Miwaleta, chief of the Cow Creek band of Umpqua Indians, befriended the Riddle family when they settled in Southern Oregon in 1851. Young George Riddle later wrote about his family’s relations with the band.

Southern Oregon mine produced more than valuable minerals. They also inspired some clever scammers, including James H. McNicholas of Portland.

Elevators were a big deal in large cities after the turn of the century, but Southern Oregon buildings tended to sprawl rather than stack.

In the 1880s, eleven Eastern Star chapters were established in Oregon, many of them in Southern Oregon.

By 1905, when the book titled “An Illustrated History of Central Oregon” was written, the town of Merganser was dead, lingering only in the memories of the earliest pioneers.

Charles Crump had no forewarning of what would come of his contacting the Nevada Thermal Power Co. that was looking for geothermal sources for power plants.

Tales of gold and adventure lured 26-year-old cabinet maker Abel Helman to California, leaving his wife and family behind in Ashland County, Ohio.

In the Victorian era, few women owned their own businesses, let alone became photographers, even amateur ones. In Ashland, Ore., sisters Anna and Ida Hargrove did both.

During the early 1850s, five gold mining settlements sprang up in Northern California’s Trinity County, including Minersville, Ridgeville, Sebastopol, Diggerville, and the Bates and Van Matre Ranch.

In the early evening of June 15, 1925, Alva Henry noticed a foot-wide gap in the floor boards of the Chetco River Bridge that connected the coastal communities of Harbor and Brookings on U.S. Route 101.