Spring and summer are times for travel. But this year, journey back in time with Randy “the Walking Historian” Gudeika, instead. For about a decade, Gudeika has guided free walking tours of historically significant neighborhoods in Eugene, providing backstory and context for the area.

Gudeika’s next tour is June 7 in downtown Eugene, what he calls “Presidents, Heroes, Hangings and Hippies,” stopping where Eugene’s only two public hangings happened around 1900, among other places. 

Gudeika, about to turn 70, has lived in Eugene for 20 years and is retired. He insists his guided walking tours — which he researches and prepares for extensively — are not a business, just a way for him to share his love of history and the community. 

He has approximately 40 different routes, including “Lark Park” in the Bethel area, which the Eugene Emeralds called home in the ’50s and ’60s, telling the story of several Cooperstown players connected to the area. The Eugene Larks, a minor league baseball team predating the Emeralds, played there, too, in the 1950 and ’51 seasons.  

Others cover the South University district, Springfield, Old Town Florence and Alvadore, a small town about 14 miles northwest of Eugene. Each tour lasts about 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Russ Johnson has been on several of Gudeika’s routes, including one in the 19th and Harris neighborhood in Eugene, where Johnson had once lived. Gudeika opened his eyes to a World War II-era history in that part of town that Johnson never knew. Gudeika “talks one-on-one with you,” Johnson says. He finds things, “you’re not going to learn in a textbook.”

Like a man from another time, Gudeika drops flyers around town when he has a walk planned (you can find them at Eugene Weekly’s Lincoln Street office), and is somewhat active on Facebook. 

His flyers list a location and time to meet, and those who do show up can be added to a mailing list through which he announces his tours. The upcoming “Presidents, Heroes, Hangings and Hippies” tour launches at Eugene’s Amtrak Station. 

“You can’t miss me,” Gudeika says for first-timers who may not know what he looks like. He wears either an old-style hat like a bowler or top hat, or a ball cap that says “The Walking Historian.” 

“I look strange,” he adds with a laugh. 

Famous people with a connection to Eugene and Lane County, such as disgraced politician Neil Goldschmidt and writers like Gore Vidal and Richard Brautigan, are of particular interest to Gudeika. He also tells difficult stories of Lane County’s KKK history, but also Frank Hachiya, a Japanese American man who attended the University of Oregon in 1941 and went on to posthumously win a Silver and Bronze Star in World War II’s Pacific Theater. Gudeika also brings back to life DeNorval Unthank Jr., the first Black American to earn a degree in architecture from the University of Oregon.

Many stops on such tours are where these notable people lived or where their homes once stood. Gudeika says university neighborhoods have seen the most change over the decades. “Everyone has forgotten,” Gudeika says of historic landmarks that are no longer there, “They’ve erased them from our visual memory. I remember,” he says.

“History has always been my passion,” he adds. He grew up on Long Island, “and when I was a kid, making my parents’ lives miserable, they would calm me down by taking me to a historic house or a history museum.”

“I bring history alive by telling true stories where they happen. When I do my tours, people from the past speak for themselves,” Gudeika says.