

A Homesteader's Memories of the 1870s

The First Winter

A Homesteader's Memories of the 1880s

As It Was

A Homesteader's Memories of the 1890s

My Days in Northeast Oregon

A Memoir of Wagons Trains & Pack Strings in the 1890s

Grandma's Memories

Remembering the Homestead Days

Flora, Oregon 1900­1927

I Remember

A Memoir of Homesteading Days in Oregon's Wallowa Valley

A Time, A Place, A River

Memories of the Walla Walla Country

Indian Wars

Battle of the Grande Ronde

The Story of a Long-ago Oregon Valley that Suffered the Pain and the Fury of War

The Laws of War

A Story of the Modoc War of 1873

The Soldiers' Side of the Modoc War

Eyewitness Accounts of America's "Most Costly War"

The Death of Wind Blowing

The Story of the 1876 Murder that Helped Trigger the Nez Perce War

Chief Joseph's Own Story

A Story of the Nez Perce: How They Lost Their Home, Why They Fought a War

General Howard's Own Story

A Story of the Beginning of the Nez Perce War

Behind the Nez Perce War

Letters and Reports Tracing the Beginning of the Epic 1877 Conflict

The Pursuit & Capture of Chief Joseph

Flora, Oregon 19001927