Congratulations to Author (and CCE Board Director) Larry Hobart

CCE Board Director Larry Hobart, a former journalist, has just published Basalt City, an historical novel that covers the infamous assault by the Ku Klux Klan on Catholics, Jews and blacks in 1922 Oregon. Actual minutes from a Klan Klavern in La Grande, Oregon, served as a basis for his book.

In early November, Larry’s good friend -- and fellow CCE Board Director -- Dr. Edward Burger and Sarah Burger hosted a large group of Larry’s friends and fans who gathered for a book signing and talk about the research and writing of this fascinating tale.

Larry began by setting the book’s context in the period following World War I in which the US was suffering from an economic depression, accompanied by widespread labor unrest with strikes by workers in coalfields and on railroads, prohibition, political violence, anarchism, immigration, and the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. Larry also explained how his origins and education in Oregon had given rise to his interest in the state’s colorful history. Moreover, he described how his cousin was chief librarian at an Oregon university, led him to the Klan minutes, and tracked down some of the most intriguing documents covered in the book, resulting in his being “captivated.”  He traveled to La Grande to conduct the initial research, followed by a period of further research at the Library of Congress.

Larry concluded his remarks by saying that he “decided to tell the story through fiction because it allows for revelation of motivation and mindset. It makes history human.”

Indeed it does.  Basalt City is available through Amazon in both paperback and Kindle version.