Retired geography professor Bill Loy spent a full three years working on the first Atlas of Oregon, which was published in 1976 to commemorate the University’s centennial, but he now says that some parts of the atlas never met his satisfaction. With the recently published Atlas of Oregon II, Loy and others have addressed the shortcomings of the first version in time for the University’s 125th anniversary.
“We were able to do a more complete job,” Loy said of the 320-page atlas. “The first one was a lot simpler.”
As part of the University’s 125th anniversary celebration, 1,200 copies of the atlas will be given to public schools across the state. On Monday, President Dave Frohnmayer presented a copy of the atlas to fourth-grade students from Meadow View elementary school. In a statement, Frohnmayer called the atlas “the most impressive volume of information ever assembled about the state — as fact-filled as it is beautiful.”
Among the new facts included in the updated atlas are a more detailed vegetation map, a two-page spread focusing on the Oregon Trail, and an in-depth map of the state’s historical sites, Loy said.
In addition to improving the finished product, Loy, Stuart Allan — who also collaborated with Loy on the first atlas — and the University’s Infographics Lab were able to shave more than a year off their time on this version, thanks to computer cartography equipment not available 25 years ago.
“It was a team effort all the way through,” said Jim Meacham, director of the Infographics Lab. Meacham added that he felt “really lucky to get an opportunity to work on a project of this magnitude.”
Geno Carpentier, a graduate student in geography who worked on the project, said working with professionals like Loy and Allan was a real learning experience — one that sometimes left him wondering how much he had left to learn.
“I was licking my wounds a few times,” Carpentier said with a rueful laugh. “But overall it was a good experience.”
And by all accounts, it was also a successful one. Despite working under tremendous pressure and a tight deadline, the group was able to complete the atlas on time and beyond everyone’s expectations, Meacham said. However, at least one map that Loy very much wanted to include never came together. The emeritus professor had originally envisioned a map of the state’s fiber optic and telecommunications lines.
“We tried and tried, but never could get them,” he said. “No one could provide the information in a format we could use.”
Loy ran into similar problems with the first edition 25 years ago. When Loy asked Bell Communications to provide information on telephone connections around the state, the communications giant refused on the grounds that it would violate its customers’ privacy.
Now that the project is finished, the emeritus professor says he is planning to “retire from retirement.” He is currently working on a CD-ROM version of the atlas. He expects the project to take about a year, after which he said he would “step back and watch the next generation (of geologists) do good things.”
In the meantime, Atlas of Oregon II is available from the UO Press in a $100 deluxe hard-bound edition and a $60 soft-bound edition.