Inner Peace: 'God has no religion'
“God has no Religion.”—Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi This phrase resonates with many people, both religious and non-religious. It seems to be a unifying concept in a world of religious separateness. I...
View ArticleInner Peace: Surviving the ambush
Inner peace is so much more to me than spiritual practice. Or should I say spiritual practice comes in many forms? Sometimes living dangerously is spiritual practice. Surviving extreme danger leads one...
View ArticleAs It Was: Hotel Medford met fiery end
The date of Aug. 8, 1988, may ring a bell for those people living in or near Medford, Oregon, for that day is remembered as the day a fire destroyed the Hotel Medford.Built in 1911, the hotel was...
View ArticleAs It Was: Cats eat rats, rats eat cats, everyone gets rich
It is estimated more than 50 million fur-bearing animals, including cats and dogs, are killed each year for their skins, most grown on fur farms around the world. Southern Oregon historian Ben Truwe...
View ArticleAs It Was: Eric Allen, Jr. — Southern Oregon Journalist
In 1985, Eric Allen, Jr., the prize-winning editor of Medford, Oregon’s Mail Tribune, retired. His journalism career spanned 44 years, earning him the title, “Dean of Oregon Editors.” Allen’s career...
View ArticleAs It Was: High wheel logging in Northern California
When timber was king in the early 1900s, the tremendous size and weight of the fallen trees required special transportation. One of the unique vehicles was a horse-drawn cart with wheels 9 to 11 feet...
View ArticleAs It Was: Josephine County grows hops for beer
When early pioneers settled in Southern Oregon they missed their beer. They needed hops for the brew, so they planted them.The first hops in Josephine County were set out in 1875 just west of Grants...
View ArticleAs It Was: Valley's first flour mill made way for Ashland park
In August 1909, Judge C.B. Watson eulogized the old flour mill in Ashland, which had been torn down and burned two weeks earlier to make way for what would become Lithia Park.Speaking to pioneers...
View ArticleCar created campground demand
The invention of the automobile required the building of better roads and highways as the number of cars in America increased from 8,000 in 1900 to 40 million by 1930. Touring motorists packed food,...
View ArticleAs It Was: Omar's — Ashland's first public bar
Omar’s, Ashland’s oldest restaurant and first public cocktail lounge, opened in 1946. But what many don’t know is that it got its name by accident.Omer and Hazel Hill, who had run Hill’s Café at...
View ArticleFighting prohibition on the Southern Oregon coast
Oregon adopted Prohibition in 1914, six years before the national law. Although illegal, private production and distribution of alcoholic beverages continued in order to satisfy demand. Many stills...
View ArticleJackson County's first home demonstration agent
Growing up at the turn of the last century, Ann McCormick knew two worlds. Raised on a small Oregon farmstead with six siblings, she knew the ways of the old pioneers, but Ann was a 20th century woman...
View ArticleSisters of Providence overcame obstacles to open hospital
Making ends meet in the health care system is not a new problem. It was a way of life for the Sisters of Providence, a handful of resourceful Catholic nuns who, in 1912, opened Sacred Heart Hospital in...
View ArticleAs It Was: Early agriculturists experimented with almond trees
Almonds are among the first trees to blossom in Oregon’s Rogue Valley, often blooming while snow still coats the surrounding hills. Ethnobotanist Donn L. Todt and anthropologist Nan Hannon have written...
View ArticleAs It Was: SOU president set cultural diversity as a goal
In 1968, one of the goals of Dr. Elmo Stevenson, president of Southern Oregon College, in Ashland, Oregon, was to bring cultural diversity to the school now known as Southern Oregon University....
View ArticleGold Hill's Centennial Bridge lives on
The wooden Centennial Bridge located upstream from the railroad bridge south of Gold Hill lasted for 35 years. Constructed in 1876 by Thomas Chavner, the founder of Gold Hill, the Centennial continued...
View ArticleChris Honoré: Into the weeds: The deep state
At the risk of wandering too far into the weeds, I want to try and define what is meant by “deep state,” a term of art used to describe much of the government Trump Inc. now presides over.To begin...
View ArticleChris Honoré: Silence and our national shame
When Congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana was shot, along with three others, while practicing for a congressional charity baseball game, the press and the pundits found themselves facing a dilemma....
View ArticleChris Honoré: Republicans and the safety net
Part OneIn one of his last speeches, Hubert H. Humphrey said, “... the moral test of a government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the...
View ArticleChris Honoré: Republicans and the safety net
Part TwoFor well over half a century it has been a fundamental tenet of our society that we will provide a safety net for all Americans. To generation after generation, it has been a promise made and a...
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