Frontier Doctor

Observations on Central Oregon and the Changing West

Urling C. Coe

• Publisher: Oregon State University Press
• Year: 2026
• eBook ISBN:
  9781962645560
• Print ISBN:
  9781962645539
• Subtopic: Medicine Biographies

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.
 

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Foreword: There’s a Doctor at Farewell Bend
• 1. Wide Open Town: I Arrive
• 2. Doctor to Buckaroos
• 3. Wild West Babies
• 4. Epidemic on the Frontier
• 5. Delivery By Telephone
• 6. My First Death
• 7. Teeth Extracted—$1
• 8. Accidents and Indians
• 9. Prostitution on the Frontier
• 10. The Worst Enemy Is Ignorance
• 11. Horse Thieves and Cattle Rustlers
• 12. Mr. And Mrs.— and the Doctor
• 13. Complaints Real and Imaginary
• 14. Ills and Bills
• 15. Busman’s Holiday
• 16. Homestead and Forest
• 17. The Doc as Mayor
• 18. Pain and Pretense
• 19. The Golden Spike