At the time of his death at 49 in 1927, James Oliver Curwood was considered the most well-read, well known adventure writer in the world. He has always been put in the same elite class with Zane Grey and Jack London, although his name is not as well known today as Grey’s or London's.

Curwood’s brother settled here in Englewood and built several rental cottages on S. McCall Rd., which the locals called the “Curwood Cottages Camp”. The author came to visit and wrote his last book here in Englewood, “Green Timber”, although it was left unfinished at his death. There was great excitement in Englewood about his celebrity presence, especially when it was rumored the famous writer sat at a kitchen table working in one of his brother’s cottages, with his feet in a bucket of ice water, supposedly to set the mood for the great frozen north he was writing about.