Once and future history of Oregon

One of the greatest gems in this area is Geercrest Farm, a sesquicentennial farm on Sunnyview Road in the Waldo Hills between Salem and Silverton, where GeerCrest Farm and Historical Society is making great headway in preserving and bringing this irreplaceable treasure into the future, providing a place where the future pioneers of Post-Carbon Oregon can reskill and learn how the last generations thrived in the era before fossil fuel farming took over.

Upcoming Events:

"Annotated Cartoons By Davenport"
Book Release Party - Saturday, August 25 – 6:00 pm

The Davenport Project and GeerCrest Farm & Historical Society are pleased to announce a special Book Release Party to celebrate the publication of “The Annotated Cartoons by Davenport.”

This event, set for Saturday, August 25, at 6:00 pm is to honor the many backers of our recent “Kickstarter” Fund Raising campaign, that made the publication possible. Folks who donated $25 or more during the Kickstarter Campaign are the honored guests of the evening. Others may attend for $30 per person. Please do RSVP to the farm via phoneat 503-873-3406 or Email.

During the evening, light refreshments, beer and wine will be available. Gus Frederick, the book’s researcher and compiler will be on hand to autograph copies, which will be available for purchase for $15, a 25% discount off of the cover price of $20, for this event only. Additionally, a short presentation by Frederick will provide some historical context to Davenport, the Gilded Age and how reprographics technology enabled a local country boy from Silverton, Oregon to become the highest paid cartoonist in the world.

In 1898, Homer Davenport published Cartoons By Davenport, a collection of over 80 cartoons which originally appeared in William Randolph Hearst’s New York Evening Journal. It was a large format work, with hardbound cover and an introduction by Senator John J. Ingalls, (R-Kansas).

Over 100 years later, Davenport historian Gus Frederick researched, compiled and reprinted a fully annotated edition of this historic work. The faces and the issues behind Davenport’s witty, satiric caricatures were teased out in a cartoon-by-cartoon commentary.

This revised, expanded edition will number just under 200 pages, and measure slightly over 8 by 10 inches. “Annotated Cartoons by Davenport” will be the first publication of The Liberal University Press, based out of Silverton, Oregon.