Ellis Lucia Papers

Collection

Identifier: MS-104

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection includes the writings, correspondence, photographs and research files of Oregon writer Ellis Lucia. It also includes some material related to his personal interests, including the Barbershop Quartet and Gay Nineties festival (which he helped to found) in Forest Grove and Pacific University history. The material in the collection has been kept in the same order in which Lucia filed it. During his decades-long career, he appears to have followed the same filing scheme: He would buy a set of filing cabinets and fill it with his current work in alphabetical order by title. When that set of cabinets was completely full, he would buy a new set and begin filling it again with a new series of material in alphabetical order. Thus this collection contains multiple series of files, each of which is in alphabetical order by title.

Dates

Creation: circa 1930-2000
Creation: Majority of material found within 1945 - 1985

Creator

Lucia, Ellis (Person)

Biographical Note

Ellis Lucia, a graduate of Pacific University (BA 1944, Hon. Ph.D. 1965), was a journalist and a writer of popular non-fiction. He wrote or edited 17 books, nearly all of them on topics related to the Pacific Northwest. Some of the topics that he covered included the Tillamook Burn, the Columbus Day Storm of 1962, the timber industry, the Old West, tourism, railroads and hospitals.

Books that Lucia wrote or edited, in chronological order:

1. The Saga of Ben Holladay, Giant of the Old West. (New York: Hastings House, 1959).
2. Klondike Kate: The Life and Legend of Kitty Rockwell, the Queen of the Yukon. (New York: Hastings House, 1962).
3. The Big Blow; the Story of the Pacific Northwest’s Columbus Day Storm. (Portland, 1963).
4. Tough Men, Tough Country. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963).
5. Don’t Call It Or-e-gawn: a View of Oregon Today (Portland, Or.: Overland West Press, 1964).
6. Head Rig; Story of the West Coast Lumber Industry. (Portland, Or.: Overland West Press, 1965).
7. Wild Water; the Story of the Far West’s Great Christmas Week Floods. (Portland, Or.: Overland West Press, 1965).
8. Head Rig. Story of the West Coast Lumber Industry (Portland: Overland West Pr, 1965).
9. Sea Wall: Adventuring Along the Rugged Oregon Coast. (Portland, Or.: Overland West Press, 1966).
10. The Conscience of a City; Fifty Years of City Club Service in Portland, the City Club of Portland Golden Anniversary, 1916-1966. (Portland, Or., 1966).
11. This Land Around Us: a Treasury of Pacific Northwest Writing (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1969).
12. Mr. Football: Amos Alonzo Stagg. (South Brunswick: A.S. Barnes, 1970).
13. The Big Woods: Logging and Lumbering, from Bull Teams to Helicopters, in the Pacific Northwest (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975).
14. Cornerstone: The Story of St. Vincent--Oregon’s First Permanent Hospital ; Its Formative Years (Portland, Or.: St. Vincent Medical Foundation, 1975).
15. Magic Valley: The Story of St. Joseph Academy and the Blossoming of Yakima (Seattle: Sisters of Providence, 1976).
16. Seattle’s Sisters of Providence: The Story of Providence Medical Center, Seattle’s First Hospital (Seattle, Wash.: Providence Medical Center, Office of Public Affairs, 1978).
17. Tillamook Burn Country: a Pictorial History (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1983).