Thursday, August 27, 2020
GO! magazine — A&E in Northeast Oregon
3
‘WE CAME BY BOXCAR’
Virtual event features
history of Maxville
Historical photos (above and below) depict loggers in the 1920s and 1930s near
Maxville (photos courtesy of Gwen Trice and the Oregon Historical Society).
JOSEPH — The Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center in Joseph will
present a virtual gala and live performance, “We Came by Boxcar,” Oct. 24.
The event will take the audience on “a journey through timber culture and
heritage,” according to the press release, that explores “the untold stories
of one of Oregon’s Black and multicultural logging communities.”
In its heyday, between 1924 and 1933, Maxville, about 13 miles north
of Wallowa, was the largest town in Wallowa County. Unlike most timber
towns in the Pacifi c Northwest, it was home to African American loggers
and white loggers who worked side by side felling timber.
In the early 1920s, the loggers and their families came to Maxville from
the South and the Midwest in search of work. The Bowman-Hicks Lumber
Company, which owned the town at that time, brought the black work-
ers and their families to Maxville even though Oregon’s exclusion laws
prohibited “free Negroes” from moving to the state to live and work.
Economic conditions, especially the Great Depression and consequent
downturn in the lumber market, led to Maxville’s decline. In 1933 the
Bowman-Hicks Lumber Company closed its operations, and Maxville
eventually became a ghost town. Some 60 years later, the children and
grandchildren of the original logging families began researching the his-
tory of the town and uncovering the stories of their ancestors. This effort
led to the founding of the Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center.
To fi nd out more about the center and the virtual event, go to www.
maxvilleheritage.org or the center’s Facebook page.
NATIONAL HISTORIC
O REGON T RAIL
INTERPRETIVE CENTER
oregontrail.blm.gov
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Friday-Sunday, September 4-6
22267 OR Hwy 86 | Baker City, OR | call 541-523-1843 for info