Long-delayed Camas history book ‘Camas Pioneers’ followed a tough trail to publication

Sally Alves researched, wrote book while living in the iconic Roffler home near Crown Park

By Scott Hewitt, The Columbian

August 14, 2025 8:03 am

Camas, Life, News

Architect and builder John Roffler raised hundreds of homes. Historian Sally Alves lived in this 1906 Roffler home, just south of Crown Park in Camas, in the 1990s and helped get it listed on both the National and Clark County historical registers. (This photo was taken in 2002.) (The Columbian files)

Henry and Anna (Karnath) Lorenz, 1893. (From “Camas Pioneers” by Sally Alves)

Because he failed to grow a beard for Camas’ 50th anniversary festivities, banker and businessman Robert Carmack was “arrested” and shackled during the Wild Spree of ’33. (From “Camas Pioneers” by Sally Alves)

Oscar F. and Beatrice Johnson at home in 1907. (From “Camas Pioneers” by Sally Alves)

Louisa “Lutie” Van Vleet Spicer Wright, at age 22, about a year before she completed medical school. She became the first working doctor in the Camas-Washougal area.

Author Sally Alves. (Photo contributed by Sally Alves)

Sally Alves’ magnum opus, “Camas Pioneers: Historical Profiles of Prominent Camas Families,” traces the complicated life stories of many east Clark County founding figures. It’s a new book with a long and complicated history of its own.

Alves researched and wrote the book decades ago, in the 1990s, on the heels of her first historical publication, “John Roffler, Camas Craftsman.” At that time, Clark County native Alves and her husband were living in — and restoring — the iconic Victorian-style Roffler home that still stands today at the corner of Everett Street and 15th Avenue near Crown Park. The daughter of local architect and builder John Roffler lived down the street and used to stop by, Alves recalled.

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