Archives West Finding Aid

Ben Hur Lampman was born to a Barron, Wisconsin newspaper family in 1886. Leaving home at the age of fifteen, he found work as a tramp printer at a variety of North Dakota newspapers. As a young man, he founded a newspaper called The Michigan Arena in Michigan City. During this time, he married Lena McEwen Sheldon, a schoolteacher and former New Yorker. After six years running The Arena, Lampman joined his father and brother at The Gold Hill News, the family’s latest journalistic endeavor in southern Oregon. In Gold Hill Lampman acted as an editor and printer, publishing his prose and poetry frequently in The News. In 1916, he accepted a position at The Oregonian, where he served as reporter, editorial writer and columnist. His essays and stories were also printed in the Saturday Evening Post. Lampman published a number of books, some featuring his poetry. His most widely read books were How Could I Be Forgetting, Here Comes Somebody, and At the End of the Car Line. Much of Lampman’s work celebrates nature and everyday life in Oregon. At the urging of the Oregon Newspaper Association, Lampman was selected as Oregon’s Poet Laureate in 1951 and retained the title until his death in 1954.