© 2024 | Jefferson Public Radio
Southern Oregon University
1250 Siskiyou Blvd.
Ashland, OR 97520
541.552.6301 | 800.782.6191
a service of Southern Oregon University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Hogue family Spends Hot Summer at Brushy Bar

In 1934, Shenie and Hattie Hogue and their two boys moved to Brushy Bar above Agness, Ore., reachable only by foot, boat or horseback.  Shenie worked for the U.S. Forest Service, building a guard station and patrolling for fires.

A biography of Hattie Hogue posted online by the Curry County Historical Society says the Hogues had a neighbor who told them hot weather drove him crazy. He said not to worry if he started shouting when temperatures reached 105 degrees.  They heard him hollering several times that summer.

Keeping cool kept everyone on their toes and even engendered some light humor. Hattie told how they went one time to the community of Paradise for fresh vegetables and the boys got so hot riding their horses on a trail far above the river they began dipping a tin cup into the dirt while demanding longingly,  “I want a drink!”

In hot weather, the family freshened vegetables in the well and prevented meat from spoiling by burying it deep in the ground in quart jars.

They kept entertained at their lonely outpost by doing things like shooting sugar pine cones off trees and eating their seeds.

Source: "Biography: Hattie Hogue." Curry County Historical Society. 2015. Web. 14 Aug. 2015. .

Kernan Turner is the Southern Oregon Historical Society’s volunteer editor and coordinator of the As It Was series broadcast daily by Jefferson Public Radio. A University of Oregon journalism graduate, Turner was a reporter for the Coos Bay World and managing editor of the Democrat-Herald in Albany before joining the Associated Press in Portland in 1967. Turner spent 35 years with the AP before retiring in Ashland.