Tex Laverne Troutman was born in Bridgeport, Washington, in 1926. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, and participated in the occupation of Berlin, Germany. In 1948, he married Janis Marie Pryor, who was born in Butte, Montana, in 1929 and grew up in Pateros, Washington. The couple had three children; Wade Troutman, their middle child, was born in 1951. The family lived on the Troutman family homestead in the Pearl Hill area of Bridgeport, where they raised wheat and cattle, and operated an apple orchard. Wade Troutman later became one of the first people to grow canola in Washington state, and he also developed an organic wheat business, called Wade’s Wheat. Tex Troutman died in 2014, and Janis Troutman died in 2019. In 2023, Wade Troutman was elected to the Washington State Conservation Commission.

Sources: Vital records on Ancestry.com; information provided by the Troutman family in their interview; On-Farm Trials Podcast, Season 1, Episode 1, featuring Wade Troutman, November 23, 2023 (accessed December 2025), https://rss.com/podcasts/pnwfarmersnetwork/1212289/; "The State Conservation Commission announces leadership changes," Washington State Conservation Commission website, December 15, 2023 (accessed December 2025), https://www.scc.wa.gov/news/the-state-conservation-commission-announces-leadership-changes

In 1990, the Washington State Historical Society, Portland State University, and Washington State University Vancouver formed the Center for Columbia River History (CCRH) to promote research, education, and public programs about the Columbia River Basin. The center operated for more than 20 years. Among its work was the Columbia River Basin Project (CRBP), an umbrella project supported by a 1997 grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The CRBP included online exhibits, oral histories, and high school curricula about the history of the region's land, wildlife, and people.

As part of the project, CCRH partnered with the Oregon Historical Society Research Library’s oral history program, headed by Jim Strassmaier, to gather interviews. Oral Historian Michael O’Rourke spearheaded the Northwest Power Planning Council Oral History Series, while Oral Historian Clark Hansen oversaw the Columbia River Dissenters Oral History Series, with aid from two Portland State University research assistants, Dannette Rowe and Tania Hyatt. In addition, CCRH conducted oral history interviews for a third project, Columbia Communities, and later donated the interview recordings and transcripts to the OHS Research Library, where they are designated SRC 1.

The Columbia River Dissenters Oral History Series culminated in 59 interviews (approximately 184 recorded hours) conducted between 1998 and 2001. Interviewees included Native people, activists, farmers, conservationists, fishers, and others who contributed to the shaping of policies that have had, and continue to have, significant impacts on the Columbia River Basin in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia. The interviewees opposed policies by agencies such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bonneville Power Administration, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and advocated for alternative visions of management and use of the Columbia River.

Sources: “Voices of the Columbia,” by Bryan White, PSU Magazine, Fall 1998, Page 17; Center for Columbia River History brochure, undated (circa 2000); Center for Columbia River History website (accessed July 10, 2025), https://columbiariverhistory.org/; email correspondence with Donna Sinclair, 2025; email correspondence with Tania Hyatt, 2025; Oregon Historical Society Research Library internal documentation.