The University of Oregon Extension Division held a contest in 1925 for school children to write history essays about their communities for the monthly journal, The Extension Monitor .

Getting to Modoc County from Scotland in the early 1900’s was more by chance than desire.

A Snow Carnival at the south boundary of Crater Lake attracted thousands in the 1920’s and 30’s. The Crater Lake Ski Club, Pelican Club and other Klamath community organizations helped sponsor the event. Activities included snowballing, snow races, toboggan and sleigh rides, barefoot races, sled dog races, ski jumping and a homing pigeon race.

Believed to be the first Anglo-American settler in the future Josephine County, Ore., a man named Bates opened the region’s first rustic tavern in 1851 for the occasional traveler at Graves Creek.

Long before strip malls and supermarkets became prominent, an entrepreneur in Klamath Falls offered one-stop shopping for rural Klamath County customers.

While mining continued into the 1860’s and beyond along the Klamath River, gold bearing quartz wasn’t discovered until the 1870’s in Rocky Gulch and the hills west of Henley in Siskiyou County. The best known of these quartz mines was the Jillson, owned by the Hazel Gold Mining Co.

In 1910, the Barnum and Bailey Circus came to Medford, astounding the town with a herd of exotic zebras. At least one man refused to be fooled by their beautiful black stripes.

One rainy night in 1912 the Stratton family’s neighbor in West Medford, Ore., Wells Lounsbury, came to their door with a suitcase. He said he had walked from Central Point but hadn’t found his family at home.

Arthur Shaw’s love of classical music and his desire to share it with others began while in high school. One day while he and other musicians were practicing by the school auditorium, some athletes came clumping by on cleated shoes, interrupting the music. Shaw determined to do something about it.

Picard, Calif., doesn’t exist today, but in the late 1800’s, it was a small town in California’s Butte Valley south of Klamath Falls.