Lawrence Hobart

Basalt City Lawrence Hobart

It's the early 1920s. The Ku Klux Klan organizes in Oregon. It's target? Catholics. It's weapon? Legislation to outlaw parochial schools. Basalt City is a historical novel based on events that took place in a small town in eastern Oregon during this post-WWI period of economic hardship, labor unrest, and strife over implementation of Prohibition. A community supported by timbering, agriculture, and railroad operations, Basalt City was eager for growth, but its residents were caught up in the statewide debate over how to deal with an influx of Catholic immigrants. A catalyst in the controversy was a local KKK chapter that employed cross-burnings, boycotts, a "necktie party", sexual assault, and illegal liquor sales to reach its objectives. What's it like to live a in a small rural town with festering religious and income problems? Who were the white-robed men who joined the Klan? What could a Catholic minority do to protect itself? Would it fare better than the town's few blacks? Basalt City tells the story of prejudice and politics that altered local lives and attracted the attention of the entire nation.