First established in 1871, the Bogus School in Siskiyou County, Calif., has closed and reopened several times. Saleen Heckle was an early teacher during the 1899-1900 term.

The Golden Drift Dam, constructed a few miles upriver from Grants Pass, Ore., by the Ament family in 1902, was anything but golden. The concrete structure’s purpose was to provide power and water to the Aments’ Golden Drift mining project as well as irrigation water for farmers.

Gold and Timber have played an important role about 25 miles northwest of Grants Pass and three miles downstream from Galice. The location was once the small logging and sawmill camp of Yankville.

Three Southern Oregon landmarks straddle state borders.

During the 1940’s and 50’s Mario Lanza became the most famous operatic tenor of the time. Lanza admired tenor Enrico Caruso, and in 1951, he played the role of Caruso in the movie titled “The Great Caruso.”

The issue of what to do with transients is nothing new. Thousands of unemployed, hungry men passed through the Rogue Valley during the Great Depression.

The movie director, James Ivory, is known for English period pieces such as “Room with a View,” “Howard’s End,” and “The Remains of the Day.” Less known is that he grew up in Klamath Falls, Ore., and still spends summers at the family cabin at Lake of the Woods.

Brothers Hugh and Denis O’Connor emigrated from Ireland to America in 1907, settled near Merrill in Southeastern Oregon and developed an 800-acre ranch that at its peak raised some 3,000 lambs a season, plus alfalfa hay, grain and potatoes.

It was expensive in the 1800’s for the federal government to feed soldiers at remote outposts such as Fort Klamath in Southern Oregon.

The usual explanation for why the railroad passes through Medford, Ore., instead of Jacksonville is Jacksonville’s failure in 1884 to pay a $25,000 “bonus” to the railroad toward anticipated construction expenses.