Christopher Shockey
As It Was ContributorChristopher Shockey lives on a 40-acre hillside homestead in the Applegate Valley of Southern Oregon, where before on-line streaming, JPR Classics and News was the only radio station he and his family could capture. It played from atop the refrigerator all day, and he heard Carol Barrett and Hank Henry’s As It Was each morning. Shockey has been a long-time JPR contributor and enjoys supporting the Southern Oregon Historical Society and JPR by digging up regional stories. His days are a chaotic combination of parenting, day job, and dealing with whatever the climate and a homestead in the forest flings his way. Every day is different. Christopher can be found with his wife Kirsten, watering, mucking stalls, preserving harvests, making cheese, cleaning, dancing on the porch, planting trees, chopping firewood, hiking, reading, or writing. At the end of the day they go to bed exhausted and knowing life is good.
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Iowa Slough Once Known as Dead Man’s Slough -
Iowa Slough Once Known as Dead Man’s Slough
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Deer are probably the most common garden invaders in the mythical State of Jefferson today, but 100 years ago in Bandon, Ore., gardeners had a domestic…
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The headline in the Lake County Examiner on March 26, 1914, proclaimed, “Murderer Caught.” The alleged murderer was E. C. Illingsworth, who had survived…
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Iowa Slough is about 15 minutes by boat from the mouth of the Coquille River in Oregon and about half way between the towns of Coquille and Bandon. Years…
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One of his generation’s most radical union leaders, Utah-born William “Big Bill” Hayward filled the halls with Socialists and workers for a series of…
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In 1908, neighbors eager to educate their children in the Green Springs area about 20 miles east of Ashland Ore., worked together to build a one-room…
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In his report in 1876, the U.S. Internal Revenue Commissioner described moonshiners as “unlettered men of desperate character, armed and ready to resist…
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Traveling between the Oregon towns of Eagle Point and Butte Falls today is a scenic 30-minute drive along Butte Falls Highway. A century ago the route was…
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Starting out at age 17 as a horse trader, James Everett Henry spent a lifetime building a lumber empire, buying forests in his native New Hampshire,…
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Early Christmas advertising in Southern Oregon and Northern California is nothing new; it has been around since the late 1800s when some ads popped up…
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He was visiting relatives in Medford when G. H. Smith heard a familiar sound outside their home. It was his brand new 1919 Dodge Roadster starting up and…
