“If moments could be wholly all-satisfying with thrills and starts, and dreads and hopes, and a vague, deep full sense of the wild beauty of the environment … if moments of life could utterly satisfy, I experienced them then. … the unselfish appreciation of him and his beautiful Rogue. …” – Author Zane Grey on the Rogue River

One of the earliest masters of the American western novel, Zane Grey made Oregon’s Rogue River the backdrop to his novel, “Rogue River Feud.” He also made it his home.

Iconoclast Grey was a novelist, explorer, world record-holding angler, minor-league baseball player and intermittent dentist. An unstereotypical Ivy Leaguer, Grey began his adult life attending the University of Pennsylvania on a baseball scholarship before graduating to play in the minor leagues.

But after struggling on the professional diamond, Grey succumbed to growing pressure from his father to take a more suitable livelihood. Thus did the former New Jersey outfielder become Dr. Zane Grey, dentist, hanging his shingle in New York City. So began a fairly inauspicious introduction to one of America’s greatest outdoorsmen and chroniclers of thrilling tales.

Somewhere in between extractions and cavities, the dentist told his family and friends he was growing restless.  Grey looked west to explore the remaining unsettled natural lands and begin a writing career that would span 40 years.

A Wild River, a Wild Bunch  and a Man in Black

The Rogue River gurgles out from the flanks of old Mount Mazama. Its allure builds as it flows through Cascade foothills down to Grants Pass, crosses through canyons in the Coast Range and surrenders itself to the Pacific Ocean. The scenery plays host to all sorts of recreation. In the April/May 2008 issue of Outside’s Go Magazine, the Rogue River National Trail stands among their 12 finest treks anywhere in the globe.  The trail held its own against such magnificent destinations as Peru’s Machu Picchu, Italy’s Amalfi Coast and Germany’s Black Forest.

Given that it’s one of only two American trails that Outside Magazine included on its list, it is no surprise that the Rogue River enchanted Grey. Its magic snared him from the time he caught his first steelhead there. After running the river, he could never outrun the desire to purchase a mining claim at Winkle Bar, and he built his own cabin there in 1926.

From that day forward, Grey wasn’t just a world-famous Western writer. He was a Northwestern one as well.

With more than 80 novels, countless articles, and stories inspiring more than 130 films, Grey was the consummate writer. But he was just as likely to be found traversing his beloved outdoors as he was typing in his library. Equally at home in both environments, he lived to experience the wilderness of his stories.  Grey also became renowned for his nonfiction works and joined contemporary adventurers President Teddy Roosevelt and Ernest Hemingway to contribute to Outdoor Life magazine.

But it was Grey’s novels that have secured his place among the genre’s most inspirational and primary sources today.

“Riders of the Purple Sage,” which Harper & Brothers published in 1912, is one of Grey’s most famous works. The novel is unique both for its atypical strong female protagonist and its early anti-hero dressed entirely in black. Harper’s, which had first rejected the book, agreed to publish it after an editor’s wife stayed up all night reading it in a single sitting. “Riders of the Purple Sage” has since gone on to sell more than 2 million copies. And country music’s legendary “Man in Black,” Johnny Cash, proclaimed Grey a direct influence on his life and work.

As television grew in popularity, a posthumous series titled, “Zane Grey Theater,” ran for five seasons from 1956 to 1961.  It aired 149 episodes based on his tales.  Among the series’ writers and directors were western luminaries like Sam Peckinpah, who developed his talents there before directing such landmark films as “The Wild Bunch.”

A Local Favorite, a Western Tradition  and an American Legacy

After Grey died at the age of 67 in 1939, the Haas family, long-time owners of Levi Straus, purchased his property at Winkle Bar. The property’s transition to the makers of denim overalls for Western pioneers in the 19^th century seemed fitting. And though the Haas’s built their homes there, they maintained Grey’s isolated cabin, welcoming those willing to raft the Rogue or hike the 5 miles necessary to reach it.

The Haas family continued that cooperation in the 1970s with an agreement that authorized the Bureau of Land Management to provide public activities on the land.  In 2005, BLM and the Trust for Public Land worked together to retain public access to the 32-acre property when the family was ready to sell it.  The Trust, a national nonprofit land-conservation organization, purchased the land from the Haas family, and resold it to BLM in 2008. With the official transfer complete, BLM will provide management oversight and is nominating the site for the National Register of Historic Places.

And here the Zane Grey cabin still stands — rustic, tough and weathered. After serving as Grey’s annual home for many fishing seasons, it is now his legacy and historical gift. Of his many major accomplishments, Zane Grey may be most proud that his modest cabin will protect this land for future generations. They and their children may now experience the same unsettled trails and river that inspired him and his writings back in 1926.

Zane Grey – author, world record-holding fisherman, outdoorsman, and conservationist – once said he felt “…the happiest lot of any angler would be to live somewhere along the banks of the Rogue River, most beautiful stream of Oregon.”