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Following the discovery of gold in 1862 at Auburn and Canyon City, new communities and prospects were established in eastern Oregon. Just as the lure of free land attracted homesteaders and livestock raisers in search of new opportunities, so did the possibility of finding wealth in gold and silver throughout the region. Based on exhaustive research and a wealth of sources—federal census and mining records, newspapers, mining periodicals, county land records, maps, and federal government reports—Oregon Gold offers a comprehensive study of mining in Oregon between 1862 and 1910. From carefully examining the eastern portion of the state to exploring the economic expansion and political development of Portland, William Willingham highlights what is unique about the Oregon gold mining experience and places Oregon’s precious metal mining in the context of mining throughout the American West.

Willingham shows how mining was an important aspect of the state’s history, far greater than has been traditionally understood. He provides special attention and analysis to the role Chinese miners played in the story of eastern Oregon mining and to the demographic makeups of two major mining communities, Susanville and Granite, that thrived during the period. The attention to detail and thorough reporting in Oregon Gold will captivate both scholars and general readers interested in western mining and Oregon history during the nineteenth century.

In this deeply researched volume, Stephen Dow Beckham brings together commentary by Native Americans about the events affecting their lives in Oregon. Now available in paperback for the first time, this volume presents first-person accounts of events threatening, changing, and shaping the lives of Oregon Indians, from “first encounters” in the late eighteenth century to modern tribal economies.

The book's seven thematic sections are arranged chronologically and prefaced with introductory essays that provide the context of Indian relations with Euro-Americans and tightening federal policy. Each of the nearly seventy documents has a brief introduction that identifies the event and the speakers involved. Most of the book's selections are little known. Few have been previously published, including treaty council minutes, court and congressional testimonies, letters, and passages from travelers’ journals.

Oregon Indians opens with the arrival of Euro-Americans and their introduction of new technology, weapons, and diseases. The role of treaties, machinations of the Oregon volunteers, efforts of the US Army to protect the Indians but also subdue and confine them, and the emergence of reservation programs to “civilize” them are recorded in a variety of documents that illuminate nineteenth-century Indian experiences.

Twentieth-century documents include Tommy Thompson on the flooding of the Celilo Falls fishing grounds in 1942, as well as Indian voices challenging the "disastrous policy of termination," the state's prohibition on inter-racial marriage, and the final resting ground of Kennewick Man. Selections in the book's final section speak to the changing political atmosphere of the late twentieth century, and suggest that hope, rather than despair, became a possibility for Oregon tribes.