Southern Oregon’s Central Point Herald lent support to community promotional schemes in the 1910s. Nearly every weekly issue offered local verse touting area’s wonders. Here’s one by regular contributor Charley L. Gant:
It's hazy, dreamy summer time
In Jackson County's ardent clime,
And smoke clouds drift upon the breeze
From off the blazing forest trees,
While in the vale there comes a calm
As sweet as Gilead's soothing balm.
Around us singing wild and free,
We catch the notes of industry
And see contentment written where
The pioneer once wrote despair.
Cool rivers wend through mead and field,
The corn ears, prodigal of yield,
Shoot forth their gift to Plenty's horn,
While sweet delicious fruits adorn
The endless miles, where peach and pear
And apple greets us everywhere.
In future years, no distant time,
A million souls will seek our clime,
Where summer's sun is always kind,
And temperate the winter's wind.
Where canyons spread and creeks descend,
And laughing, cooling rivers wend,
Where apple blooms embalm the breeze
And clover blossoms kissed by bees
From Nature's flower garden grand,
In this, our Jackson County land.
Source: Gant, Charley L. "Jackson County." Central Point Herald, 18 Aug. 1910, p. 2.
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Newspaper Poetry Touts Wonders of Jackson County
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3265
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