LOCAL HISTORY STUDENT + HOBBYIST = HISTORY FANS

What we have here for the history student is a picture of a post-industrial landscape typically found beside polluted rivers across America where time has passed it by.

The industrial ruins-looking build-up is a common sight from New England to North Bend.

What we need to know is this particular mess can be considered the beginning of Oregon history.

The alert reader also knows this as a place where history happened before Oregon.

History is funny like that, every time you turn the page, peel the onion, something else is there.

There’s always that ‘something else’ with history. Something worth a closer look. (click images to enlarge)

 

This could be a scene from Spain or France or England left over and forgotten from the 1800’s.

With little to show for scale, the quaint houses and red roofs could be anywhere.

Can’t decide? Take a closer look.

 

 

Closer?

Of course. Get in there.

 

 

Do you see a Salmon jumping?

Yeah, me neither. But they do jump.

Pre-Oregon, local tribes waited for the jumpers.

 

Enough Of The Landscape, What’s The Story

This is from the turn-out at the top of the 205 hill driving toward Oregon City past West Linn.

“The falls furnished the power for a lumber mill.”

Along with a flour mill and a paper mill, the Falls also powered an electrical transmission line.

These are busy water falls.

 

How Busy?

 

The idea of place is pretty detailed on the signs.

Roadside history, call it.

Idaho has great historical rest stops along I-80 that don’t get enough credit.

These are the history people you drive by:

 

 

And . . . (click to enlarge)

 

 

A Worthy History Across The Land

The young people across America, like many young people in the 1950’s, grow up accustomed and acclimated to their time.

When I was a kid the president of America looked like my own grandpa, and that was fine with me.

I was stunned to see Ike hand it off to JFK.

JFK looked the same age as my dad. He had a wife named Jackie, just like my dad.

My Dad could be the President of the United States?

In America, he could. Small town boy, war hero man, white collar career. He checked all of the boxes.

The next guy up, LBJ, was a turn away from the hope and charm, but he still got things done.

At fourteen, the law and order president, Richard Nixon, took over.

It’s been a bumpy ride.

Kids today, beginning with Millennials, started with Clinton, then Bush the same age, the younger Obama, then the reverse generational shift opposite Ike to JFK.

The job went to one older man, who gave way to an even older man, who then handed it back to the other old man.

Here’s the thing about particular old men: they know they’re on the clock and want to wring as much as possible out of their remaining time with us.

Andrew Carnegie lived long enough to die an old man at eighty-three.

During his time he was the richest man in the world, gave away the most money, and pushed education, learning, museums, colleges, the works.

Is he the correct role model for today’s wealth? Here’s a clue: he worked to benefit the society he lived in from the bottom up.

 

PS:

Carnegie sounds like he didn’t mind not knowing everything, of not being the smartest man in the room on every topic.

 

PSS:

Carnegie wasn’t threatened by history, his own and that which came before him. He wanted to give history a good squeeze and built libraries across the land for a good grip.

Did he have a staff monitoring which books were allowed in libraries, which classes could be taught in school, what national history was good enough to include in the Smithsonian?

If he did it wasn’t in my reading.

There’s a gap between the rich and powerful who constantly remind, “Hey, HEY. Over here. I’m rich and powerful and SMART. Did you know that? Huh, did you. SMART like you’ve never seen. All right up here in my melon.”

The gaps lay between that melon, and Carnegie Mellon.