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The Infamous Black Bird Southern Oregon History, Revised


Southern Oregon Research Links

Links that let you find, read, research, or look at local history. Please report broken links to:
e-mail address


Findagrave
Unsure of the spelling? Just enter the first few letters.

Odd Fellows' Cemetery, Medford, Oregon
History, map, list of interments 1880s-present.

Annotated Medford Odd Fellows' Cemetery Index
Search "Eastwood Cemetery" to find USGenWeb's index to interments, with annotations.

Jacksonville Cemetery
Map, directions, index to interments 1850s-1979.

Central Point Cemetery
Tombstone transcriptions and a history of the cemetery.

Cemeteries of Jackson County
Burials in twelve other area cemeteries.


Oregon USGenWeb Archive
Search all Oregon USGenWeb genealogical and history pages, including Elizabeth Corether's.

Oregon Pioneers
Stephenie Flora's voluminous research on the Oregon Trail and the people who traveled it up to 1855.


Early Oregonians Project
Coordinated by the Oregon Secretary of State, as of August 2012 over 105,000 entries on Oregon residents prior to 1859.

Oregon Historical Records Index
Later records from the State Archives.

State of Oregon Law Library
Oregon Judicial Department history, inluding the 1854 Revised Statutes of the Territory of Oregon.

The Jackson County Pioneer Index
Jan Wright's files on over 20,000 early Jackson County residents.

Jackson County Pioneer Families
Obituaries of hundreds of local pioneers.

Jackson County Place Names
From the Rogue Valley Genealogical Society.

Jackson County Roads
Click on "Road Files" to look up roads alphabetically; those files may refer you to the "Engineer Records" or "Road Records" folders.


Jackson County Mines
A portal to BLM information on 6,000 Jackson County mines
.


More Jackson County Mines
A great deal of information (mostly mid-20th century) from the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.

Historic Mining Publications
Hundreds of newspapers and magazines, 1861-1991.


Jackson County Library
A list of local history resources at Jackson County libraries and elsewhere.


Rogue Valley Genealogical Society
Records of births, marriages, deaths, divorces, deeds, naturalizations, court actions, and more, as well as access to diaries and RVGS' research services.

History of Talent, Oregon
Friends of the Talent Library links to the history of Talent and the Rogue River Indian War. Also a 1922 history of Oregon, and the first chapters of A. G. Walling's 1884 history of Southern Oregon.

Talent Historical Society
Historic photos, excerpts from Welborn Beeson's diary, and their Pioneer Index.

Talent News
Transcriptions of the 1892-93 Talent, Oregon newspaper.


Lloyd Smith's Photo Collection
Thousands of historic photos, predominantly from Josephine County. If you can identify them, please leave a comment.

Southern Oregon Historical Society Online Resources
Virtual exhibits, photos, biographies, and access to the ongoing indexing of their vast photo, document and artifact collection.


Southern Oregon Digital Archive

Access to hundreds of digitized photos and rare publications on Southern Oregon history, Indians, and the bioregion.

Klamath County Museum Archives
Photo gallery, Modoc myths, indexes to Klamath County newspapers, court and tax records, livestock brands, and more.

Oregon Department of Transportation's History Center
Many road construction photos, a survey of Oregon cemeteries, a 1936 travel brochure, and more.

Oregon Mining Data 1929-1931
Information about Oregon mines and miners transcribed from the Phoenix, Arizona Mining Journal.

Salt Lake Mining Review, 1899-1929
Click on "Select Newspaper" to search digitized issues with information about Oregon mines and miners.

The Congressional Globe 1833-1873

Access to the predecessor to the Congressional Record.

The Congressional Record 1873-1875

Transcriptions of debate on the floors of the House and Senate.

govinfo.gov

Access to the Congressional Record and other government publications.

Southern Oregon Photos at the Library of Congress

This is the results page for "Jackson County, Oregon"; change the search terms to perform other searches.

1971 and Later Jacksonville Photos at the Library of Congress
Photographed as part of the Historic American Buildings Survey.

Salem Public Library Historic Photo Collection
Many Southern Oregon photos; use the search engine.

Oregon State Library Photo Collection
The search engine for their digitized photos.

Letters to Bush 1850-1863
Five hundred letters written to pioneer editor Asahel Bush. A lot of work has been put into them, and years of promises to put them online.


Oregon Digital
The University of Oregon's enormous digital archive. Click on "Browse Items" on the left of the page to see the scans.

Scholars' Bank
Repository for digitized University of Oregon archives and scholarly works,  governmental documents and rare books.

Manuscripts at the University of Oregon
Some Jackson County-related.

Old Oregon, 1919-present
Search the text of the University of Oregon's magazines, yearbooks and other publications.

Oregon Newspaper Index

Search an index card file of Oregon newspapers, magazines and books through the mid-1980s.

Oregon Spectator Index 1846-1854

Another digitized print index. Human indexes are often superior to OCR searches.

The Oregon Encyclopedia
A Sesquicentennial project of Portland State University, the Oregon Council of Teachers of English, and the Oregon Historical Society.

Oregon Historical Society
Access to their documents and photos.

Oregon State Historic Preservation Office
Oregon Historic Sites database.

Oregon State Archives
Click on "Exhibits and Events" for more online resources.

Development of Oregon Counties 1843-1875
Maps of shifting county lines.


Northwest Digital Archives
Now called Archives West--search finder's guides at many Northwest archives. Some documents available online.

Mountain West Digital Library
Covering all the West exclusive of California.

ArchiveGrid
Finding aids for primary documents in hundreds of American archives.

The Bancroft Library
A vast collection of manuscripts by Oregon pioneers.

New York Public Library
Search and download their digitized Oregon maps and photographs.

Online Archive of California
Many Oregon documents as well.

Online Archive of California Photo Search
Search for Oregon photos.

Calisphere
Digitized collections of California libraries, archives and museums.

Google Newspaper Archives
Thousands of newspapers, including the Eugene Guard and Register-Guard and the Bend Bulletin. Searchable again!


Washington State Digital Archives
Search Washington public records.

Historic California Newspapers
Search and view digitized historic California newspapers.

Historic Washington Newspapers
Search and view digitized historic Washington newspapers.

Historic Oregon Newspapers
Search and view digitized historic Oregon newspapers.

Democratic Times Online
Some of Jacksonville's Democratic Times is online here. Add "democratic times"--in quotes--to your search string . The site apparently doesn't work with Chrome.

Oregon Newspapers on Microfilm
At the University of Oregon. Scroll down for newspapers by title and date.

Oregon Newspaper Archives

A compendium of Oregon archive links.


elephind.com
Lets you search thousands of free newspapers with a single search.

The Oregonian 1852-1987 Online
Subscription site. Access to the nearly full run of the Oregonian and other Oregon newspapers.

The Oregon Statesman 1851-1905 Online
Subscription site. Access to the Statesman and other Oregon newspapers.

The Medford Mail and Mail Tribune 1892-1963 Online
Subscription site. Access to Medford and other Oregon newspapers. There are gaps in the Mail Tribune--1910, for instance--but gaps 1909-1916 are filled here. Note also that one reel labeled "Mail Tribune" is actually the Medford Daily Tribune--a predecessor newspaper.

IAPSOP Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals
More than three million searchable spiritualist, freethinker and theosophical newspaper pages going back to the early 1800s.

Oregon Spectator Index 1846-1854
Downloadale index prepared by the W.P.A. in the 1930s.

History of Oregon Newspapers
George S. Turnbull's invaluable 1939 history online.

Historic Newspapers Online
Wikipedia's list of worldwide online digital newspaper archives.

Historic American Newspapers Online
The Library of Congress' Chronicling America newspaper archives.

Historic American Photos Online
Search newspaper photos in Chronicling America by keyword--or train their artificial intelligence to find them for you.

Historic U.S. and Canada Newspapers Online
Brilliant state-by-state listing of online genealogical resources and newspaper archives--including many not on the Wikipedia page--with searching tutorials. The Oregon page lists many small-town, school and even Civilian Conservation Corps newspapers and newsletters.

Pacific Monthly
Predecessor to Sunset magazine, 1898-1911.

Southern Pacific Bulletin
Links to issues of the railroad company magazine, 1913-1996.

eBooks and Maps
The Institute for Advanced Study's portal to worldwide collections of ebooks and digitized maps..

Early Oregon Maps, 1845-1887
Dozens of early Oregon maps. Click here for other regions.

More Early Oregon Maps
Scannable and scrollable maps, 1846-1909. Search for "Oregon."

Even More Oregon Maps
Oregon topographic maps and 1917 city maps at the University of Texas.

Oregon General Land Office Maps
The Bureau of Land Management's scans of DLC maps (and many more)--in color--as well as surveyor's notes.

Oregon Water Resources Maps
Hundreds of downloadable maps and water rights documents from the Oregon Water Resources Department.

Oregon Lidar Data
Zoom in on the map, then click "Bare Earth" to pan and scroll, or click to download large data files.

Vintage Oregon Postcards
Postcards for sale at CardCow.com. Try eBay too.

USGenWeb's Oregon Postcards
A smaller collection of vintage Oregon postcards.

Camera Fiends and Kodak Girls in Southern Oregon 1850-1950

An article about local women photographers printed in 2000 by the Southern Oregon Historical Society. Click here for more regional photographers.

Postcards from the Siskiyou Mountains Rail Line
Postcards on this page are from 1908-1916; click on the links at the bottom of the page for cards from sections north and south of the Siskiyous.

The Siskiyou Trail Project

Maps and photographs from a 2002 effort to determine the route of the north-south trail through the Siskiyous.

Indian-White Relationships in Northern California 1840-1920
Online finder's guide to the collection at California State, Chico's Meriam Library.

Early Indian Wars of Oregon
Frances Fuller Victor's 1894 history isn't perfect, but it includes muster rolls of many of the volunteer companies.

SOHS Rogue River Indian War Files
The Southern Oregon Historical Society's clippings file on the Indian wars.


Oregon Indian History and Ethnology
David G. Lewis' excellent site.


Hodge's Handbook of American Indians
His "synonymy" is the tool for deciphering phonetic names of Indian tribes and bands in old manuscripts. Partial view of Patricia Roberts Clark's
Tribal Names of the Americas: Spelling Variants and Alternative Forms on Google Books here.

Manual of Pack Transportation
With that elusive glossary of pack train terminology (on page 164) and photographs of mules carrying a mountain howitzer.


Archaic Medical Terms
For deciphering the arcana of 19th-century "medicine."


Jackson County Planning Department
Their Front Counter Application page gives access to township maps and construction dates of structures.

Jackson County GIS Services
Access to the county's spatial databases.

Facebook's "Ashland Oregon--Then & Now"
A place to pick the brains of Ashland oldtimers and historians.

Facebook's "You Know You're from Medford, Oregon When"
Ditto, but for Medford.

History of Southern Oregon: Comprising Jackson, Josephine, Douglas, Curry and Coos Counties, by A. G. Walling, 1884
Original copies are available at Jackson County libraries and the Southern Oregon Historical Society.

Google Books
Digitized, searchable access to Gaston's Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Bancroft's History of Oregon, Clarke's Pioneer Days of Oregon History, and much, much more.

Online Historic Books, Magazines and Newspapers
University of Pennsylvania's invaluable guide to free online resources..

History of Broadcasting in Southern Oregon
A page from the Western States Museum of Broadcasting, based in Ashland.

Snider's Dairy
An illustrated 2004 article about the Medford dairy published by the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors.

Medford: 100 Years of Growth
An animated map showing how Oregon's land-use policies affected growth.

Medford's Craterian Theater
An illustrated history by the Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society.

The Banks Trial, 1933
An online article on the trial of Llewellyn and Edith Banks for the murder of Medford constable George Prescott.

Murder at Merrick's, 1943
Bernard Joseph Lotka and Tillie Michalski were an unmarried couple from Cleveland, Ohio. Lotka was an army sergeant at Camp White--and not happy about being a father.

Jackson County Sheriffs
A list of sheriffs and brief history of the county. 

The 1923 DeAutremont Train Robbery
Stories and artifacts from the Smithsonian.

Lloyd's Register of Ships 1764-1945
Our county may be landlocked, but our history isn't. Here's how to access
Lloyd's Register online.

Biodiversity Heritage Library
Publications on flora, fauna, geology, horticulture; access to Oregon Sportsman, Pacific Fisherman, Better Fruit and Forest Service publications.

Medford's Pear Blossom Festival
A brief history by the Pear Blossom Festival Association.

Rogue River Electric Company
An illustrated article on the pioneer electric company by Howard Banks of the Jefferson State Insulator Club.

Hugo Neighborhood Association and Historical Society
Applegate Trail history and data, transcribed Josephine County tax assessment rolls 1859-1861, letters, diaries, much more. Most pages aren't easily accessible; the site rewards exploration.

Harry & David/Bear Creek Corporation History
Company history, timeline, bibliography and contact information.

Oregon Oddities
Dozens of newsletters full of Oregon tidbits from the Federal Writers' Project of the 1930s. Quote carefully; there's a lot of mythology amongst the history.

National Library of Australia
An easily searchable archive with a surprising number of Oregon documents, photos, books and magazine articles.

American Radio and Entertainment History
It used to be next to impossible to research radio and television topics online. Now you can search David Gleason's vast collection of periodicals.

Media History Digital Library
And now you can finally search movie fan and exhibitors' magazines, too!



Last revised September 21, 2023