Established
in 1937
|
Oregon Cavemen herald
JoCo tourism industryBy ROGER BRANDT
Special to IVNIt started as a prank.
Five guys dressed in gunny sacks, all of them shop and store owners, showed up at a Grants Pass Commerce Club meeting with no apparent objective other than to stir a few laughs.
Their antics were met with delight by the audience, and it was the success of their zany stunt that made them realize that they had stumbled onto something that was fun and, more important, attention grabbing.
This experience later would play a role in establishing Oregon’s best-known booster club, the Oregon Cavemen.
The Oregon Cavemen came into existence in the early 1920s at an important turning point in Josephine County history. Word had been spreading that the Southern Pacific Railroad was planning a new route that would take the daily parade of passenger and freight trains that passed through Grants Pass and divert them to the east side of the Cascade Mountains.
Business owners were rightfully concerned about how the loss of railroad traffic might affect the local economy.
About the same time, construction began on a new road between Grants Pass and Crescent City, Calif. This provided a link between Josephine County and Hwy. 101. So business owners in Grants Pass were well aware that they would now be connected to the Redwood Region and the tourist traffic that the tallest trees in the world attracted from San Francisco and Portland.
Simultaneous with development of the road to the coast, work began on a road to Oregon Caves National Monument, 22 miles east of Cave Junction, making it possible for the first time in history for vehicles to drive to this nationally significant feature.
Tourism appeared to be a rapidly emerging opportunity.
Business owners realized that the economic losses that might go out with the railroad could be restored through establishment of a tourism economy. The caveman idea emerged as part of the effort to get this tourism economy started.
And even though it was a terrific innovation, the small-town personality of Josephine County and its appetite for humor is what made the caveman idea work as well as it did. It was a gag put on by fun-loving community members, who explained the presence of cavemen in the style of tall-tale story-telling reminiscent of what might have been heard around camp fires of logging or mining camps of Josephine County’s early history.
The tall-tale style of explaining why there were cavemen in Josephine County was the beauty of their approach to tourism promotion. It enabled them to portray themselves as a sort of harmless, but mischievous, race with no understanding of how to properly behave in today’s society.
Under this guise, they could do about any zany thing they wanted, and everyone was entertained by the antics and creativity. It was the gunny sack stunt with the same objective of stirring things up and making people laugh, but now being done for the serious purpose of improving Josephine County’s economic future.
The idea worked, and the Oregon Cavemen became one of Oregon’s longest standing and most-memorable tourism promotion innovations.
The Josephine County Historical Society, with the Grants Pass Tourism Advisory Council, is starting a drive to gather the early history of the caveman story and capture the spirit of Josephine County at a time when it was alive with humor.
The historical society is scanning photo collections to create a digital collection of the cavemen story and would welcome the opportunity to scan and return any photos you may have. Phone 479-7827 for more information.
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