Council Corner: It's April 12 — do you know what your community is doing?
It has been five months since the fall elections. For many of us these five months have felt like a revolution. Personally, my appetite for the crises of the day is waning. I've come to the conclusion...
View ArticleExplaining my vote on social grant funding
At our last City Council meeting, we were asked to affirm recommended social service grant funding put forth by the Health and Human Services Commission. At the meeting, I suggested that the...
View ArticleDr. Gawande to talk on 'Village Movement'
The organization known as The “Village Movement” began in Boston in 1999. The intention of this group of friends was to address their wish for more freedom and control over their lives as they aged....
View ArticleNo family? Resources still available for aging seniors
Not a month goes by when I don’t hear from someone who wonders how to plan for their needs as they age if they have no adult children or other close family members and friends. This is not an isolated...
View ArticleAging Happens: Taking steps to avoid falls
It’s been said that falling is a game-changer for older adults. This is not meant to describe a change for the better, either. Here are some facts from a local organization, Age Friendly Innovators...
View ArticleParkinson's presentation coming up
Parkinson's disease is a progressive disorder of the nervous system that affects movement. It develops gradually, sometimes starting with a barely noticeable tremor in just one hand. But while a tremor...
View Article'Prepare for Care' forum coming May 7
If you’re convinced you might be aging, then you might also consider that the time will come, ready or not, when you might need care. Or you may be called upon to provide care for another. This topic...
View ArticleCrater Lake's Munson Valley named after ill-fated physician
The Crater Lake National Park headquarters is nestled in a deep depression known as Munson Valley. Other features of the park include Munson Springs, Munson Creek, Munson Point and Munson Ridge, all...
View ArticleOnly the name persists of Persists, Ore.
In 1883, William and Irene Willits homesteaded nearly 500 acres in the mountains above Elk Creek in Jackson County, Oregon. They had both been teachers, but liked the idea of living far from their...
View ArticleRogue Valley got a white Christmas
A contributing writer for the As It Was radio series, Luana Corbin, recalls that as a child growing up in the Rogue Valley she had always wished for a white Christmas. Each year as the holiday grew...
View ArticleAs It Was: Barns and troughs served as 1880's billboards
Barns and watering troughs served as billboards in the 1880s, proof that advertising was as much a part of life in those days as railroading and road building.Advertising crews traveled stage roads in...
View ArticleWoman describes six-day road trip to California in 1922
Sixty-nine years after it happened, Marjorie H. Gardner described a road trip in 1922 from Eugene, Oregon, to San Francisco, California. Her family drove a Willys-Overland automobile and a Hupmobile,...
View ArticleEarly maps show towns that no longer exist
On the wall of the 1912 Sunset Schoolhouse in Fort Rock, Ore., is an Oregon map from the 1920s. It shows the major towns of Ashland and Medford along the Oregon and California Railroad line through the...
View ArticleEven detractors at times praised Joaquin Miller's work
Many critics of the flamboyant Western dress and extravagant poetry of Joaquin Miller have also recognized his enthusiasm and contribution to Western literature.A contemporary detractor, author Ambrose...
View ArticleEarly schoolhouse became Eagle Point museum
Long Mountain School District 37 was one of the earliest in Southern Oregon, formed on Dec. 17, 1865, out of the western portion of Eagle Point.The first known schoolhouse was located between Long...
View ArticleMedford prepares for annual Pear Blossom Festival
For decades thousands of Southern Oregonians have celebrated the arrival of spring at the annual Pear Blossom Festival in Medford, Oregon.The festival began in 1954 with a 10-float children’s parade...
View ArticleBlacksmith, harness shops provided essential services
Blacksmith and harness shops were as essential 100 years ago as auto mechanics and service stations are today. In Yreka, California, they included the Swan & LeMay Carriage Making and Blacksmith...
View ArticleAs It Was: School building serves as church rectory
Soon after its founding in 1883, the Medford community needed a school for its children. The first school was a one-room building on South Central in Medford, a subscription school that cost $5 to...
View ArticleBureau of Reclamation rescued Bear Creek irrigation
Three irrigation districts in Southern Oregon first realized in the 1930s that their infrastructure was deteriorating. Founded years earlier as private companies, they also realized they couldn’t...
View ArticleGood coffee comes to the Rogue Valley
It used to be hard to get a good cup of coffee in the Rogue Valley and the rest of Oregon. That's all changed. Said one aficionado, "Coffee was watered down ink when I left in the late 1960s. When I...
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