— Fall 2016 — N.S. 6
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— FALL 2016 — CONTENTS THE ORIGINS OF THE LATINO COMMUNITY IN JEFFERSON COUNTY THE NUŇEZ FAMILY- One of the first Latino families to settle in Jefferson County REMEMBERING TRAIL CROSSING • THYREICIA SIMTUSTUS HUMAN & NATURAL HISTORY OF “FIVE CRATERS” JCHS News • Donations • Book & Video Reviews N.S. 6 Welcome to the Agate #6 ere’s Issue #VI of our new-format THE AGATE, the Jeffer- son County Historical Society’s biannual journal of local Hhistory—and welcome to it! With this issue, we complete three years of publication, and we are grateful to Tony Ahern and the Madras Pioneer for once again widening our range by sending it out to Pioneer subscribers. We have made every effort to make sure that JCHS members who are not Pioneer subscribers receive THE AGATE, but if we’re missing anybody please let us know. And we’re eager to hear from our readers—with criticisms, corrections, Jefferson County Historical suggestions, leads on local history topics we should be covering in Society Officers, Directors future issues. In this issue, you’ll find an important, ground-breaking lead President: Lottie Holcomb • 541-475-7488 essay by Jane Ahern on early Latino families in Jefferson County, V. President: Betty Fretheim • 541-475-0583 along with photo-features “discovering” an all-but-forgotten Cen- Secretary: Wanda Buslach • 541-475-6210 tral Oregon transportation site (Trail Crossing) and a geological Treasurer: Elaine Henderson • 541-475-2306 wonder (Five Craters) that was well-known a hundred years ago, but now unknown. Also in this issue: Historical Society news and Charlene McKelvy Lochrie • 541-475-2049 doings, and reviews of new books on local and regional history. Jerry Ramsey • 541-475-5390 Jim Carroll • 541-475-6709 Dr. Tom Manning • 541-475-6241 Campaign for Westside Becky Roberts • 541-475-4525 Community Center and Museum Jennie Smith • 541-475-1159 David Campbell • 541-475-7327 CHS members and local museum-lovers generally will be Dan Chamness • 541-475-7486 heartened to know that planning for Westside Community Margee O’Brien • 541-475-3533 JCenter (in the old high school), with the new JCHS Museum in the South Wing, is advancing toward a vigorous capital campaign in 2017. Jefferson County Historical With the support and leadership of the Bean Foundation, and Society Advisory Council input from the Friends of Westside, the Historical Society, Kids Don Reeder Pete McCabe Club, and other interested groups, the project has made major Joyce Edgmon Lola Hagman progress this past summer, thanks in large part to the work of Lu Cavenaugh, Campaign Manager, and Teresa Hogue, who has been Bob Rufener Tony Ahern examining financial and business matters for Westside. Darryl Smith Doug Macy Meanwhile, with the project this far along, the JCHS Board is Carol Leone Garry Boyd preparing to get down to cases on the design of the new museum. If you’d like to be involved in planning our new showcase, and with The mission of the Society is to research, gather setting it up, please contact THE AGATE, or any of our directors. and preserve the history of Jefferson County and Central Oregon for public education through the display of artifacts and archives. COVER PHOTO: Burned remnant of Nuñez family’s immigration photo taken Editor: Jane Ahern at the American office in Mexico just before they left Mexico in 1955. Pictured Designer: Tom Culbertson are mother, Juanita; father, Juan; oldest daughter, Maria de Jesus (aka Susie); youngest daughter, Manuela; and Teresa, on left, image mostly burned off in Publisher: Jerry Ramsey the fire that destroyed the family home. 2 THE JEFFERSON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY • MADRAS, OREGON The Origins of the Latino Community in Jefferson County he beginning of the end of this story came for a family, withBy very Jane little Ahern of a personal nature identify the writer, and locate the homestead. He in the early 1970s, when a young man registered. It was definitely not a self-conscious carefully transcribed it in typescript, and even n September of 1957, a caravan of omy, the Latino community’s history in in the Steens Mountain region. Not im- carsnamed and Ricktrucks Donahoe full of was families tearing rolled down “literary”Jefferson record. County But whohas gonekept it?largely There unwrit was no- drewmigrants, up an alphabetizedreally, vaqueros index ofhad names lived of andpeo- Tan old outbuilding on his farm north of Redmond, name, but clearly the writer was part of a farming ple mentioned in the entries. Eventually, he and his around Juniper Butte and into Culver. ten and unrecorded. Anyone wondering worked in California back when it was IOregon. In one of the walls, he found a tattered family, first in Michigan, and after the move to -Or wife Mary sold their farm and re-settled in Ohio, Riding in the back of a tarp-covered flat- when and how the local Latino commu- part of Mexico. ledger-book,bed truck wereits pages Juan filled and with Juanita daily entries Nuñez in egon,nity gotthey startedwere homesteaders, and how itstruggling grew will to prove find andThese in 2010 early he contacted forays me,into wondering Oregon if by the exJef-- pencil,and three dating of from their January children: 1912 Teresato September (11), upvery on littleand gain information title to the 160 available. acres they’d claimed. fersonplorers, County mule Historical packers Society and would vaqueros, give the 1917,Manuela beginning (8), andin central Juanito Michigan (1). Their (Saginaw old- But where? Was the writer a man or a woman? “mysterywhile interesting ledger” a home to note,in our did archives—and not result if County)est daughter, and abruptly Susie breaking (17), rode off somewherein one of theeast (How the SOMEbook ended CONTEXT up in a shed many miles Iin personally any significant would like topopulation take a crack of at Latinossolving ofcars Madras, holding Jefferson her babyCounty, brother, Oregon. Jorge, in from its place of origin was, and remains, part of itshere. puzzles. An Oregon Encyclopedia article by her Itlap. didn’t The seem Nuñezes to be a proper had diary—more,moved many he its mystery.)he same is not true west of the Cas- Jerry Garcia (no, not that Jerry Garcia) thought,times ina kindthe ofprevious “day book” two or journalyears—from keeping Rickcades, Donahoe where was the fascinated Latino community by the led- entitled “Latinos in Oregon” states that San Luis Potosí, Mexico to Texas, Okla- was established earlier and where by 1930 still only 1,568 Mexicans or Mex- careful track of work, visits, income and expenses ger-bookT and the story it might tell, if he could homa, Arizona, and Independence, Ore- institutions such as our state universities ican-Americans lived in Oregon full-time. gon—to stay in labor camps and work in have fostered efforts to document its his- What finally did bring Latinos to Oregon the fields, but their days as migrant labor- tory. University of Washington professor in greater numbers was the Bracero Pro- ers were coming to a close. Erasmo Gamboa has written and edited gram. After the potato harvest was completed several books about Latinos in the Pacific The Bracero Program was the result of in late fall 1957, the caravan of workers Northwest. One, entitled Nosotros: The a bilateral agreement between the Unit- moved on, perhaps back to Texas to spend Hispanic People of Oregon: Essays and ed States and Mexico that allowed US the winter months in a shack near the Rio Recollections, provides a useful summa- employers to hire Mexican men to ful- Grande as many of those on “the circuit” ry of Latino history in Oregon beginning fill short-term contracts. The braceros did. But the Nuñez family stayed in Cul- with Spanish explorers of the 17th Centu- mostly did farm work, but there was also ver, thus becoming one of the first Latino ry, who mostly explored the coast and left a bracero program for railroad workers. families to settle in Jefferson County and behind place names such as Heceta Head The program operated nationwide from live here year-round. and Cape Blanco. 1942-1964 and was instituted to allevi- From that In the mid- ate labor shortages during World War II nucleus, the 1800s, Mexican when millions of young men and wom- Latino popu- “... the Latino population of Jefferson mule packers en were serving in the military or find- lation of Jef- County ... forms the backbone of our were working ing better-paying jobs in factories and so ferson County in Oregon, most were unavailable to work in the fields. has grown so local workforce in agriculture, manu- notably during Administered by then-Oregon State much that it facturing, and the service industry.” the Rogue Riv- College, the Bracero Program in Oregon amounts to er War between ran for just four years, from 1943-1947, about one- 1855-56 when but still managed to bring in a whopping fifth of our total population (closer to some were hired by the Second Regi- 15,000 workers. The braceros stayed in one-third in the cities) and it forms the ment Oregon Mounted Volunteers to car- labor camps all over the state, harvest- backbone of our local workforce in agri- ry their food and other supplies. (This is ing hops in the Willamette Valley, sugar culture, manufacturing, and the service likely the same outfit referenced in Jerry beets in Eastern Oregon, and potatoes in industry. In our classrooms, it is not un- Ramsey’s story “Henry Larcom Abbot in Klamath County, among other crops. Ac- usual for as many as one-half of the chil- Central Oregon” on page 13 of the spring cording to an Oregon Public Broadcasting dren to be Latino and a glance down our 2016 issue of THE AGATE.) production entitled “Oregon Experience: main streets reveals a growing number of By 1869, another set of Latino workers, The Braceros,” the braceros made an Latino-owned businesses.