Appalachian Figures
Hardy Myers is usually remembered as Oregon’s long serving attorney general, the lawyer who helped defend the state’s Death with Dignity Act at the United States Supreme Court and who made consumer protection and open government central to his office. Less well known is that his story begins in a company lumber town on the edge of the southern Appalachians.
He was born on October 25, 1939, in Electric Mills, Kemper County, Mississippi, the only child of Bonita Brown Myers and William Hardy Myers Sr, a lumber man whose work would soon pull the family across the continent to Oregon. From a ghost town in the pine woods to a law office in downtown Portland, Myers’s life offers one more example of how Appalachian and near Appalachian communities sent people into public life far from the ridges where they started.
This piece leans first on primary sources, especially Myers’s own oral history, his official reports and legal opinions as attorney general, court records from his most important cases, and contemporary news coverage. It then turns to high quality biographical summaries and local histories that help place his Mississippi beginnings in the larger story of Appalachian company towns and twentieth century public service.
A company town beginning in Electric Mills
Electric Mills began as Bogda Station, a small rail and sawmill point in the pine forests of Kemper County. In 1912 the Sumter Lumber Company bought the mill and town site and rebuilt the operation around what was advertised as the first fully functioning electric lumber mill east of the Mississippi River. The name of the town changed to Electric Mills in 1911 to emphasize that unusual technology.
Like many early twentieth century company towns, Electric Mills was wholly owned and controlled by the firm and occupied almost entirely by its workers and their families. A local history compiled by descendants of the town’s leaders describes a surprisingly complete small community: electric lighting in every house at no cost to residents, a school, union church, community house, barbershop, shoe shop, laundry, hospital with operating rooms, movie theater, commissary, pharmacy, hotels, ice plant, garages, dairy, playground, athletic field, depot, and parallel institutions for Black residents.
By the 1920s and 1930s Electric Mills had a population of more than two thousand people and appeared in trade and public health literature as a model of a well run lumber town. The United States Public Health Service even used Electric Mills as one of its early field sites for malaria control experiments, part of a broader effort to understand and reduce mosquito borne disease in the rural South.
Kemper County, where Electric Mills sits, lies along the western edge of the Appalachian Regional Commission’s designated territory in Mississippi. Modern ARC materials treat it as an Appalachian county for purposes of economic development, which makes Myers one of the many public figures whose lives connect that border zone to wider national stories.
When Myers was born in 1939 the town was nearing the end of its boom. Sumter Lumber’s resources were dwindling. The company shut the mill in 1941, and over the next two decades most of the houses were dismantled or moved, leaving behind sidewalks, scattered buildings, and the memories recorded today on ElectricMills.org and in family histories.
From Electric Mills to Oregon mill towns
According to his obituary in The Oregonian, William Hardy Myers Jr was born in Electric Mills in the fall of 1939. His father’s work in the lumber industry soon took the family west. The obituary states that the Myers family moved to Oregon when Hardy was very young and that he attended public schools in Bend and Prineville, graduating from Crook County High School in 1957.
Biographical notes compiled for the Oregon Blue Book and later for Myers’s campaign materials add that his father became manager of the Shevlin Hixon Lumber Company in Bend, one of two major mills operating on the Deschutes River. In other words, the family moved from one company dominated lumber town to another, trading a Mississippi mill village for an Oregon mill city.
As a young man Myers left central Oregon to attend the University of Mississippi, where he took a bachelor’s degree in English and history in 1961. The obituary and later profiles note that he then returned to Oregon for law school at the University of Oregon, earning his law degree in 1964 and serving on the board of editors of the Oregon Law Review.
After law school Myers clerked for United States District Judge William G. East, then joined the Portland firm that would become Stoel Rives, spending three decades there as a labor, employment, and government affairs lawyer. That mix of small town mill roots, southern and western education, and big city law practice set the stage for his move into public life.
Speaker of the House in Salem
Myers’s route into Oregon politics began in Portland’s civic boards. His official Oregon Capitol Foundation biography notes that he chaired the Portland City Planning Commission in the early 1970s, work that drew him deeper into questions of land use, transportation, and urban growth.
In 1974 he ran for the Oregon House of Representatives from a district covering parts of northeast and southeast Portland and won. He would serve five terms in the House from 1975 to 1985. Fellow legislators and journalists repeatedly rated him one of the most effective members, particularly during his time as chair of the House Judiciary Committee.
In 1979 Myers became Speaker of the House. During his speakership he helped lead an overhaul in how Oregon funded and administered its trial courts, shifting responsibility from county governments to the state beginning in 1983. Contemporary accounts describe this as an important step toward stabilizing court funding and making the justice system more uniform across counties.
He left the legislature in the mid 1980s, served briefly on the Metro council, and chaired the Oregon Criminal Justice Council and the State Sentencing Guidelines Board, roles that kept him at the center of debates over crime, punishment, and prison policy.
Three terms as Oregon’s attorney general
In 1996 Myers ran for attorney general and won, taking office in January 1997. He secured reelection in 2000 and 2004, serving twelve years in all as Oregon’s fifteenth attorney general.
Official biographies from the State Library of Oregon and the Oregon Capitol Foundation emphasize several overlapping themes in his tenure: consumer protection, tobacco control, open government, and crime victims’ rights. Those emphases show up clearly in the primary sources his office left behind.
Kids and tobacco
Early in his tenure Myers turned his attention to youth smoking. A report in the State Library’s digital collections explains that after an undercover Department of Justice investigation found that minors were still able to buy tobacco products despite existing laws, Myers convened the Attorney General’s Committee on Kids and Tobacco in March 2000.
The committee’s “Report and Recommendations Relating to Kids and Tobacco” lays out the problem and suggests a mix of enforcement and education steps: better compliance checks, restrictions on remote sales to minors, stronger licensing requirements for tobacco sellers, and public information campaigns about the risks of youth tobacco use.
Those efforts dovetailed with broader national work that followed the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between state attorneys general and major tobacco companies. Oregon’s share of that settlement and Myers’s own long personal history with smoking, briefly noted in his obituary, give the campaign against youth tobacco use an added layer of irony and urgency.
Open government and the Public Records Manual
For many Oregonians, the most visible legacy of Myers’s office is a book. In 2008 the Department of Justice issued a new edition of the Attorney General’s Public Records and Meetings Manual under his name. The manual explains Oregon’s public records and open meetings laws, collects formal opinions and cases interpreting them, and outlines the process by which citizens can appeal when an agency withholds records.
Later commentary on the manual emphasizes that it frames the attorney general’s role in these disputes as quasi judicial rather than purely advisory to agencies. One widely cited summary notes that when the attorney general orders a state agency to disclose records on appeal, the agency must comply within seven days.
Routine letters of advice and orders on public records petitions, many bearing Myers’s signature, show how his office applied those principles in practice, weighing confidentiality claims against the public interest and often siding with disclosure.
Consumer complaints and everyday enforcement
Every year the Oregon Department of Justice released a Top 10 consumer complaints list. Press releases in the State Library’s digital collections show Myers announcing these rankings for 2000, 2003, 2004, and 2005, with categories such as telecommunications, auto sales, construction, and debt collection often near the top.
Insurance trade press and consumer advocacy reports at the time treated those lists as simple but effective tools. They offered reporters and citizens an entry point into broader conversations about predatory practices and the need for enforcement resources.
In many cases the lists were only the public tip of deeper investigations that led to settlements or injunctions against companies accused of misleading advertising, unlawful “junk fax” marketing, or deceptive health claims. Some of those outcomes later appeared in compilations of questionable medical devices and marketing schemes, which quote DOJ news releases where Myers announced restitution and injunctive terms.
OxyContin, opioids, and multistate actions
One of the most widely cited examples of Myers’s consumer protection work came in May 2007, when his office joined with twenty five other states and the District of Columbia in a settlement with Purdue Pharma over the marketing of OxyContin. The Oregon Department of Justice press release explains that Myers filed a stipulated general judgment in Marion County Circuit Court resolving allegations that the company engaged in extensive off label promotion and failed to adequately disclose abuse risks.
In that release, Myers argued that Purdue’s marketing had been excessive and possibly abusive and warned that Oregonians needed protection from pharmaceutical companies that made false or deceptive claims in order to expand sales beyond approved uses. The judgment secured monetary payments and marketing restrictions that fit into a wider pattern of multistate opioid enforcement which, in hindsight, reads as an early chapter in the long legal response to the opioid epidemic.
Beyond opioids, Myers’s office joined other attorneys general in actions related to prescription drug pricing, environmental enforcement, and consumer privacy. His name appears in federal antitrust filings, such as the Competitive Impact Statement in United States v. Mulkey, and in lists of state attorneys general who filed amicus briefs in U.S. Supreme Court cases dealing with child protection and free speech.
Defending Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act
If one case defines Myers in legal and popular memory, it is the long fight over physician assisted dying in Oregon.
Voters first approved the Oregon Death with Dignity Act in 1994. After it survived a repeal effort and took effect in 1997, it allowed terminally ill, mentally competent adults with a prognosis of six months or less to request and self administer a lethal prescription from a cooperating physician.
In 2001 United States Attorney General John Ashcroft issued an interpretive rule declaring that prescribing federally controlled substances for physician assisted suicide was not a legitimate medical purpose under the federal Controlled Substances Act. The rule threatened doctors who complied with the Oregon law with loss of prescribing privileges and potential criminal penalties.
Oregon, led by Attorney General Hardy Myers and joined by individual physicians, pharmacists, and terminally ill patients, filed suit in federal district court challenging Ashcroft’s authority to override the state law. In 2002 Judge Robert E. Jones granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs and issued a permanent injunction against enforcement of the federal directive. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in 2004.
The case reached the Supreme Court as Gonzales v. Oregon after Alberto Gonzales succeeded Ashcroft as United States attorney general. In January 2006 the Court ruled 6 to 3 in Oregon’s favor, holding that the Controlled Substances Act did not grant the federal attorney general broad power to define general standards of medical practice in states and that the Ashcroft directive exceeded that authority.
In his oral history interview for the Oregon State Capitol Foundation, Myers later reflected on the case as a key moment for state authority and for the voters who had twice endorsed the Death with Dignity Act. He emphasized that the Supreme Court majority had concluded the federal Justice Department’s interpretation of the statute was incorrect and unlawful, a reading that vindicated both Oregon’s law and the state’s insistence on setting its own medical policy in this area.
Reputation, honors, and the Hardy Myers Dinner
By the time Myers left office in January 2009, Oregon had prevailed in five of six cases argued before the United States Supreme Court during his tenure, including Gonzales v. Oregon and other matters involving criminal procedure and prisoners’ rights.
In 2008 the National Association of Attorneys General awarded him its highest honor, the Kelley Wyman Memorial Award, recognizing his work on national committees and multistate initiatives. Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon would later rise on the floor of the U.S. House to describe him as an extraordinary public servant whose career ran from the Portland Planning Commission and the Oregon House speakership to twelve years as attorney general.
Myers also helped found the Oregon Crime Victims Law Center, which provides free legal representation to crime victims in the state. After his death the Center established an annual Hardy Myers Dinner in his honor, a gathering that both raises funds for victim services and keeps his name in circulation among younger lawyers and advocates.
He died on November 29, 2016, in Portland at age seventy seven, from complications of pneumonia after a period of illness with lung cancer. Obituaries emphasized not only his public roles but also his life in the Laurelhurst neighborhood, his long marriage to Mary Ann Thalhofer, and his love of walking, road trips, Gershwin records, and Oregon Ducks football.
Why Myers matters for Appalachian history
At first glance, the journey from Electric Mills to the Oregon Supreme Court chambers might look like a straight story of western migration and professional success. Seen through an Appalachian or near Appalachian lens, it also becomes another chapter in the story of how company town beginnings shaped people who later navigated the power of corporations and governments.
Myers grew up in a family that followed lumber work from a southern company town to a Pacific Northwest mill city. His legal and political career unfolded in an era when states and localities were wrestling with questions of corporate responsibility, public health, environmental damage, and transparency. It is hard not to notice that one of his signature achievements as attorney general involved forcing a major drug company to change its marketing and another involved defending a state law that limited suffering at the end of life against a federal attempt to impose a single national standard.
For Appalachian historians, Myers’s life invites several lines of further research. Local records in Kemper County and at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History may hold more about his parents and grandparents in Electric Mills. Company and union archives in Oregon likely document the mills that drew the family west. University archives in Mississippi and Oregon preserve yearbooks, law review records, and alumni magazines that trace his student years.
Taken together, those sources can deepen the picture drawn here: a boy born in a fading lumber town on the Appalachian edge who carried lessons from that world into a lifetime of cautious, often quiet, but sometimes nationally significant public service.
Sources and further reading
“Hardy Myers: Oregon State Capitol Foundation Oral History Project” – filmed interview that covers Myers’s childhood, legal career, legislative service, and work as attorney general, including his reflections on Gonzales v. Oregon.Oregon State Capitol Foundation+1
Oregon Department of Justice, Report and Recommendations Relating to Kids and Tobacco and related administrative overview – official publications describing the Attorney General’s Committee on Kids and Tobacco and its recommendations.Oregon Digital Collections+1
Oregon Department of Justice, Attorney General’s Public Records and Meetings Manual (2008) – Myers’s office’s comprehensive guide to Oregon public records and open meetings law, widely cited in later legal commentaries.Oregon Digital Collections+2Ballotpedia+2
Oregon DOJ media releases, especially “AG Files Judgment With Purdue Pharma Over Marketing of OxyContin”(May 8, 2007) and annual Top 10 Consumer Complaints releases from 2000 through 2005.Oregon Digital Collections+4Oregon Department of Justice+4Oregon Digital Collections+4
State of Oregon et al. v. Ashcroft (D. Or. 2002) and Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 243 (2006) – federal district, appellate, and Supreme Court decisions in the litigation over Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act.Oregon Legislature+3Justia+3Justia Law+3
Background brief, Death with Dignity Act, Oregon Legislative Committee Services – legislative staff summary that highlights Myers’s role in challenging the Ashcroft directive.Oregon Legislature+1
Congressional Record, House, December 6, 2016 – Representative Earl Blumenauer’s floor statement, “Hardy Myers: An Extraordinary Public Servant,” honoring Myers’s career.GovInfo
Obituary, “William Hardy Myers Jr”, The Oregonian / OregonLive – detailed account of his life from Electric Mills birth and Oregon lumber town childhood through law practice, legislative leadership, and three terms as attorney general.Legacy.com+1
Associated Press coverage carried by outlets such as KVAL, “Hardy Myers, former Oregon Attorney General, dead at 77,” summarizing his three terms, his defense of the Death with Dignity Act, and his work on tobacco litigation.The Columbian
Oregon Crime Victims Law Center, Hardy Myers Dinner pages – describe the annual fundraiser named in his honor and note his role as co founder of the Center.
“Hardy Myers” entry in English and German Wikipedia – compiled biographies that synthesize official sources, news coverage, and election returns, with particular detail about his education, law career, and legislative service.Wikipedia+1
State Library of Oregon Digital Collections, “Attorney General Hardy Myers” – short state produced biographical sketch outlining his priorities in consumer protection, child support enforcement, and public integrity.Oregon Digital Collections+1
Oregon Capitol Foundation, Attorney General Hardy Myers profile – summarizes his legislative and executive roles and incorporates quotations from his oral history about major cases like the Death with Dignity litigation.Oregon State Capitol Foundation
ElectricMills.org – local history site maintained by descendants of Electric Mills families, with narrative histories, photographs, and a short documentary about the town’s origins, institutions, and decline.
“Electric Mills, Mississippi” entry in Wikipedia and related marker documentation from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History – provide a concise overview of the town as a Sumter Lumber company town, its role in early malaria studies, and its present status as a near ghost town.
Appalachian Regional Commission materials on Kemper County – confirm the county’s inclusion within the Appalachian region for economic development purposes, tying Myers’s birthplace to the broader Appalachian story.MS.gov