Laurence L. Shaw was a well-known Oregon timber man and philanthropist. He was born on July 11, 1908 in Rainer, Oregon. He entered the family’s timber business in 1935 as resident manager of Shaw Lumber Company in Tionesta, California, after graduating from Stanford University and attending a year of Stanford Law School. In 1945 he started Modoc Lumber Company in Klamath Falls, Oregon, and remained active in the business until 1995. He was one of the organizers of the effort to create the Winema National Forest from former Klamath Indian Reservation lands in the 1950s. The Klamath County Chamber of Commerce gave Laurence Shaw the Forest Industries Businessman of the Year award in 1984. His philanthropic activities included service as a life member of the board of trustees of Lewis and Clark College, service on the Board of the Oregon Historical Society, support of many community activities, and together with his wife Dorothy the founding of the Shaw Historical Library at Oregon Institute of Technology in 1982. The Shaw Historical Library has been publishing journals about the history of the Klamath Basin and Land of the Lakes since 1986. The Journals are topical, covering a wide range of subjects from the Applegate Trail to the Modoc War; from the history of water rights to the cattle ranching industry. Insightful, humorous and historically in depth, the Journals offer a window into a complex regional social and cultural history that is both ancient and unique in the United States.