”BIRTH OF A COOPERATIVE” – A MIGHTY GOOD READ Photo provided
Kalapuya Books wants to share amazement with the community. This new year marks the 22nd year of doing business in Cottage Grove!
Looking back, the store started small – selling books on the internet, then tenaciously grew and finally invested bravely into the historic Burkholder Woods Building.
Where the shop is today: One of three businesses in the beautiful, old building on the corner of 7th & Main. Historic light wells connect us to the sky, the old floor still shows the imprint of cork boots from long ago, situated with a door onto an actual old time Main Street in a friendly town.
The staff at Kalapuya Books loves it here and wants to entice the community to visit.
Why?
Because everyone is warmly invited! Kalapuya Books is part of the community. A bookstore this size is intimate. There’s the smell of cinnamon rolls and coffee in the morning from Backstage Bakery. Customers can climb a ladder to the top shelves, there’s a little nook for children, The Axe & Fiddle next door fosters music, and there is always a bubble of conversation in this building.
Plus the books have been collected carefully, by looking at what is relevant and vital to the community. Poetry, myth, stories of community resilience, preparedness, spirituality, local history; and dear to the staff’s hearts also, is the wisdom of fostering children’s literacy.
Though books are the focus, art is tucked in throughout. The shop has on-going displays from local talent, such as quilter Sharon Kidd; ceramics by Dawn Craig; and prayer flags by fabric artist Cada Johnson. Other found treasures are ethnic, vintage, textile, glass and earth treasures. But the art of display, and the display of art, is one way the shop has fun.
In this first of a series of monthly articles from Kalapuya Books, a staff member will review books by local authors, starting with a review of one of the owners Hal Hartzell’s own books, a book of oral history. It’s an honor the shop’s old friend and one of the longest acting Lane County commissioners, Jerry Rust, agreed to write a review.
BOOK REVIEW: ”BIRTH OF A COOPERATIVE”
By Jerry Rust
As one the founders of Hoedads, it’s a little hard for me to believe it’s been nearly 50 years since the largest tree-planting company in the USA got started right here in Lane County, and that the first crew, Cougar Mountain, had its roots in the Cottage Grove/Creswell area.
One of those early Hoedads, Hal Hartzell, has written a lively history of the Hoedads, titled Birth of a Cooperative.
Hartzell gives us a good taste of what it was like – the mud, the slash, the hard work, and he describes the economic success created by more than 3,000 individuals who eventually became Hoedads and helped reforest the western states.
It seems that we find ourselves now in another of those periods when the times are changing and necessitating new – or maybe old – ways of meeting economic, social and environmental challenges. It just might be that looking back at the contributions of cooperatives such as the Hoedads might offer a viable blueprint going forward.
Hal Hartzell and his wife, Betsy, own and operate Kalapuya Books on Main Street in Cottage Grove, where he is happy to autograph copies of his interesting book, ”Birth of a Cooperative.”
Kalapuya Books – A bookstore and so much more! Local artwork, jewelry, gifts, one of a kind pieces. Make yourself at home!
637 E. Main Street Cottage Grove • 541-942-6143 • Mon-Sat 10 am till 5pm