Grant County is one of Oregon’s smallest by population, with a little over 7,000 people. Its largest city is John Day, with about 1,700 residents. However, John Day – the man – was never among that number. A hapless hunter from Virginia, Day never got particularly close to the region whose rivers and cities bear his name. But his story does tell us something about European-American settlement in the Pacific Northwest.

Greg Shine is a historian and writer based in Portland. He wrote about John Day for the Oregon Encyclopedia, and joins us with details of his story.