Portraits Fort Rock Valley Homestead Years

Portraits Fort Rock Valley Homestead Years by Helen Parks. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780892881765.

ASSEMBLING THIS BOOK ABOUT THE HOMESTEAD ERA IN THE FORT ROCK BASIN HAS UNCOVERED AN UNUSUAL PARADOX. AN EVENT WHICH TURNED OUT TO BE A DISMAL FAILURE HAS BEEN REMEMBERED AS A TIME OF TRIUMPH OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT. IN ACTUALITY, SOME 1200 HOMESTEADERS AND THEIR CHILDREN LEFT THE AREA WHEN IT BECAME APPARENT THAT RESOURCES WERE TOTALLY INADEQUATE FOR THEIR SUPPORT. THEY LEFT ABANDONED HOUSES AND DEVESTATING SOIL ERROSION. WRITERS HAVE CONSISTENTLY DESCRIBED THE PERIOD AS A TIME OF HEARTBROKEN PEOPLE, A DESECRATION OF A FRAGILE ENVIRONMENT AND AN INEECUSABLE WASTE OF HUMAN RESOURCES. THE HOMESTEADERS REUNION AT FORT ROCK, EACH SEPTEMBER, DRAWS PERSONS FROM HALF OF A CONTINENT. THEY TREASURE A MEMORY OF THIS PLACE WITH ITS GLORIOUS SENSE OF EQUALITY. NO ONE THEN HAD POSSESSIONS, TO SPEAK OF, AND WHAT LITTLE THEY HAD THEY SHARED WITH THEIR NEIGHBORS. THE CASUAL OBSERVER MAY SEE THIS LAND AS MONOTONOUS, DREARY, LONELY. THE HOMESTEADERS SAW MAGNIFICENT SUNRISES AND SUNSETS, MOODS THAT CHANGED QUICKLY WITH THE WEATHER. FOLLOWING GENERATIONS SPEAK OF THIS LAND AS THEIR SPIRITUAL HOME. NOSTALGIA RETURNS THEM TO A PLACE WHERE THE AIR IS CLEAN, WHERE THE STARS AT NIGHT SEEM CLOSER AND EXTEND TO THE HORIZON. THEY ARE DRAWN TO A PLACE OF COMPELLING MYSTIQUE.