by Richard Cockle, The Oregonian
Sunday June 28, 2009, 9:44 PM

WALLOWA -- Everybody knows loggers shout "Timber!"

But African American lumberjacks who worked in northeast Oregon in the 1920s had other ideas. They gave a distinctive "whoop and a holler," says researcher and videographer Gwen Trice, whose father and grandfather were among the loggers.

"That's what I really want to hear, is what that sounded like," said Trice, 50.

If Trice has her way, she and others will learn that and more about the little-known group of about 60 men who brought their families from the South in 1923 to the now-empty hamlet of Maxville.