Stewart H. Holbrook (1893–1964)

Short, lively summaries of 10 true-crime incidents, most from the early 1900s, that occurred in rural settings from remote Oregon homesteads to isolated Maine fishing villages.

The lead story is probably the standout, dealing as it does with the trifecta of sex, religious mania, and murder. Close behind that is the tale of a homicidal Indiana widow whose long-distance suitors showed up with cash to help her lift a non-existent morgage, and were never seen again. (And you thought romance scams show more were an invention of the internet age!) Most of the others deal with such mundanities as money, property, sex (there it is again), and revenge.

Holbrook sums it up with the perfect ending paragraph: "My research has also convinced me that the most interesting crimes in the United States have been committed by persons with rural and backwoods, or at least small-town, backgrounds. I don't think this proves anything in particular, or if it does that it is very important; but it does amuse me when I hear city people wonder, as I often do, what on earth the folks at the forks of the creek can find to talk about." show less

Outstanding collection of articles by Pacific Northwest journalist Stewart Holbrook, who lived in, worked with and wrote about the logging camps, hardrock miners, homesteaders, fancy ladies, grifters, and other oddballs who settled in the lop left corner of the country during the last half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th.

Now largely forgotten, this collection of reprinted material is available for modern readers to rediscover an authentic Pacific Northwest voice, writing show more with humor, fondness, and drama about the characters and events that formed modern Washington and Oregon.

Includes a brief biographical sketch by editor Brian Booth, as well as an extensive list of additional reading for the hard-core history buff. show less

Stewart Holbrook wrote for The Oregonian newspaper in the decades bracketing WWII, and had a pretty good side hustle going with magazine articles and books, mostly centering on the Pacific Northwest.

Little Annie Oakley and Other Rugged People is a collection of 28 of articles published in the 1940s and deals, as the title suggests, with various oddball characters ranging from the famous to the obscure. Oakley is only one of the better-known subjects, and she fares better in her brief show more biography than a couple of other Western noteworthies, Calamity Jane and Buffalo Bill being prime examples of the myth being deconstructed with humor and insight.

But where Holbrook really shines is in his re-creation of the heyday of the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest, much of it observed firsthand as he worked the camps as a young man. Here are vividly-drawn whistle punks, bull cooks, Wobblies, and hard-working, hard-playing, hard-drinking loggers, along with stories of the towns and communities that grew up to serve them.

Many of Holbrook’s books are still available with just a little digging, and the payoff is well worth the effort. show less

Holy Old Mackinaw is Stewart Holbrook's paean to "the pure logger strain", those hardy men who logged the northern pine forests across the country in the days before steam power and eventually the internal combustion engine mechanized the industry. In his early years, Holbrook worked in logging camps from Maine to the Pacific Northwest, and this book is based on the tales he collected from the last of those old timers. His love of the most extreme characters is obvious, as he bemoans the show more encroachment of civilization in all its forms. show less