PST: The Ghost Town of Ellendale, Oregon

Published: Jan. 19, 2021, 2 p.m.

This is an episode in our weekly series titled 'Primary Source Tuesday.' Each Tuesday we have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes it's a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times, an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it's a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century. Today it's the transcript of an interview by WPA (Works Progress Administration) writer Ardyth Gibbs, who interviewed Portland resident Newton McDaniel sometime in late 1937 or early 1938. (To read the interview and associated materials, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001936/ or Google "Library of Congress Ellendale Ghost Town.") (Ellendale, Polk County; 1850s)