[Libs-Or] When Timber Was King | Jeff LaLande's Historic Images

[Maureen Battistella]

Jeff LaLande will present When Timber Was King: The Rise and Decline of
Southern Oregon's Timber Industry on Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 4 p.m. in
the Hannon Library's Meese Room, Southern Oregon University.  This event is
free and open to the public. 

In the early days, men felled the big trees with just an axe and dragged
timber out of the forest with mules and oxen. Steam donkeys, two-handled
saws, railroad lines and trucks changed the landscape and Rogue Valley mills
rans 24x7. Today, most of Southern Oregon's mills are silent and a truck
with a three-log load is rare indeed. 

In this unusual presentation, LaLande describes the legislation, corporate
powers and political changes that have altered the landscape forever. 

Forest historian and archaeologist, Dr. Jeffrey LaLande, has traipsed the
land, seeking out the equipment and traces of long ago and also contemporary
times. He photographed what he found for the U.S. Forest Service, cataloging
places that few know of and fewer even have seen. LaLande wrote narrative
and scientific histories of the region's great timber industry that drove
Southern Oregon's economy for a hundred years. 

Thanks to a 2017 LSTA grant to Southern Oregon University's Hannon Library,
LaLande's collection of historic timber industry photos are being digitized
and will made available through the Southern Oregon Digital Archives (SODA)
in the Stories of Southern Oregon collection. LaLande's earlier SODA
contribution, a set of 647 images in the Rogue River National Forest
Historic Images Collection is available now. 

LaLande, now retired, was an archaeologist with the U.S. Forest Service for
nearly 50 years. His wide-ranging research interests include Southern
Oregon's Good Government movement, early Oregon political history, the
Oregon Trail migration and the Rogue Valley's donation land claims among
other topics. 

Hannon Library's Southern Oregon Digital Archives display eighteen
collections that present a rich set of images, text and video on topics that
range from locally discovered Chinese material culture, butterflies, First
Nations, musical instruments, wine, agriculture and more. The Southern
Oregon Digital Archives can be accessed at http://soda.sou.edu. 

For more information on the March 8, 2018 program at Hannon Library or the
Southern Oregon Digital Archives, call 541-552-6442.