Holmstrom, Buzz, 1909-1946

Haldane "Buzz" Holmstrom, 1909-1946, was an early river runner. He was born in 1909 in a logging camp in the southern coastal forests of Oregon. He was raised in the area of Coquille, Oregon, the second of four children. He graduated from Coquille High School in 1928 and worked for many years in a local service station. In 1934 he began building boats and running whitewater rivers. In 1934, he ran the nearby Rogue River from Grants Pass to the ocean, solo. In 1935, he completed a second boat and ran the Rogue again with a friend. In 1936, he built a third boat and did a solo trip down the Salmon and Snake Rivers form Salmon, Idaho, to Lewiston, Idaho. He achieved national fame in 1937 when he built a fourth boat and ran it down the Green and Colorado Rivers, form Green River, Wyoming, to Boulder Dam - the first to do it alone. In 1938, he retraced the Green and Colorado trip accompanied by Amos Bur, who made a short film of the trip, Conquering the Colorado.

In 1939, Holmstrom was hired by Edith Clegg to take her across the USA by boat: up the Columbia and Snake Rivers, down the Yellowstone, Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, up the Ohio and Allegheny Rivers, across the Erie Canal, and down the Hudson to New York.

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