Don Prechtel relaxes next to his easel and paint brushes in his studio, decorated with his paintings and history collection. EMMA ROUTLEY/PHOTO
CRESWELL — In the wake of another police shooting of a Black man in Wisconsin, leading to more protests and civil unrest, Don Prechtel said the country is behaving like it’s 1861.
“We haven’t really seen anything like this since the Civil War,” he said, while putting the finishing touches on a painting of Gen. George Custer’s young bugler, Joseph Fought, at the Battle of Gettysburg.
The longtime Creswell resident isn’t being glib. It’s just that, as a Civil War historian, he knows history tends to repeat itself.
Don Prechtel has a treasure-trove of stories to tell. Many of them are woven throughout the fabric on the wall of the studio of his Creswell home. Prechtel has a plethora of paintings that take on lives of their own due to their historical significance.
Prechtel and “The North Oregon Coast,” a painting he completed two years ago. EMMA ROUTLEY/PHOTO
He’s an artist, but also a storyteller. He can’t do one without the other.
“Painting is a means to tell a story,” said Prechtel, who still paints virtually every day and is in excellent health at age 83.
Creswell residents probably know Prechtel best for his Old West-style murals on the side of the Point S and The Chronicle office buildings, and on the front of the old telephone building.
His old friend, Alan Bennett, owner of the building that houses The Chronicle and The Round Up Saloon, is featured standing next to a stagecoach in Creswell in one mural.
“Stagecoaches used to come through town,” said Prechtel, who remembers Creswell in 1950 when it had only 350 residents. “They would go 13-15 miles, then have to stop and change horses.”
On the Point S sign, he did have a bit of a helping hand – from his grandson, Sean.
“As part of his graduation project at Creswell High School, Sean painted the chicken and part of the license plate,” Prechtel said.
“Marge Williamson was responsible for getting me to do those murals,” he said. “She made all the calls, did everything that was necessary.”
While Prechtel has devoted much of his time and energy to Civil War paintings, he says he’s most proud of the 52-foot-long Westward Expansion mural he was commissioned to do for the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History in 2004.
Also during 2004, Prechtel won the Heritage Award for his Western heritage painting of Lewis & Clark’s expedition. That piece now hangs in the Historical Museum in Helena, Mont.
An oil painting work-in-progress sits on Prechtel’s easel.EMMA ROUTLEY/PHOTO
He sold a few Civil War pictures to Florida Silver Corp. in Florida for between $5,000-$10,000 that were earmarked to be used in the National Slavery Museum, but the museum project was abandoned before it got off the ground.
Then three years ago, Prechtel sold one of his Western paintings to the Favell Museum in Klamath Falls.
He displays all of his current work on Facebook and welcomes everyone to visit his page. Someone just agreed to purchase a painting the other day after seeing it on Facebook.
Prechtel and his wife Charmalee have two sons, Brian and Jeff, and a daughter, Shawna. He said family has always been important to him, even going back to his childhood when he was close to his father.
“Back in the 40s, my dad read everything,” Prechtel said. “He read True magazine, we would go to gun shows and find lots of antiques … can’t do that anymore. We used to go to Eugene, they’d have 50-gallon drums of World War II stuff. You don’t see that anymore.”
Prechtel became an optician, and had a clear vision of what he wanted to do.
“I was making eyeglasses, just like my dad did,” he said, “but I always wanted to be an artist. I sold a painting in 1968 for $75, and I knew that was something I wanted to keep doing.”
Prechtel said he can see himself taking on another mural project someday.
“I’d probably do another mural again,” he said. “I’m not big on climbing up on scaffolding, though, that’s for sure!”
Prechtel’s Civil War collection is his real calling card. He has crafted a countless array of timeless pieces from the fateful Battle of Gettysburg. One painting depicts the scene of 15,000 men marching into a bright sunlight, and when a young soldier gets shot, Gen. Robert E. Lee bends down to see that it’s his son.
“Everyone should go there once to see what it’s like,” Prechtel said of Gettysburg, Pa., known for being the turning point of the Civil War, as Lee lost more than a third of his army. ”I’ve visited several times.”
Needless to say, Prechtel stays on top of all things Civil War-related.
“The last remaining pensioner from the Civil War just died a couple months ago,” he said.
Sure enough, Irene Triplett, 90, who had been receiving $73.13 a month from Veteran Affairs, died on June 3, 2020.
Triplett’s father, Mose Triplett, was famous for fighting for both sides. He deserted the Confederacy after being hospitalized while his unit was marching toward Gettysburg. It was a move that likely spared his life, as that 800-man Confederate unit was almost entirely decimated.
The last Civil War soldier died in 1956 – the year after Prechtel graduated from Creswell High School. “I always liked the Civil War, It was in the early ’60s when I started buying artifacts.”
Union vet Albert Henry Woolson was a robust 106 years old when he died on Aug. 2, 1956.
Prechtel said he was saddened – but not angry – to see so many statues torn down during recent protests.
“I don’t get it,” Prechtel said about people’s views regarding race relations. “They can legislate until they’re blue in the face, it ain’t gonna change.
“This has been going on for how many years now? Blood runs thin. I knew things would never really change.”
