THE OTHER OREGON: PEOPLE, ENVIRONMENT, AND HISTORY EAST OF THE CASCADES by Thomas R. Cox

Abstract

464 OHQ vol. 121, no. 4 the 1906 strike as well as his later demotion as union agent and ensuing bankruptcy, one wonders whether Gohl may have also made enemies within the union. While there is no reason to suspect him of mass murder, questions arise about whether he may have been as innocent of the murder for which he was convicted as the author concludes. The Port of Missing Men makes major contributions to both local history and the larger story of industrial capitalism. The fact that Gohl was never suspected of, much less charged with, the scores of Floater Fleet deaths exposes the myth of Billy the serial killer to be just that, myth. The real ghoul of Gray’s Harbor was capitalism and the ruthless shipping and timber magnates and double-dealing saloon and boardinghouse keepers whose standard business practices made poverty, degradation, injury, and death inevitable for the area’s laboring men and women. “The history of Billy Gohl and Grays Harbor,” Goings argues, “is one of class war, epitomizing such struggles around the globe” (p. 11) Nikki Mandell University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, emerita THE OTHER OREGON: PEOPLE, ENVIRONMENT, AND HISTORY EAST OF THE CASCADES by Thomas R. Cox Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, 2019. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 432 pages. $29.95 paper. In The Other Oregon, Thomas Cox takes on the daunting challenge of crafting a coherent and comprehensive history of Oregon east of the Cascade Mountains — Eastern Oregon, with a capital “E.” Cox is the right person for the job. To make sense of this big and diverse place, Cox turns to a field he essentially helped start: environmental history, which examines how people shape and are shaped by their environments . Interactions with the rugged environments of Eastern Oregon produced, Cox argues, both environmental transformations and the identity of this place and its people. Of this identity, Cox has personal experience; he was born and raised in Eastern Oregon, and those connections, as much as his professional expertise as an environmental historian, drive and shape this book. The Other Oregon is an effort to make sense of Eastern Oregon’s history and its identity for both readers and the author. The effort is largely a success for readers (the author will have his own assessment). Anyone looking for radical reinterpretations of Eastern Oregon’s history will be disappointed, but this book is meant for a broad, not exclusively academic, audience of Oregonians and Westerners wanting to understand Eastern Oregon. The Other Oregon is a necessary and thoughtful synthesis that incorporates the region into the history of Oregon and the American West, while at the same time acknowledging and appreciating what sets Eastern Oregon apart. The Other Oregon’s narrative and analysis unfolds through a generally chronological organization of different themes in human and environment relations as they evolved in Eastern Oregon. The book begins with an exploration of the area’s geological past, its varied climate, and its different ecological regions; upon this stage, Cox briefly introduces the Native peoples of the region and their uses of and adaptations to different environments. Then come Euro-Americans — fur trappers and traders, miners, cattle ranchers and sheep herders, grain farmers, loggers and timber barons, dryland homesteaders, and irrigation evangelists — and their myriad efforts to confront, profit from, and overcome environmental challenges and opportunities. Cox explains how these increasingly intensive extractive activities led to environmental degradation , including erosion, declining wildlife populations, and the spread of cheatgrass. By the mid twentieth century, this destruction prompted a turn toward conservation 466 OHQ vol. 121, no. 4 THE GREAT MEDICINE ROAD: NARRATIVES OF THE OREGON, CALIFORNIA, AND MORMON TRAILS, PART 2: 1849 edited by Michael L. Tate with Will Bagley, and Richard L. Rieck Arthur H. Clark Company, Norman, Oklahoma, 2015. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 328 pages. $39.95, cloth. THE GREAT MEDICINE ROAD: NARRATIVES OF THE OREGON, CALIFORNIA, AND MORMON TRAILS, PART 3: 1850–1855 edited by Michael L. Tate contributions by Kerin Tate, Will Bagley, and Richard L. Rieck Arthur H. Clark Company, Norman, Oklahoma, 2017. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 308 pages. $45.00 cloth. THE GREAT MEDICINE ROAD: NARRATIVES OF THE OREGON, CALIFORNIA...