Honoring African American loggers' Oregon roots
by Richard Cockle, The Oregonian
Sunday June 28, 2009, 9:44 PM
Gwen Trice unearthed the little-known story of the Maxville loggers, a group of African Americans from the South who worked in northeast Oregon in the 1920s, for her documentary "The Logger's Daughter," shown recently on Oregon Public Broadcasting's "Oregon Experience."WALLOWA -- Everybody knows loggers shout "Timber!"
But African American lumberjacks who worked in northeast Oregon in the 1920s had other ideas. They gave a distinctive "whoop and a holler," says researcher and videographer Gwen Trice, whose father and grandfather were among the loggers.
"That's what I really want to hear, is what that sounded like," said Trice, 50.
If Trice has her way, she and others will learn that and more about the little-known group of about 60 men who brought their families from the South in 1923 to the now-empty hamlet of Maxville.
Coming on the heels of "The Logger's Daughter," her recent Oregon Public Broadcasting documentary about life in Maxville and her family's roots, Trice hopes to create an interpretive center at an abandoned U.S. Forest Service compound in Wallowa.
Gwen Trice hopes to turn an old U.S. Forest Service compound in Wallowa into an interpretive center to study Maxville, a former company town 13 miles north of Wallowa where African American lumberjacks lived.U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has introduced a bill in Congress to transfer ownership of the compound to the city of Wallowa, 13 miles south of Maxville. A Senate subcommittee held the first hearing on it two weeks ago.
Mary Oberst, wife of Gov. Ted Kulongoski, supports the bill, and Wallowa officials have agreed to let Trice run the center. Trice recently founded the nonprofit Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center with hopes of creating a museum, archaeological field school and research headquarters; she estimates she'd need to raise about $300,000 to refurbish the compound's buildings.
The Forest Service would rather sell the property than donate it, however, Wyden spokesman Tom Towslee said.
Maxville itself, though it once contained this rich nugget of almost-forgotten Oregon history, now holds little besides one building and an old railroad trestle.
Life in Maxville was rough, with segregated schools, no electricity and shacks designed to fit on railcars. The town was built and later dismantled by the Missouri-based Bowman-Hicks Lumber Co. According to one story, the town was named for a lumber company superintendent and was briefly called Max Town.
Trice's father and grandfather came from Pine Bluff, Ark., as part of a wave of skilled black workers who headed west from Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida. The Trices were railroad loggers, experts at operating narrow-gauge steam locomotives.
Many African American loggers came to Maxville to escape the South's racism and lynchings, even though Oregon was notoriously unfriendly to blacks until World War II, Trice said. While many whites enjoyed the freewheeling 1920s listening to torch singers and tipping back bathtub gin, life for the loggers of Maxville was an exercise in hardship.
"You looking for pleasure, you gotta go someplace else," Alvie Marsh, one of the African American lumberjacks, told Trice a few weeks before his death.
Surrounded by mountains, deep forests and tumbledown pioneer cabins, the community had no electricity. Homes were lighted by kerosene and heated with wood. Bedbugs were rampant. The only amenities were a post office, a medical clinic, a company store, a hotel and a social center built of logs.
"It was definitely a company town," Trice said. "The work was hard, conditions were difficult, and the houses were cold. I don't think it mattered what color you were; it was a tough life."
Minus-20 temperatures and 5 feet of snow brought logging to a standstill in winter, forcing many families to leave until spring, Trice said. Similar towns, most started around 1923, were located at Vernonia; Weed, Calif.; and McNary, Ariz., she said.
"I have a lot of family members who came up from the South through Maxville," she said.
Maxville flourished for a decade, becoming one of the largest towns in Wallowa County. By 1926, its 400 residents lived in segregated neighborhoods on opposing sides of a railroad track. Homes were 30-by-13-foot shacks designed to fit on railcars. Children attended separate black and white schools, and the town's baseball teams also were segregated.
But in the woods, race meant nothing, with loggers wielding crosscut saws side by side.
Then the Great Depression crippled the lumber market. Maxville's post office closed in 1933, according to Oregon Geographic Names by Lewis A. McArthur, though a few hardy souls stayed until April 1943.
Trice knows some of Maxville's story from her father, Lafayette "Lucky" Trice, who was 58 when Gwen was born and who died in 1985.
Lucky Trice was the grandson of a slave called Morris, she said. He sometimes talked of a dark night in 1925 when the Ku Klux Klan paid a call on Maxville. In a 1978 newspaper interview, he said a tense confrontation ended when the logging superintendent "dehooded" the Klansmen and sent them packing.
After leaving Maxville, Lucky Trice moved to La Grande and became a prominent businessman, achieving an uncommon status for a black man in white rural Oregon. Always easygoing and smiling, he was an amateur boxer, hunter, angler, conservationist, musician and storyteller. He was also a pilot and a member of the Civil Air Patrol.
Trice became an American Legion district commander and was active in the Rotary, Masonic Lodge and other organizations. He was also recognized for helping the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Nez Perce Tribe establish a salmon hatchery north of La Grande.
When children ran away from home, they often came to Trice for help sorting their lives out, Gwen Trice said. Her father loved La Grande and "never had an issue of color," she said.
Except once. Trice's bid to join one of La Grande's fraternal organizations was rejected. He came home, sat at the piano and played softly for a while, his daughter said.
Then he wept.
"They won't let me join," he told his family, "because I'm black."
-- Richard Cockle; rcockle@oregonwireless.net
Hell of an interesting story. I'm hoping this museum goes through, as any sort of 'Black History' in Oregon is sadly relegated to the stories of Vanport and Albina alone.
Wow, downboy, not sure where in this story you found an accusatory tone? This woman's motives lie in the hopes preserving the HISTORY of our state. Her research into her past provides a very rare and interesting look at life as a black person in Oregon that isn't based solely out of one section of NE Portland. Most importanly though, reading this story has taught me something new about Oregon and helped me better understand the many factors that have shaped the place I call home. If you can't see the value for EVERYONE in that, then I guess your just searching for a reason to be angry.
When do we get to stop worshiping African American culture, or any 'minority race' for that matter? Is it just me that's getting tired of this? This article is so mid 1990's.
And I bet Gwen Trice probably expects our tax dollars for her dream job. She'll probably get it too.
Bitter, bitter people. it's actually quite sad..never quite got the memo about "worshipping" black culture. maybe appropriating and comodifying it, but yeah....
No one expects some die hard liberal like you dudeinnep to ever 'get the memo'. We have an opinion - we can post it. It's not an invitation for you to try and engage in some sort of debate in the comments section of oregon live.
Um yeah fool, when you post something PUBLICLY expect people to respond to it. Especially when its some pathetic crumudgeon complaining about how tough it is to have "minority culture" shoved down their throat. I feel so bad for your plight, having to actually grasp and understand history that isn't directly related to your experience!
when did this, a story about a long forgotten lumber town that supported a rare Black community in rural Oregon, turn into a debate about "liberal/consevative" philosophy anyway? Is it LIBERAL (ooh scary!) to appreciate hisorical accounts, especially when they belong to them pesky minorities, always forcing the poor white man to DEAL with their culture...keep on keepin' on though, you're only getting more irrelavent and out of step by the day...
That was a really inspiring story. I'm glad to see that black history is being written after being ingnored for decades. It is part of the American story, and belongs there.
My great uncle Paul Reppeto wrote a book called "The Way of the Logger," without a single black person in the book. This is a step in setting the record straight.
You go girl!!!
Awful proud of what you have accomplished!
An EO Redneck since 1955, I have followed the Trice family in La Grande and I am constantly ammazed at what talents this family has.
Good luck in Enterprise and Wallowa county.
rturo...Enjoy the rally this weekend. I hope you don't get stuck washing all the hoods and robes again.
Logging was tough for everyone in the 1920s and 30s....my family moved here from Kansas into an old railroad car on the Santiam River...they worked to survive, like most folks during the depression...it's nice to hear about other folks struggles during this time period...but the suffering, robber baron domination, poverty, and abuse was universal and color blind in the logging camps...another story to be told is that of the wives and families who lived in or near the camps of all Oregon canyons including those in the Santiam river basin....hey, I understand Gilchrist is available for sale...how about another interpretative site in that former logging town?...I am sure that community could use the money...oh, that's right...the town has closed, completely.
Usually I would post the question about when are we going to honor the WHITE loggers of Oregon.
People always claim that they want to be equals then wish to stand out of the croud.
But not this time.
I enjoyed the article and the history lesson.
They are a part of OUR history regardless of race.
Don't ever let OUR cowboy heritage die!
Peace!
Good for Gwen Trice! I'm so glad to see that we're reaching an era when we can be proud of our logging roots, instead of forgetting about how our dads and granddads put food on the table. This is a beautiful history lesson for Oregon and I hope we get to see this interpretive center come to fruition.
Sadly, I think some of us are missing the point about Ms. Trice's work -- this isn't just BLACK history, folks. This is OREGON history. I'm glad that Trice has taken the time and effort to bring an important piece of Oregon's heritage to light without sugar-coating the hardships. More articles like this, please!
It still amazes me that people have to bring race into things. If they want equality, why do they keep bringing up the color of their skin? A logger is a logger, black, white, yellow green, why distinguish?
Wow, what an excellent article! I'm not going to get into a racial or liberal discussion here because this is simply about family for me. My father was an African-American logger who came to Northeast Oregon after WWII. He logged for several years and told me a lot of stories about "life in the logging camp." He passed away in 2007 so to hear the history on this is really fascinating to me. I knew the Trice family well and I am excited to see Gwen doing this research. We were one of the other few black families in La Grande and for the most part we had an enjoyable time growing up in Northeast Oregon. Keep up the good work Gwen and feel free to e-mail me @ izaya@comcast.net.
God Bless!
C. Hawthorne
Chattanooga, TN
If you grew up black in northeast Oregon, you would understand the significance of this story. But obviously you didn't
Here is the problem with people like RTURO, and maybe others. First they probably do not appreciate Oregon History. And second, how many have been to Maxwell or even Wallowa County for that matter. Oh that's right, some of you have been to the state park with the go carts. Now go in winter, about 75-85 years ago, and try tent camping which is basically what all the inhabitants endured.
Look, white or black this whole piece of Oregon history is truly fascinating. What makes it most interesting to me is that my mother in law, was born in Promise, which is the 'White' half of the town. She is still alive to tell the story of going by horse drawn sled, mid-winter to the small medical clinic in Wallowa. Incidently there is a large gathering every Memorial Day weekend for all those friends and families with connections to this township.
Other areas of N.E. Oregon had an influx of loggers from Tennesee in the late 40's and 50's. The were only temporary residents before moving on, probably back to the south.
I'm not black and believe I'm somewhat more tuned into the political situation in this country, my county and local municipalities than the average and I could spend the next two hours debating the pro's and con's of the politically oriented comments made throughout this list, but this topic is more significant to me than these petty jibes. My mother was born in Enterprise in 1921 and spent the first few years of her life growing up in Maxville. Gwen said. "The work was hard, conditions were difficult, and the houses were cold. I don't think it mattered what color you were; it was a tough life." From the tales my grandparents and my mother told and the dozens of photos I have from those days, this is an understatement. Gwen mentioned McNary, AZ. My father spent his teens in McNary living with his mother and father in a "shack", having to work in the mill at age 16 when his father died. He completed the last two years of high school attending at night after working all day. Yes, Gwen is researching the Black experience in Maxville, but the "black" experience and the "white" experience of the average families in those camps will never and can never be comprehended by those belonging to generations removed. The people of those places and times were the salt of the earth and their contributions can never be repaid. Anything Gwen can do to portray their lives, their sacrifices, and their contributions, God's Speed. I'd ask those who have complained in one way or another about her goals and efforts to look in the mirror and ask yourselves what you've done in your lives to bring the greatness of this country and "all" its "average", real Americans to the forefront rather than tearing down the efforts of others who are working daily to do so.
The NAACP will LOVE a new development area!
http://tinyurl.com/mpnpsq
http://www.topix.com/forum/city/antioch-ca/T8RQRS53UV9UHG898
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get alot more than you ever imagined...
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