8A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL May 4, 2016
Dozens run for ice cream
Offbeat Oregon History
Event aims to raise awareness of
Child Abuse Prevention Month
A
total of 114 community members
and Lincoln Middle School track
athletes toed the line and earned an ice
cream sundae by completing a one-mile,
two-mile or three-mile course in the sec-
ond annual “Great Ice Cream Bowl” held
Friday, April 29.
The event was planned to help spread
awareness during the April “Child Abuse
Prevention Month” effort associated with
the local “90 by 30” effort, Run CG and
Peggy’s Primary Connection.
Prior to the start, participants were asked
to be aware and help prevent child abuse
and to take information fl yers with helpful
contact numbers after the run. The sym-
bolism of receiving a blue ice cream bowl
they could keep was to remind them of the
beauty of the clean blue sky and joy and
freedom children should feel in a world
free of child abuse.
Participants included: Alex Pacheco, Ali-
na McMilin, Allen Bates, Alvaro Miranda,
Austin Rusco, Avery Hutchins, Belle Pen-
nington, Blakely Herbert, Breanna Bechtel,
Briahna Guevara, Carter Bascue, Clara
Reindel, Daisy Passenger, Derrick Bloom-
strom, Dylan Higdon, Emma Burleson,
Emma Gilbert-Spires, Gavin Ostrander,
Gracie Arnold, Isabel Thompson, Jaiden
Simons, Jason Travis, Jaxson Cooper, Jay-
da Epperson, Jayden Bartram, Jesus Torral-
ba, Jordan Thielke, Katie Geisler, Kennedy
Royse, Kiaya Wright, Lauren Myler, Lexy
Cummings, Liam King, Loren James, Mad-
die Geisler, Madison Goins, Mariah Ludik-
er, Marissa Tull, Matelynn Ladd, Mathew
Burns, Miguel Lopez, Mikayla Carr, Na-
than Cristofaro-Anderson, Nicholas Naro,
Owen Dragt, Rebecca Mcreynolds, Skylar
May, Teanna Child, Thane Parsons, Tristin
Duwell, Valeta Oliver, William Cooper,
Zane Schnee, Darlo Razoto, Judy Razoto,
Hilda Razoto, Emmy Bickford, Camila
Soto Cruz, Annabelle Stinnett, Marni De-
courtesy photo
Garlais, Carli DeGarlais, Halle DeGar- Participants line up at the start of
lais, Rogelio Soto Cruz, Journey Meyer, the Great Ice Cream Bowl at the
Nanci Strickland, Debbie Taie, Delaney Chambers Railroad Bridge Friday.
McLaughlin, Nathaniel Deyoung, Tay-
lor Christie, Seth Lebow, Ryan Williams, cis, Kalob Keeler, Kopachik Korbyn, Lo-
Summer Lebow, Sophia Raade, Payton gan Lowrey, McKenzie Baker, Nadia Witt,
Bickford, Shyla Gordon, Sativa Gordon, Noah Hughes, Shambay Gabriel Trapp,
Ely Jeffers, Audrey Hartgenbush, Shynelle Shaquall Holloway, Zen Wemple, Mitch-
Holmes, Denyell Cowan, Benjamin Genth- ell Johnson, Kenzie Parsons, Sara Meyer,
ner, Brayden Denny, Caiden Lane, Chance Eli Williams, Cyrese Lee, Cindy Sustaire,
Hemenway, Connor Bailey, Cory Butts, April Sexton, Rio Lopez, Jace Meyer and
Elias Garza, Ethan Petersen, Grace Myler, Jean Harris.
Helen Leal-Colonel, Isis Becerra-Aguilar,
Jaden Owens, Jayden Walter, Justin Fran-
COMMUNITY BRIEFS
Cemetery meeting
The annual Silk Creek com-
munity Cemetery meeting will
be held Tuesday, May 10 at 6:30
p.m. at the Silk Creek Chapel,
located by the Cemetery 4 1/2
miles west of Cottage Grove.
Everyone is welcome to at-
tend.
Speakers, movie
highlight Mental
Health Awareness
Month
Corporate speaker and lead-
ership coach Robert Elliott will
offer his ‘Everyday Intuition’
program in the fi rst of four
Thursday evening events taking
place through May in Cottage
Grove to mark Mental Health
Awareness Month.
Elliot’s interactive presenta-
tion will be Thursday, May 5
from 6:30-8 p.m. at First Pres-
byterian Church, 216 S. Third
St., in Cottage Grove. Refresh-
ments will be provided and ad-
mission is free.
Subsequent Thursday eve-
ning get-togethers, to take place
at the same time and place, in-
clude ‘Creating Healthy Rela-
tionships From the Very Begin-
ning,’ presented by South Lane
Mental Health’s Early Child-
hood Specialist Helen Reilly
on May 12, and, on May 19, Ed
Feil, a Senior Research Scientist
from Oregon Research Institute
in Eugene. will present ‘Using
Congratulations!
Employee
to our
Resident
of the
Month
of the
Month
Penny
Dorr
MaryLou
Teel
for the Month of April, 2016
Magnolia Gardens 541-942-0054
1425 Daugherty Ave. • Cottage Grove
Mobile Technology to Support
Parents of Young Children.’
On May 26, South Lane Men-
tal Health will present “Happy,”
an Academy Award nominated
documentary that explores hu-
man happiness throughout the
world.
The 2016 events are orga-
nized by South Lane Mental
Health, with sponsorship sup-
port from Northwest Health
Foundation and the Cottage
Grove Sentinel.
For more information or to
request a sign language inter-
preter or other accommoda-
tions, call South Lane Mental
Health at (541) 942-3939 or
visit www.slmh.org.
South Lane Mental Health
is a nonprofi t comprehensive
mental health services provider
based in Cottage Grove.
morial Trust, Northwest Health
Foundation, Providence Health
& Services and A-dec.
Oregon has one of the nation’s
highest rates of childhood den-
tal disease. As Cottage Grove
dentist Park McClung, DDS,
says in an Oregon Community
Foundation video: “I’ve told
the team I used to work with
in Haiti as a volunteer dentist
that I need to stay here and take
care of the children in my own
backyard. The need here is just
as great as anything I’ve seen in
the developing countries where
I’ve provided volunteer den-
tistry.”
The other Lane County grant
recipient is White Bird Dental
Clinic in Eugene, which is pro-
viding dental services to Bethel
School District elementary
school students.
Dental Clinic
grant
WOE work
South Lane Children’s Den-
tal Clinic is in the second year
of a grant provided by a consor-
tium whose goal is to increase
school-based dental programs
statewide. This year, the grant
provides $25,700 for children’s
dental services in the Cottage
Grove area.
The grant is provided by
Kaiser Permanente, Oregon
Community Foundation, The
Collins Foundation, The Ford
Family Foundation, Meyer Me-
On Tuesday, May 10 at 6
p.m., the WOE Heritage Fair
volunteers meet at the Fair-
grounds. Those interested are
invited to help plan the upcom-
ing WOE Heritage Fair and are
asked to bring ideas and their
enthusiasm.
Frontier Oregon swindlers:
The traveling medicine shows
BY FINN J.D. JOHN
For the Sentinel
T
he four decades following
the Civil War were some-
thing like a golden age of char-
latanry in the West, and Oregon
was no exception. From swin-
dling tourists at a gambling par-
lor, to fl eecing miners in a tent-
city saloon, to peddling stock
in nonexistent gold mines, the
opportunities for a morally fl ex-
ible fellow to make a stack of
ill-gotten greenbacks was prob-
ably never higher in the Beaver
State than it was back then.
One of the most popular ways
for a con man to steal a buck or
two back then was with a medi-
cal-miracle scam. An enterpris-
ing con would mix up a concoc-
tion containing a few substances
with dramatic effects – red pep-
per, alcohol and laudanum, say
– and mix in a couple different
fl avoring agents to give it the
proper medicinal taste: eucalyp-
tus oil, for example. Then, into a
bottle it would go, and the con,
calling himself “Doc,” would
roll from town to town selling
it as a secret-recipe folk remedy
for whatever seemed most likely
to sell.
This basic scheme was dem-
onstrated in one of the more
famous episodes of The Lone
Ranger radio show, from 1938 –
in which “Doc Stubbs” rolls into
town selling a product called
“Snake Oil Tonic,” which does
nothing but put the residents to
sleep so that his accomplice can
pick their pockets.
Unfortunately, there aren’t
many stories of specifi c medi-
co-cons in the historical record.
Touring the country under false
names and often a skip or two
ahead of the law, they did their
best to stay out of the history
books as long as possible.
But the legitimate physicians
in the towns they visited have
left us some pretty colorful ac-
counts of their general business
methods.
“Do you see that open ba-
rouche coming down the street
with a torch on either side … and
two California sharpers sitting
just back of the driver?” wrote
Dr. William L. Adams, an eclec-
tic physician working in Port-
land in the 1870s. “They wear
stovepipe hats and are neatly
dressed in broadcloth with high
standing collars, and wear mas-
sive watch chains washed with
oroids and glistening in the light
of their torches. … They stop
on the corner of First and Alder
streets. By this time, attracted
by the torches and the music
of a fi ddle, there has gathered
around them a crowd. The ora-
tor stands up in the barouche.
He takes in the character of the
crowd and begins his oration:
He has a medicine for sale that
will cure catarrh, asthma, epizo-
otic, and all other diseases.
“He is a ventriloquist. Here
he lifts up his ‘Punch and Judy’
and makes her sing a song about
Henry Ward Beecher, which
amuses the crowd. He then
makes her say something about
the value of his medicine in cur-
ing all diseases. …
“He makes an eloquent
speech with loud intonations
and violent gestures. ‘This med-
icine is a sure cure for asthma,
consumption, catarrh, or any-
thing else you happen to have.
Anyone who buys it and is not
satisfi ed will have his money re-
funded. We sold 5,000 packages
here in Portland last year at a
dollar a package and if there is a
man here who was not satisfi ed,
let him walk up and return it and
we will refund the money.’
“Of course nobody does.
This satisfi es the crowd that the
medicine is a good thing, and
one poor laboring man walks
up and hands over a dollar and
receives an ounce bottle of mag-
nesia, table salt and red pepper,
nicely mixed. ‘Now take a pinch
of that,’ shouts the doctor, ‘and
see if it doesn’t clean out your
nose.’ The victim obeys and
sniffs, sneezes, snorts until the
tears run down his cheeks and
then laughs. He proudly shoves
the package into his breeches
pocket, with an expression on
his face that shines out through
dirt and tobacco juice, which
the crowd reads as saying, ‘By
golly, I think that medicine ain’t
no humbug.’
“Now the sharper shouts out:
“Gentlemen, if you are skeptical
of this medicine, I don’t blame
you. You have been humbugged
and robbed by your doctors until
you have no faith in medicines.’
“Here he snatches up a pack-
age of his stuff and, extending it
to the crowd, proceeds: ‘Gentle-
men, we humbug nobody. We
believe in dealing on the square.
Please, walk up and try some for
yourself. This may be your last
chance to get a medicine for a
Please see OFFBEAT, Page 9A
Another dental visit?
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