Nearly four decades after completion of the transcontinental railroad, the Upper Klamath River Basin remained virtually untouched by modern commerce at the outset of the 20 th century.

Early residents of the Rogue River Canyon faced infrequent and inefficient mail service, relying for decades on miners who volunteered to post letters and pick up the mail when they traveled to town for supplies.

Snow skiing has always been a popular sport in Southern Oregon.

There’s a Western legend about how the “Last Kangaroo Court” in Trinity County, Calif., was held in Hayfork in September 1906 to teach a stranger a lesson.

Frank E. Ross traveled far and wide, but after a lifetime of adventure, returned to his roots in Jackson County, Ore., where he became president of the Southern Oregon Historical Society and served on the Jacksonville Museum board.

In 1903 Bill Warner became the first rural mail carrier for Medford, Ore. He used a bicycle in the summer or a horse-drawn, two-wheeled cart. When rain turned the roads to mud, Warner carried the mail on horseback.

In December 1917, a Grants Pass woman shattered a glass ceiling, but not in the political sense.

A popular Gold Hill restaurant owner, Cora Truax, became the first woman to serve on a city council in Southern Oregon and one of the first Oregon women to hold office after their enfranchisement in 1912.

In 1928, the automobile editor of the Portland Oregonian heard that the postmaster at remote Agness, Ore., had never been in a car. In those days, no roads led to Agness, an isolated village 21 miles up the Rogue River from the coastal town of Gold Beach.

In 1828, the explorer Jedediah Smith first documented an extraordinary stand of native azaleas flourishing along the Chetco River in present-day Brookings, Ore.