The Sandy Knoll Murder, Legacy of the Sheepshooters is the true story of the high-profile 1904 murder of John Creed Conn, who disappeared in the midst of central Oregon's bloody range war period. That circumstance has always been believed to have precipitated his death. Sensational and intriguing, the details of the murder held the reading public in rapt attention with articles appearing on the front page of the Oregonian for nine months after Conn's mysterious disappearance. It is not very often that a prominent man, a celebrity, vanishes from the main street of an Oregon town in broad daylight. And even less often does a missing man's body reappear on a small, sandy knoll outside of that same town seven weeks later. This work is the result of six years of painstaking research that encompassed eighty other homicides and suspicious deaths of the period, Conn's life and relationships, the circumstances of his death, and all that was ever written by and about the sheepshooters. All of the planning that the killer put into making Conn vanish showed a high level of control and organization on his part. But, he did unwittingly leave some clues to his identity, and they could be traced like fingerprints through the ink of the newspapers of the day. Other clues were left like footprints in the soil surrounding the Sandy Knoll and in the behaviors that he exhibited there. Conn was the brother of a district attorney and a member of a politically prominent and well-connected family. He was a local celebrity and a respected figure, and there could be no doubt that a massive man hunt and investigation would ensue. Every effort has been made to adhere to the facts of the case, long-held as the legacy of the sheepshooters. The Creed Conn murder was then, and remains today, one of the most sensational in the history of the state of Oregon.

Former high desert rancher Ellen Waterston writes of a wild, essentially roadless, starkly beautiful part of the American West. Following the recently created 750-mile Oregon Desert Trail, she embarks on a creative and inquisitive exploration, introducing readers to a “trusting, naïve, earnest, stubbly, grumpy old man of a desert” that is grappling with issues at the forefront of national, if not global, concern: public land use, grazing rights for livestock, protection of sacred Indigenous ground, water rights, and protection of habitat for endangered species. Blending travel writing with memoir and history, Waterston profiles a wide range of people who call the high desert home and offers fresh perspectives on nationally reported regional conflicts such as the Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupation. Walking the High Desert invites readers—wherever they may be—to consider their own beliefs, identities, and surroundings through the optic of the high desert of southeastern Oregon.

This book contains a diversity of natural and human stories about the southeast quarter of Oregon state, an area seemingly empty and barren to many people driving through it. This surprising view of the region features the botany, geology, wildlife and history of the area wrapped in a memoir of the author’s youth spent there. Born in the sagebrush community of Lakeview in 1941, the author moved on following high school graduation. But as with many native sons and daughters from out-of-the-way places, the urge to return to his roots proved irresistible. “I endeavored to write this collection about the Oregon desert because of my childhood there,” says Adams, “but also because it is a place of startling mystery, subdued danger and beauty.”

Provides historical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes information abstracted from over 2,000 journals published worldwide.

Carefully woven, Netting the Sun offers a diversity of natural and human stories from a landscape seemingly empty and forlorn to passing casual travelers. This surprising interpretation of south central Oregon's botany, geology, climate, wildlife, ethnography, and history reveals what a truly special place the high desert is. Born in the sagebrush community of Lakeview in 1941, the author moved on following high school graduation. But as with many native sons and daughters from America's out-of-the-way places, the urge to return to his roots proved irresistible in middle age. "I endeavored to write this collection about the Oregon desert because of my childhood there," Adams writes, "but also because it is a place of startling mystery, subdued danger, and beauty."

Award-winning historian Amrita Chakrabarti Myers has recovered the riveting, troubling, and complicated story of Julia Ann Chinn (ca. 1796–1833), the enslaved wife of Richard Mentor Johnson, owner of Blue Spring Farm, veteran of the War of 1812, and US vice president under Martin Van Buren. Johnson never freed Chinn, but during his frequent absences from his estate, he delegated to her the management of his property, including Choctaw Academy, a boarding school for Indigenous men and boys on the grounds of the estate. This meant that Chinn, although enslaved herself, oversaw Blue Spring's slave labor force and had substantial control over economic, social, financial, and personal affairs within the couple's world. Chinn's relationship with Johnson was unlikely to have been consensual since she was never manumitted. What makes Chinn's life exceptional is the power that Johnson invested in her, the opportunities the couple's relationship afforded her and her daughters, and their community's tacit acceptance of the family—up to a point. When the family left their farm, they faced steep limits: pews at the rear of the church, burial in separate graveyards, exclusion from town dances, and more. Johnson's relationship with Chinn ruined his political career and Myers compellingly demonstrates that it wasn't interracial sex that led to his downfall but his refusal to keep it—and Julia Chinn—behind closed doors.