Overview

Frontier Doctor, Urling C. Coe's autobiographical account of his thirteen years in Central Oregon, details the extraordinary experiences of a young physician in a frontier town, from childbirthing to epidemics, broken bones to unwanted pregnancies. In 1905 Coe became the first licensed doctor in what he called ""the heart of the last pioneer stock country of the West."" His colorful, firsthand stories about treating patients—cowboys, rustlers, ranch wives, prostitutes, homesteaders, town boosters, and Native Americans—offer a vivid social history of town and ranch life on the Oregon high desert. They also document the development of a Western boomtown: with the arrival of the railroad in 1911, the wide-open settlement known as Farewell Bend was transformed into an important center of industry, commerce, and culture.

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9781962645539

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Reviews

“A late comer to a market one might have thought saturated with books by and about doctors, Frontier Doctor deserves to rank with the best of them.” —The New York Times “This is an interesting and valuable book by a man of unquestioned courage and strongly rooted opinions.” —Oregon Historical Quarterly “The book, simply and well written, makes interesting reading. It also leaves the social historian more bits of material from the experience of a profession not only too busy to afford the luxury of bureaucratic red tape, but to record history as well.” —The Mississippi Valley Historical Review “The volume is a fine document illustrative of the sociology behind medical practice and with the picturesque setting of Dr. Coe’s story there is not a dull moment. . . . A thoroughly worthwhile contribution is this book and it should be both a best seller as well as an excellent social document of Americana.” —The Journal of Educational Sociology

""A late comer to a market one might have thought saturated with books by and about doctors, Frontier Doctor deserves to rank with the best of them."" --The New York Times ""The book, simply and well written, makes interesting reading. It also leaves the social historian more bits of material from the experience of a profession not only too busy to afford the luxury of bureaucratic red tape, but to record history as well."" --The Mississippi Valley Historical Review ""The volume is a fine document illustrative of the sociology behind medical practice and with the picturesque setting of Dr. Coe's story there is not a dull moment. . . . A thoroughly worthwhile contribution is this book and it should be both a best seller as well as an excellent social document of Americana."" --The Journal of Educational Sociology ""This is an interesting and valuable book by a man of unquestioned courage and strongly rooted opinions."" --Oregon Historical Quarterly

Author Information

Urling C. Coe, MD (1881–1956) was born in Missouri and graduated from the University of Missouri and the Eclectic College of Cincinnati. He practiced medicine in Bend, Oregon—where he also served as a banker and the town's second mayor—until 1918, when he moved to Portland.

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