In 1886, an elderly Methodist minister in Grants Pass Oregon was moving to a new parish, but the congregation fell $30 short for buying his train ticket.

When Whiskey Creek gold was discovered south of Coos Bay in 1852, miners from all over the world showed up on the Southern Oregon Coast, hoping to strike it rich. As more European immigrants arrived, some brought place names with them.

Nearly 40 years ago the Southern Oregon Historical Society placed a historic marker on old Hwy 99 commemorating the Siskiyou Mountain Wagon Road.

The small Siskiyou County town of Weed, Calif., finally embraced linking its name to marijuana by holding a Four Twenty Educational Weed Festival this year. On April 20, of course.

In 1897, an important mining strike was made in Northern California only four weeks after the claim was purchased for a pittance.

In the summer of 1884, a lady walked her poodle on a hill above the Siskiyou Toll Road House south of Ashland, Ore. Her companions heard a shriek and ran to find the lady unconscious and her little dog missing.

A nurse who went ashore on Normandy Beach immediately after World War II’s D-Day invasion of France, Florence Louise Platko Schilling, moved in 1946 to Ashland, Ore.

In 2008, The Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department joined federal agencies and the Nature Conservancy in managing the Eight Dollar Mountain Botanical Area, recognized since the 1880s for its rare plants that grow in rocky serpentine soil.

In 1916, Edwin Billings was born a strong, healthy baby. When he was 15, an accident resulted in permanent injury, yet he strived to work as hard as any man.

Opening around 1910, E. C. Faber’s General Store had become a Central Point, Ore., fixture, but by 1935 it was a laughing stock. The store had been robbed 20 times in 25 years, and was known as the “most robbed” store in the state.