Frontier Doctor: Observations on Central Oregon and the Changing West

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.
 

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.