Roger Wendlick, a man who went to extraordinary lengths to assemble the world’s most complete private collection of literature on the Lewis & Clark Expedition, passed away in his home in Portland this March. In 1998, Roger’s collection became a central part of the Aubrey R. Watzek Library’s holdings on Western exploration and the Corps of Discovery. We will be celebrating Roger’s life and accomplishments with some words from those who knew Roger and time for fellowship on Saturday, May 20th, 2023 from 3-5pm in the Gregg Pavillion on the Lewis & Clark College campus.

Roger Wendlick was born in 1945 and grew up in Portland, Oregon. He graduated from Jefferson High School in 1963 and attended Portland State University. As a young adult, Wendlick served in the U.S. Forest Service and worked as a logger, miner, and surveyor in various locations in the Pacific Northwest. In the early seventies, Wendlick toured up and down the west coast as a night club singer. Wendlick made a long-term career as a construction foreman in Portland, often running the heavy machinery used in excavation.

In the late seventies and early eighties, Wendlick began collecting memorabilia associated with the 1905 Lewis & Clark Exposition in Portland. By 1984, Wendlick’s interest shifted to books. He set out the ambitious goal of acquiring copies of all printed works about the Lewis & Clark Expedition. This included direct and indirect accounts of the expedition, books and maps in the expedition’s traveling library, works on the Indigenous nations the expedition encountered, as well as popular fiction and juvenile literature about the expedition from the twentieth century.

Over several years, Wendlick went about assembling his collection with passion and determination. He developed close relationships with book collectors and dealers and avidly chased opportunities for new acquisitions across the country. He worked long hours in construction and mortgaged his home several times to finance the endeavor. Unable to afford insurance, he kept his collection in a Mosler fireproof safe in his Portland home. He titled his autobiography “Shotgun on My Chest” in reference to the extreme measures he took to guard the collection.

In the late 1990s, Lewis & Clark College aspired to develop a premier collection of literature on the Corps of Discovery as the 2003-2006 bicentennial of the expedition approached. This interest conincided with the fruits of Wendlick’s labors, and the College reached an agreement with Wendlick to transfer his collection to the Special Collections of the Aubrey R. Watzek Library. Wendlick then became a collector-in-residence at the Watzek Library and began sharing his expertise and passion on the literature of the Corps of Discovery by presenting at various engagements. 

Roger Wendlick was active in the Lewis & Clark Heritage Trail Foundation, including serving on the board of the national organization for two years. Dressing in a buckskins and a fur cap, Wendlick reenacted the personage of expedition member George Drouillard, an interpreter, hunter, and mapmaker. He traveled along the route of the Corps of Discovery and at times served as a historical guide on multi-day tours of the expedition route. Wendlick was an engaging storyteller who could captivate audiences that ranged from elementary schoolchildren to retirees. He also embarked upon his own inquiry into historical aspects of the expedition, which led him from the books and maps he’d acquired and into the field to establish geographical locations for some of the observations made in the Lewis and Clark journals. 

To learn more about Roger Wendlick’s life and collecting career, read his biography