Old St. Francis History Pub

Presented by Mathew Brock, Library & Historical Collections Manager at the Mazamas and Matthew Cowan, Archivist for Photography and Moving Images at the Oregon Historical Society

The story of mountaineering begins in Europe in the mid-1800s. At the time young men were taking to the mountains and photographing themselves climbing. They, in turn, would sell the images to tourists. Their actions helped promote climbing as an activity. That idea soon spread to the United States and took hold in the corners of the country where mountains were present. In twenty years all the leading US alpine clubs were founded. The first was the Appalachian Mountain Club in 1876, followed by the Sierra Club in 1892. The Mazamas came next in 1894 when William G. Steel organized and founded the Mazamas on the summit of Mount Hood. While not Steel’s first attempt at a mountaineering organization, the Mazamas has endured and continues to live up to the standards set by the organization’s founders.

Join us for a glass lantern slide show that will speak broadly on the history of the Mazamas, mountaineering, and outdoor recreation in the Pacific Northwest. Using hand colored slides from the 1920s and an original contemporary narration, the program will look back at over 125 years of history, dating back to before the founding of the Mazamas in 1894