02/04/2020
Join us for History Pub at 5 PM for a meaningful discussion on the history of the Hoedads and drinks at Axe and Fiddle!
HOEDADS AT HISTORY PUB!!!!
It wasn’t necessarily well-organized, at least at first, but the movement that began just outside of Cottage Grove made itself known well beyond the place that cradled its birth and the feisty group of people that believed in its power.
Betsy Hartzell, co-owner of our wonderful neighbor, Kalapuya Books, recalls that the Hoedads, a tree-planting cooperative that got its start as the Cougar Mountain Crew, were unfazed by the impracticality of what they were trying to do at the time.
“It was composed of people from that generation who were inclined to question authority and were very interested in do-right living,” says Hartzell, a member of the cooperative along with her husband, Hal, who chronicled its adventures in his book, “Birth of a Cooperative: Hoedads, Inc.”
The group operated in a democratic, dynamic fashion, and the timely appearance of a law that required the replanting of lands that had been logged allowed the group for the first time to actually begin making money at their backbreaking work. Their work would inspire the creation of several new crews.
Tonight -- Tuesday, Feb. 4, the monthly History Pub presentation sponsored by the Main Street Cottage Grove Program will feature the history of the Hoedads, and Hartzell says there’ll even be other former Hoedads in attendance. Many of them, she says, can look back at the birth of the cooperative as one of the most important times of their lives.
This free History Pub presentation begins at 5 p.m.
