Bobbie the Wonder Dog put Silverton on the map

0:00Good morning, Oregon. I'm Finn J.D. John F.J. at OffbeatOrgan.com, and this is the daily Offbeat Oregon History Podcast. Thanks for tuning in, and I hope you enjoy it. This story was first published on June 2nd of 2024 under the headline Bobby the Wonder Dog puts Silverton on the map. Today we have part 1 of a two-part presentation on Bobby the Wonder Dog. Part 2 will be on the podcast tomorrow morning. So here's part 1. Up until his untimely death from a fall in 1937. Rogue River wilderness mountaineer and mule train driver Hathaway Jones enjoyed a reputation as the damnedest liar, his words not mine,

1:00in all the West Coast states, and probably a couple dozen inland ones too. If you don't know who Hathaway was, make a note to yourself at the end of this podcast to look up the Offbeat Oregon column about him. You'll be very glad you did. It'll pop right up with the Google search. Hathaway was proud of that reputation. When the Portland Morning Oregonian referred to another backwards character as the biggest liar in the country, Hathaway claimed he was going to sue the paper for defamation. As a side note, that competitor for the biggest liar article was probably Ben Finn of Finn Rock, who at one point actually bamboozled the editor's own sister with a tall tale. So it's easy to see how they could make such a mistake. Even today, Focalore is bright and a little at the mention of Hathaway Jones' name, and if you don't change a subject quick, you'll be stuck listening to the recite their favorite Hathaway Jones story to you. Arthur Dorn was one such Focalore, and he is the one who assembled the largest collection of Hathaway's tall tales and published it in 1941. Like all of them, he had a favorite story. He got it direct from Hathaway Jones himself

2:04while chatting him up at the Agnes boat landing in 1925. It's a story about two of Hathaway's favorite hunting hounds, Towsor and Nelly. Hathaway told Dorn that a safari sportsman from Virginia had hired him to pack himself in his ten hunting dogs into Grizzly country to bag a bear. This was of course back when Grizzlies were still to be found in the craggies, the old leftover bits of Mount Mazzama between Gold Beach and Grants Pass, which are some of them from most remote parts of Oregon still today. Hathaway never gave the Virginia man's name, but in a nod to Jean Knight, let's call him Mr. Big Stuff. Who does he think he is? A Mr. Big Stuff was one of those rich fellows who liked to make a hobby or used to, of wandering around the world, shooting large and exciting animals. Do people still do that? Let's hope not. Here's the story as Hathaway tells it. Upon arrival, Mr. Big Stuff assumed that his dogs, which had already contributed numerous dead lions and tigers and cape buffaloes and such to his taxidermy collection, would be more than a match for any decadent over

3:07fed southern Oregon bear, but following some bear hunting misadventures born of that over confidence, Mr. Big Stuff found himself dogless, so he offered Hathaway a thousand dollars for his two prized hunting hounds, Towsor and Nelly. A thousand bucks was about two years income for Hathaway, so reluctantly he agreed and sent Towsor and Nelly off to the East Coast with Mr. Big Stuff. A month later, Hathaway got a letter from Virginia. It seemed Mr. Big Stuff was having a very hard time. On the way back east, Towsor and Nelly had bitten everyone they could reach, and when they couldn't, they howled and screamed out eldritch noises that raised the hair on the back of everyone's neck. When they finally reached Virginia, they were put into corral with an eight-foot fence. They promptly jumped the fence and went on the lamb. Mr. Big Stuff had not seen them since. Two years passed, and then one dark night, Hathaway was sitting alone around his cabin, thinking of Towsor and Nelly and wishing he hadn't sold them. When he heard Towsor's distinctive howl, it was followed by Nelly's, and then a chorus of lesser, more youthful howls. Soon the cabin

4:10was invaded by a large pack of dogs, or rather mostly grown-up puppies, with Towsor and Nelly at the lead. The puppies, six of them, stood at attention like the Von Trapp children in the sound of music while Towsor and Nelly had their joyful reunion with Hathaway. And then they introduced their new family, which they had raised on the road while journeying across the continental United States from coastal Virginia back home to Rogue River Country. This was the pack of hounds that made Hathaway the most famous hunting guide on the road, rights folklorists Stephen Dow Beckham in his book. The most interesting thing about this tall tale arguably is that we know its source, or at any rate we can guess it with some confidence. The year before Hathaway Jones told this story to Arthur Dorn in his famously earnest, deadpan way, something kind of similar happened in the town of Silverton, and it made national news. And it wasn't a tall tale. Hathaway, who spent the last 40 years of his life carrying the mail to Rogue Valley residents, would definitely have known all about it. Probably Dorn did too. It was the story of Silverton's Bobby the Wonder Dog, a Scotch

5:13collied dog who tracked his owners more than 2,500 miles back home from Indiana after he got lost during a family vacation. And unlike Hathaway Jones' doggy Bonnie and Clyde Yarn, the story of Silverton Bobby is absolutely and provably true. Bobby the Wonder Dog, also known as Silverton Bobby, is still today Silverton's most famous celebrity. And that's saying something, the town has been home to some very notable personalities, including Clark Gable and political cartoon legend Homer Davenport. This picturesque little town, nestled right between the east side of the Willamette Valley and the west flank of the Cascade foothills, is about 15 miles out of Salem. It's gotten a lot busier in the last decade or two as visitors to Silverfall State Park in the Oregon Gardens have noticed its peculiar small town charms. But back in 1923, it was basically a quiet little timber and sawmill town. The lumber mills and timber operations furnished Silverton with hordes of hungry young men looking for reasonable dining options all the time. So one of the best businesses to have in Silverton,

6:14other than the sawmill, of course, was a cork boot cafe. A cork boot cafe for the uninitiated is a diner that caters to loggers with huge, cheap meals and often has a no cork sign on the door to remind the boys to take off their cork boots, aka corks, before entering. One of the most popular cork boot cafes in Silverton was the Rio lunch restaurant, owned by Frank and Elizabeth Brasier. The Rio did plenty of business, enough for the Brasier to own a pretty nice car. A brand new 1923 Willis Overland 92, one of a new series of mid-market autos marketed as the bird cars. Depending on the color of your model 92, it was a blue bird, a black bird, or a red bird. The Brasiers was a red bird. After they bought the car, their Brasiers packed the family into it, daughters Leona and Nova, and of course Bobby, and headed east for a family vacation summer road trip, which in 1921 was a much more daring and exciting thing to do than it would be today. Their destination was Wolcott in Dianna, where some other

7:18family members lived. This of course was a much more involved process than it became a few years later. Cars in 1923 even brand new really nice ones like the red bird were not very reliable, and road conditions could be awful. They also required a lot of maintenance along the way. So has the family headed out from Silverton in an easterly direction, with Bobby perched proudly atop the luggage in the back or riding jauntily on a running board? The plan was to stop well before dark each night in a town big enough to have a mechanics garage and service station, where they could park the car and to cover for the night, like putting up the buggy and team at the livery stable at an earlier day. The family would then walk to a nearby hotel for the night. Well, the travelers were almost to their destination in Dianna, about 2300 miles into their road trip when it happened. Frank was gassing up the red bird at a service station when a pack of local mongrel spotted Bobby and jumped him. The last Frank saw of Bobby that day he was running at top speed with three snarling dogs in hot pursuit. That was the last they'd see of Bobby for over half a year.

8:23We'll talk about their search for their missing pup and their subsequent reunion with him half a continent away tomorrow in part two of this two-part series on Silverton Bobby. Well, that's our show for today. Thanks again for listening. This podcast is part of Offbeat Oregon History, a public history resource for the state we love. Say, are you an audiobook listener? And do you enjoy old pre-war pulp stories like Tarzan of the Apes and Conan the Barbarian and the Call of Cthulhu and stuff like that? Or do you like early Victorian penny dreadful fiction like Sweeney Todd and Varney the Vampire and Highwayman Dick Turpin? If so, you might enjoy the audiobooks I have out there in the world. Easiest way to find them is for the search for my name on audible.com. Our theme music is by the Atlas String Band and was written by Carmen Ficara. Listen and download more at Atlas String Band dot com. Episodes of Offbeat Oregon History are uploaded around 6 a.m. every weekday, so the next one will be on your device and ready to go

9:24before you know it. Until then, go out and fill up the rest of the day with good stuff. Bye now!