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About Applegater. (Jacksonville, OR) 2008-current | View Entire Issue (July 1, 2021)
Applegater Summer 2021 7 NONPROFIT NEWS AND UPDATES The Applegater partners with Oregon Digital Newspaper Program BY MAUREEN FLANAGAN BATTISTELLA The Applegater will soon b e s e a rc h a b l e a l o n g w i t h millions of pages of Oregon’s history in the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program. The board of directors and editorial staff recently approved this significant partnership for Applegater’s retrospective issues and new issues as they are published. Thanks to the foresight of writers and publishers, the Applegater has long been available as PDFs on the Applegater website. This online availability has made it easy for those in the know to search back issues and find articles of interest. The new partnership with the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program brings news, stories and poetry of the Applegate to a broader audience, enables keyword searching of Applegater articles, and retrieves Applegater articles as part of a much larger repository of newspapers. The University of Oregon began preserving Oregon’s history in the 1950s as librarians microfilmed hundreds of newspapers from around the state. With the advent of new technologies and federal funding, in 2009 preservation moved from microfilm to searchable, online platforms focusing on public domain newspapers published from 1860-1922. Today, the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program has more than 1.5 million newspaper pages online, published from 1840-2020, searchable by keyword, newspaper title, and date range. The Oregon Digital Newspaper Program is free to all with no associated cost or membership required to access the collection. In 2019, local historians, librarians and genealogists formed the Southern Oregon Newspaper Project to work towards increased coverage of Southern Oregon’s newspapers in the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program. The Jacksonville Booster Club funded the digitization of early issues of the Jacksonville Times and Jacksonville Sentinel in 2021, work that will be completed and extended thanks to funding from the Dirk Siedliecki and the Friends of Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery in 2022. Also in 2022, early issues of the Grants Pass Courier and its predecessor, the Rogue River Courier will be digitized thanks to funding from the Library Services and Technology Act administered through the State Library of Oregon. Travis Moore, publisher of the Grants Pass Courier has agreed to release newspaper issues published from 1923-1945, which are now in queue. Work planned for 2023 includes the Talent News, thanks to funding from the Talent Historical Society, and the Ashland Tidings, thanks to the Rogue Valley Genealogy Society and a private donor. Historian and preservationist George Kramer has also focused on historical newspapers as a way to mitigate changes brought by architectural renovation and excavation under the requirements of the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office. Kramer depends on newspapers as a primary source of information in The Applegater has now joined other Oregon newspapers in the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program searchable archives at the University of Oregon, including historical southern Oregon publications such as The Ashland Advertiser and The Central Point American. his work to investigate, document, and describe historic structures and is keenly aware of the importance and relevance of historical newspapers to today’s work. Thanks to Kramer’s efforts, the Rogue Valley Irrigation District funded the digitization of early issues of the Central Point American, Central Point Herald, and Southern Oregon News. Between 2018 and 2019, the Ashland Family YMCA funded the digitization of several Ashland newspapers, as the YMCA renovated and restored Camp Low Echo as Camp DeBoer, which will open this summer. The Lake of the Woods Girl Scout campsite, constructed between 1946 and 1962, has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2003. The newspapers digitized thanks to the Ashland Family YMCA include the Ashland Register, Ashland Advertiser, Ashland American, and Southern Oregon Miner, published between 1893 and 1944. The Applegater and other Oregon historic newspapers can be searched at OregonNews.UOregon.edu, where the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program is hosted at the University of Oregon. For more information on the Southern Oregon Newspaper Project and to contribute to the funding pool, contact Maureen Flanagan Battistella, Southern Oregon University Sociology/Anthropology, at battistem@ sou.edu and 541-552-0743. Maureen Battistella battistem@sou.edu History worth saving BY LAURA AHEARN their progeny. This is Have you visited extremely significant. McKee Bridge and Very few—if any— marveled at how sturdy African Americans she is at 104 years of braved the Oregon age? Have you taken a and Applegate Trails peaceful stroll through to come to Oregon Logtown Cemetery Territory where they and wondered about were not legally the lives of those permitted. The 1843 buried there 150 years pre-territorial laws ago? Isn’t it remarkable of Oregon Country that you can do these banned slavery but things 24/7? There were amended in 1844 are no locked gates, to give slave owners no “Keep Out—No time to “remove” their Trespassing” signs. human property. Freed These experiences are slaves were ordered possible only if our community engages, Susannah Johnson, left, and to leave, with males volunteers, donates, Penelope Ellender Mask, were freed given two years to and shows support. slaves and the mother and grandmother depart; females were For 56 years the of Maranda Ann Johnson Geary, who is allowed three. Blacks Applegate community buried in the Logtown Cemetery. who did not exit the has rallied to keep Photo: Courtesy of Barbara Hegne. territory were subject to lashing. Barbara beautiful McKee Bridge standing. She is the second oldest Hegne, a descendant and prolific researcher covered bridge in Oregon on the National and author, laid out this incredible saga in Register of Historic Places and the oldest books available through the county library, to stand continually at her original and PBS featured the story in the 2015 location. The McKee Bridge Preservation series Finding Your Roots (actor Ty Burrell, Committee started funding work to who plays the father in “Modern Family,” preserve the bridge in 1965. A major is also a descendant, born and raised in restoration project was conducted in 2014- the Applegate). MBHS has applied for grants to restore 15, at a cost of more than $500,000. She’s and preserve Maranda Ann’s and Phoebe’s due for an in-depth structural inspection this year; the price tag has jumped from grave markers, install interpretive panels, $6,000 to $9,000. If this inspection is not and help cover the costs of the upcoming bridge inspection. But grants require performed, the bridge will be closed. In 2020, McKee Bridge Historical matching funds. We need to show that Society (MBHS) received a grant from A this is important to our community, that Greater Applegate to buy supplies to clean Applegaters care about keeping McKee grave markers at Logtown Cemetery. A Bridge open and acknowledging the volunteer spent two days detailing two bravery and contributions of Maranda damaged marble tablets in the middle Ann and her family. If these things of the oldest section: Maranda Ann and are important to you, please make a Phoebe who died in 1873. It looked donation or become an MBHS member. like the family name was Carey. We Membership is only $20 per calendar couldn’t figure out where they fit among year for your entire household. It’s quick early settlers until we realized that the and easy to donate and sign up online at stonemason chiseled “Garey” instead of mckeebridge.org. You can also visit our “Geary,” the spelling that appears most booth at the Applegate Evening Market, often in records. Maranda Ann was the 5-8 pm on Wednesdays through October wife of Lewis Geary; Phoebe was their at the Electric Gardens Flower Farm, 8035 first-born. Their homestead straddled the Highway 238. Save and celebrate the history of the Applegate River southwest of what we now Applegate! call Hamilton Road and Highway 238. Laura Ahearn But that told us nothing about McKee Bridge Historical Society Maranda’s past and lineage. Only recently mckeebridge1917@gmail.com did we discover that she was the daughter of a freed slave who came to Jackson County in 1853 with the extended Mask-Mathis- Matthews family of former slaves and Maranda Ann Johnson Geary (1843-1873), pictured with her son James Irwin (1869-1958). Photo: Courtesy of Barbara Hegne. Donations are needed so the McKee Bridge Historical Society can use grant funds to restore and preserve Logtown Cemetery markers. Photo: Alan Caddell.