By Maret Pajutee

It is hard to imagine what Sisters and Burns Ore., Time Magazine, China, a shootout at the Tex Saloon in 1894, a gold rush at Windy Point, and actor William Hurt may have in common. 

The answer is that they all have ties to Claire McGill Luce, a “child of the west”, a woman who worked around the world, but never forgot her roots in the high desert of Harney County. She is responsible for a treasure trove of western history that holds almost forgotten tales and secrets of the past, including stories tied to Sister’s history with larger-than-life characters who roamed the desert between Sisters and Burns in the early days of the last century.  

Claire McGill was born in Andrews Oregon in 1923, a town in a wild, sage covered stretch of the world between Steens Mountain and the Alvord desert. Her mother moved her east after her parents divorced, but she returned to the high desert at the age of 12 to live with her grandfather and help out on his cattle ranch, hunting stranded cattle in the snow and cooking for twenty ranch hands. A bright spirit, she inexplicably rose from the isolation of a one room school house in the desert to living with a teacher in New York, getting a crash course in arts and culture, and finishing high school a very good student. A photo of her at 15 shows a sweet smiling face with curly hair and a direct gaze.  As World War II depleted the male workforce, she became a financial analyst for Time Magazine in New York.  

An article described her career as like “a motion picture foreign correspondent”. She left Time after four years to join a US Aid Mission to China. She travelled extensively in pursuit of humanitarian and philanthropic causes as well as being a successful business woman. She married twice in those years and had three sons. With her second husband, Alfred M. Hurt, she raised two boys, one who became actor William Hurt.  They lived in Honolulu and Guam for a time and Claire presided at events for South Pacific Island chiefs. In 1957 she divorced again and returned to Time as a business manager. In 1960, she married her last husband, Henry Luce III, publisher for Time. She continued her work in New York city for the China Institute of America.

In 1969, a new library was planned for Burns, and Claire contributed thirty thousand dollars to preserve the history of the high desert she loved. Her birthplace of Andrews was now a ghost town and her time in the high desert still haunted her. She wrote a friend “I found faith and courage in a place of ghosts, Harney City, from my Grandfather who never experienced comfort and security, but whose door was never locked, and whose meager table was freely shared by every stranger. I am forever grateful to Harney. There I became an American.”

Claire died in 1971 at the young age of 48.  Her legacy is the Claire McGill Luce Western History Room in the Harney County Library, featuring a research room and a collection of thousands of pages and pictures of history.  She funded oral history interviews, starting in the 1970’s, of over a hundred “old timers” capturing colorful local history as it faded. Two special book collections were at the heart of the Western History Room.  An area rancher named Walter McEwen donated a rare book collection of Northwestern Americana. Edward Gray who wrote about Pete French and Central Oregon History donated his research library. Together there were more than 1500 books and materials, appraised at nearly a quarter-million dollars.

Champions worked on community fund raising and grants and their efforts resulted in construction of a climate-controlled room, research space, and high-tech remote access to historic collections, interviews, photos, and newspapers. Claires’ contribution also allowed for staff to manage the collections and help the public with their research needs. 

The Claire McGill Luce Western History Room opened to the public with a ceremony on April 8, 2006 and a portrait of an elegant Claire Luce, donated by her son William Hurt, looks out over the space. A series of curators have made the archives more and more accessible, and recent grants to upgrade electronic technology and the software have made the digital collections even better. The current archivist, Karen Nitz, began working with the collection 17 years ago using new museum grade software.  She compiled a tribute to Harney County in a book of photos for the Images of America series as a fund raiser for the library. 

If you want to explore early western history of the high desert give this handy resource a try. The collections are not limited solely to Harney County history, but span Eastern and Central Oregon, and sometimes extend into the neighboring states of Idaho, Nevada, and northern California. Located at the Harney County Library, there is free public access Monday-Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., no appointment necessary. Arrangements can be made for visits outside of regular business hours.

But online exploration is handy. The Harney County Library website has photograph exhibits, indexes to the collections, and helpful research links. www.harneycountylibrary.org/western-history-room. The online digital archive offers hundreds of keyword searchable images, oral history interviews, recordings, documents, correspondence, books, profiles, obituaries and more. https://harneycountylibrary.catalogaccess.com/home

Several stories with a Sisters connection have been found through the Claire Luce room. The barfight death of Tillman Glaze, violinist, saloon keeper, horse breeder, and Glaze Meadow namesake, was captured in the Burns newspapers of the day with details down to the names of the horses in a disputed race. A photo of a trapper named Leeland Noonchester uncovered a strange life of crime, and the tale of a false gold rush up McKenzie Pass. Karen Nitz recently shared the story and photos of the Claypool family who buried their little girl, Nellie R. Claypool in one of the first burials at Camp Polk Cemetery in 1880, after a frantic rush towards Prineville with their sick little daughter from the deep forests of Fish Lake. 

Public support is crucial to the continued development of Western History Room collections. They welcome donations of family histories, photographs, documentation of historic people, places and events, and local/regional historical publications.  

General questions or research inquiries can be directed to archivist, Karen Nitz, by Email: westernroom@harneycountylibrary.org, Or phone: 541-573-6670. Or stop by on your next trip through Burns and thank the spirit of Claire Luce for honoring her ghosts and saving precious sage scented history.

Maret Pajutee, of Sisters, wrote the story as part of a series she calls “High Desert Heroines.” Her stories have been published in the Nugget newspaper in Sisters and other travel/promotional booklets.