Logbook 6: Encyclopedia - Part 1
Eden Hills, Oregon, lies at 44 degrees 21 seconds north of the equator and 122 degrees 57 minutes and 48 seconds west of the prime meridian. It's easier to drive the I-5 south from Portland a couple of hundred miles and keep going past Goshen. It's not hard to spot.
The city was founded by Eugene Skinner as a back-up to the successful city that now bears his given name and which is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley. A conservative and cautious man, Skinner built Eugene and Eden Hills at the same time, in case one of them, due to natural catastrophe or pestilence, failed. Eugene (the city) prospered and today is the home of the University of Oregon football team. Eden Hills doesn't have a football team, but it is regarded as an arts and cultural center and is sometimes referred to as "Geneva of the Northwest." It was formerly known as Skinner, but the name was changed by popular vote in 1956 after the Los Angeles Times published an article about oddly named American cities and suggested Skinner, Oregon, owed its name to the popular Northwest pastime of hunting deer and elk and dressing them in the wild. For many of the sensitive souls of Eden Hills, the image was frankly unbearable. Unfortunately for Eugene Skinner, only one city in Oregon now has the honor of bearing his name.
The city is situated on two hills, at the foot of Lake Eden. It is the lake which provides the most prominent topographical feature and which has been the central source of beauty, inspiration and economic development. Because it is navigable by small craft and provides access to larger ports in the Northwest, Lake Eden has become a popular inland landing. The lake is approximately 18 leagues long and four to five leagues wide. It is fed by the Eden River, which empties into it on the south. The Eden River continues northward, and it eventually empties into the mighty Columbia.
While shipping and international trade aren't part of the Eden Hills economy, it is the center of a market microcosm with all the trappings and complexities of a center of commerce. Colorful markets dot the areas around Lake Eden where forests of Douglas fir and hemlock have been carved back to make room for them. Goods produced in such exotic places as China, Japan or Indonesia can be purchased at many of the markets, along with such items as locally grown produce, blueberries, soap and organic home brew. On any given Saturday, the markets bustle with activity as vendors set up their shops and peddle their wares. Wide varieties of food are available, representing many different ethnic regions and suggesting Eden Hills' interest in and ties to the rest of our world.
The city has an opera, a symphony orchestra, a repertory theater and a wonderous indoor-outdoor performance hall at Lake Eden Landing, the most active of the outdoor market areas. In the summer, the city is home of the International Sergei Prokofiev Festival, during which an award is given each year to the scholar whose treatise most vividly explains the coincidence of Prokofiev's death and that of Joseph Stalin in 1953.
Eden Hills took neither its fame nor its fortune from timber, like so many other communities in its neighborhood. Because it was merely a back-up plan to a much more ambitious community, it depended instead on its wits to grow and prosper. With the arrival of the railroad, and its natural and valuable asset in Lake Eden, it soon became both economically viable and a highly desireable, Eden-like venue. Intellectuals, artists, musicians and journalists drifted to Eden Hills, seeking rest and the medicinal values of the clear waters of Lake Eden. In the post Enlightenment period following the American Civil War, much thought was required to reconcile the ideas of "noble savage" postulated by Rousseau and the elitist freedoms so acidly advocated by Voltaire. Where else but in the American West could one come to think through, while relaxing along the clear waters of Lake Eden, the vagaries of empowering the masses?
The city was founded by Eugene Skinner as a back-up to the successful city that now bears his given name and which is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley. A conservative and cautious man, Skinner built Eugene and Eden Hills at the same time, in case one of them, due to natural catastrophe or pestilence, failed. Eugene (the city) prospered and today is the home of the University of Oregon football team. Eden Hills doesn't have a football team, but it is regarded as an arts and cultural center and is sometimes referred to as "Geneva of the Northwest." It was formerly known as Skinner, but the name was changed by popular vote in 1956 after the Los Angeles Times published an article about oddly named American cities and suggested Skinner, Oregon, owed its name to the popular Northwest pastime of hunting deer and elk and dressing them in the wild. For many of the sensitive souls of Eden Hills, the image was frankly unbearable. Unfortunately for Eugene Skinner, only one city in Oregon now has the honor of bearing his name.
The city is situated on two hills, at the foot of Lake Eden. It is the lake which provides the most prominent topographical feature and which has been the central source of beauty, inspiration and economic development. Because it is navigable by small craft and provides access to larger ports in the Northwest, Lake Eden has become a popular inland landing. The lake is approximately 18 leagues long and four to five leagues wide. It is fed by the Eden River, which empties into it on the south. The Eden River continues northward, and it eventually empties into the mighty Columbia.
While shipping and international trade aren't part of the Eden Hills economy, it is the center of a market microcosm with all the trappings and complexities of a center of commerce. Colorful markets dot the areas around Lake Eden where forests of Douglas fir and hemlock have been carved back to make room for them. Goods produced in such exotic places as China, Japan or Indonesia can be purchased at many of the markets, along with such items as locally grown produce, blueberries, soap and organic home brew. On any given Saturday, the markets bustle with activity as vendors set up their shops and peddle their wares. Wide varieties of food are available, representing many different ethnic regions and suggesting Eden Hills' interest in and ties to the rest of our world.
The city has an opera, a symphony orchestra, a repertory theater and a wonderous indoor-outdoor performance hall at Lake Eden Landing, the most active of the outdoor market areas. In the summer, the city is home of the International Sergei Prokofiev Festival, during which an award is given each year to the scholar whose treatise most vividly explains the coincidence of Prokofiev's death and that of Joseph Stalin in 1953.
Eden Hills took neither its fame nor its fortune from timber, like so many other communities in its neighborhood. Because it was merely a back-up plan to a much more ambitious community, it depended instead on its wits to grow and prosper. With the arrival of the railroad, and its natural and valuable asset in Lake Eden, it soon became both economically viable and a highly desireable, Eden-like venue. Intellectuals, artists, musicians and journalists drifted to Eden Hills, seeking rest and the medicinal values of the clear waters of Lake Eden. In the post Enlightenment period following the American Civil War, much thought was required to reconcile the ideas of "noble savage" postulated by Rousseau and the elitist freedoms so acidly advocated by Voltaire. Where else but in the American West could one come to think through, while relaxing along the clear waters of Lake Eden, the vagaries of empowering the masses?
