In November, 1937, Buzz Holmstrom, a service station attendant from Coquille, became the first person to run the Green and Colorado Rivers alone. His eleven-hundred-mile solo journey in a handmade wooden boat brought him national acclaim. After running the last rapid of the Colorado, he wrote in his journal that he had thought once past there his reward would begin, but everything ahead seemed kind of empty, and he found he had already had his reward in doing the thing: the stars and cliffs and canyons, the roar of the rapids, the uncertainty and worry, the relief when through each one, and the real respect and friendship of the rivermen he met and others. He rejected the idea that he had conquered the Colorado River, saying it has never been conquered and never will, and that anyone it allows to go through its canyons and see its wonders should feel thankful and privileged. Holmstrom died on the Grand Ronde River in northeast Oregon in 1946 and is buried in Coquille.