Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregonians have experienced all kinds of financial turmoil over the last 150 years. To get an idea of what it might have been like, we turned to Tom Fuller of the state Employment Department.  As Kristian Foden-Vencil reports, he just co-authored a book called Oregon At Work .

In preparation for Oregon’s sesquicentennial, Tom Fuller has traveled the state -- talking to historians, economists and everyday folk.

Tom Fuller

Tom Fuller: “Lot of people think that we started out as this big timber state and all this but really it wasn’t. When Oregon began, they were a bunch of farmers. And they came and they had to create an agricultural economy out of nothing.”

Fuller says that until the 1950’s farming was Oregon’s largest occupation by far. But now, only 7 percent of people work the land.

In an effort to track the monumental change since Native American’s first saw large numbers of Europeans arrive, Fuller searched for families that can trace their roots all the way back to 1859.

Tom Fuller: “We’ve got people like some folks down in Monroe, where the ancestor on the Oregon Trail and he can’t make a farm. He can’t make a living. So what he does is he commutes, to Eugene, on foot, 32 miles to cut railroad ties, and then commutes back on the weekends, carrying all the food for his family on his back. And during the weekend he works this farm in Monroe, and it’s just really hard work. And the cool thing is, here it is 150 years later and his decedents are back on the farm, they’re growing hazelnuts, not hogs. And they are thinking this is just like my great-great-great grandfather was doing.”

Fuller says he found a great deal of pride among those homesteading families – a feeling that they’re tied to history.

Fuller says the Great Depression had a significant effect on Oregon. The Works Progress Administration, part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, helped build Canby City Hall and The State Library in Salem. Fuller says 4000 workers were employed at Bonneville Dam alone.

Then another government program, the Civilian Conservation Corps, built ranger stations and fire look-out towers in Hells Canyon and along Chetco River.

Fuller’s favorite story involves a man called Chester Corey, who graduated as a landscape architect from Oregon State University just as the economy tanked.

Tom Fuller: “He had to move in with his wife’s parents. And that happened a lot during the depression. In fact a lot of people would have lost their homes, if it had not been for boarders moving in to defray the costs.  And he says: 'I’d purchased an old car and we drove it all over Portland looking for jobs, all the big landscape offices weren’t doing anything either. What a mess I was in, all of us in fact.'”

Eventually the Works Progress Administration employed Corey down in California – but only for a short time.

Tom Fuller: “And one day he comes back through Ashland and says:  'Hey, is there anything you guys need me to do?' and they say: 'Yeah, we need a superintendent for our park. This new park that we’re trying to bring up. But we can’t pay you any money.' And he says: 'Okay, I’ll do it anyway.'  And the guy created Lithia park. And it’s now a jewel that people travel from all over the place to go and see. So even in times of difficulty, people in Oregon found things to do that ended up having these great, long-lasting types of effects.”

Fuller’s book,  Oregon At Work will be released April 1st. All proceeds go to Portland State University’s Graduate Publishing Program.