The year was 1991.
Sweet Home was bracing itself for turmoil in its main economic engine–timber. The federal government was cutting back on allowable harvests on national forests under a 20-year-old law that was just coming into major usage–the Endangered Species Act. Families faced uncertain futures and the unemployment rates escalated.
Hundreds of men and women employed in local mills found their livelihoods gone overnight. Rallies and marches and letter-writing campaigns did little to swing…