The Pittsburgh Press (January 20, 1942)
Rambling Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
PORT ORFORD, Oregon – This, folks, is the scene of the Great Secession movement of the Twentieth Century.
If the march of other events hadn’t come along, this kernel out here might have given somebody the chance to become another Lincoln. For the Union was about to rend itself asunder.
It would have taken a mighty man to preserve our great fraternity of states. Almost any mighty man on the street corner would have done. I probably could have saved it myself.
It all started last September in a remark somebody made that Curry County ought to secede from Oregon, because the state had been so neglectful of the county in mineral and harbor development, in roadbuilding, in committee-appointing and so on.
The mayor of Port Orford overheard this remark. The mayor was a dynamic far-visioned genius named Gilbert E. Gable.
He sincerely believed that Southwest Oregon was destined to become an empire, and he did everything he could to help destiny along. He built a whole community of new homes. He built a huge lumber mill. He was afire over his beloved Southwest Oregon. And he had a sense of the dramatic, too.
So he hopped onto this secession remark, and started the ball rolling. He knew as well as I do that a county couldn’t secede but it was a good attention-getter. And then the people swung in behind him and took it up seriously – at least sort of.
California counties join up
The first idea was to secede from Oregon and join California. The county court even appointed an official commission to study it. Furthermore, Gov. Olsen of California went so far as to receive an Oregon delegation which went to Sacramento.
But then the two northern counties of California got to thinking, and decided California hadn’t been so good to them either.
So they proposed that they secede from California, and the two southwest counties secede from Oregon, and the four of them throw in together and form a forty-ninth state – to be called Jefferson. Of course they all knew that Texas is the only state with power to divide itself into new states, but that was all right.
The thing got a lot of publicity. It went over the wires to thousands of papers. It tickled the country’s funnybone. Magazines sent writers and photographers. Secession boiled hotter and hotter.
And then, out of a clear sky, Gilbert Gable died during the first week of December. That struck secession a terrific blow. And five days later came Pearl Harbor. That ended the whole thing. It’s now just a chuckle in people’s memories.
But it did, in a way, serve its purpose. For the state began issuing statements protesting its deep interest in Curry County, and big mining corporations sent in their engineers to study the metals here, and a lot of people heard of Curry County who otherwise never would have.
Curry County has its charms
Southwest Oregon does have a lot to recommend it. At least I’ve never been any place where the citizens, without any desire to sell you a package, just continually keep harping about their wonderful country as they do here.
One of the worst is a newcomer named Frank Hilton, who owns the weekly Port Orford Post. He practically cries when he gets to talking about the charms of Port Orford.
Hilton says half the people in Port Orford are college graduates, although I suspect he’s letting valor get the best of him there. He says this is real pioneer country – he calls it the biggest, most savage country in America.
Why, Curry County is as big as Delaware, and has only 4300 people in it; the storms sometimes blow in off the ocean at 100 miles an hour and people can’t walk across the street: and everybody is friendly and kind and rough and ready.
They say Port Orford is the only natural deep-water harbor in 1000 miles of coastline. And even I will admit the view from the rim that rises sharply above the harbor is among the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.
But I can’t keep warm on beauty, nor dry in deep-water harbors, so I guess I’ll still have to vote for New Mexico. So sorry please.