History of the Rogue River National Forest Volume 1 — 1893-1932

Roads and Trails

Until 1843, Southern Oregon's only traveled route for two decades had been the Hudson's Bay Company's trail established by fur traders and trappers and which appears to have generally followed the original Indian trails. Peter Skene Ogden is credited with establishing the trail for his company. Then, in 1843, Captain John C. Fremont followed the Ogden trail on an expedition which was sponsored by the United States government and which established it as a military road into the Klamath Valley.

In June 1846, a party of thirteen settlers, under the leadership of Jesse and Lindsay Applegate, left Oregon City to explore and lay out a route into Southern Oregon which would enable settlers' wagon trains to reach the Willamette Valley without going through the hardships of the trip down the Columbia River.

Their route, variously referred to by historians as the Southern Route or Trail, South Road, Applegate Trail and Oregon Cutoff, went south through the Willamette and Umpqua Valleys, by the present towns of Eugene and Roseburg, reaching the Rogue River and fording at a point below the present site of Grants Pass.

About forty miles up a tributary of the Rogue, which they named the Applegate River in honor of their leaders, the party crossed the divide and entered the Rogue River Valley where Jacksonville, which was to become the metropolis of Southern Oregon during the gold-rush days, now stands.

Following the southern edge of the valley, the trail skirted the present sites of Phoenix, Talent, and Ashland, beginning the ascent through mountain passes and into the Klamath region at a point southeast of Ashland now partly inundated by the waters of man-made Emigrant Lake. Crossing the northeast section of California, fording Lost River at the Natural Bridge crossing near Humboldt, Nevada, past the present towns of Winnemucca, Elko and Wells, the Oregon Cutoff joined the main Oregon Trail near Pocatello, Idaho.

Although it did not prove successful as a route of travel for the emigrant trains from the east, the Applegate Trail was the first attempt to make the Southern Oregon region accessable for settlers and became historically important for that reason.

With the settlement of Southern Oregon, demands were made for wagon roads to carry mining necessities and Oregon produce over the Siskiyou Mountains and on into the gold fields of northern California. Scottsburg, near the head of tidewater on the Umpqua River was, in 1850, the outfitting point for pack trains carrying these supplies to the Oregon interior and to California. Original Indian trails were widened and temporary ferry crossings were established on rivers.

Then, in 1852-53, a $120,000 government appropriation provided for a military wagon road from Scottsburg to Stewart Creek in the Rogue River Valley. In October 1854, the route was first surveyed by Army Lieutenant Withers. An additional appropriation provided for the completion of the survey by Army Major Atwood assisted by Jesse Applegate, and which practically followed the old Southern Oregon trail. Overseer of road construction was Colonel Joseph Booker, detailed for the purpose by the War Department. In 1858 the road was completed and the Southern Oregon Military Road served its purpose until the railroad took over the heavy hauling duties from the Umpqua Valley to California many years later.

Gold! Gold! Gold!!!

Discovery of gold in California led people to seek it in Oregon and indications of it in the southern part of the state were found in 1849 near the present site of Gold Hill.

In December 1851, two packers, James Cluggage and James R. Poole, on their way to California from Scottsburg, made camp overnight on Jackson Creek in Southern Oregon. While looking for water for camp use, they discovered and collected gold nuggets in the bed of the small stream. They continued on to California with their nuggets. News of their good fortune became known to outsiders early in 1852 and the rush for gold in Southern Oregon was on!

Almost overnight, a "boom town", which became present-day Jacksonville, sprang up with other smaller communities throughout the area. Logtown, Buncom, Sterling, Steamboat, City Gulch, Browntown, Althouse, Kerby, Waldo and many others were established. Now, many of the small towns have long since lost their inhabitants and buildings. Only the descriptive names remain to mark the importance they once held in the history of Southern Oregon.

Thousands of miners, including the Chinese imported as laborers, poured a phenomenal amount of hand labor and money into mining processses between 1851 and 1890.

Miles of ditches were dug to take water to the mining operations. Miles of tote roads were built. Deep shafts, some of them over 100 feet deep, penetrated the hillsides — all of them built by hand labor.

Some of the more prominent mines were the Steamboat, Sterling, Ott, Oregon Belle, Maid of the Mist and the Chinn Linn. The 28-mile Sterling Ditch was built at a reported cost of $75,000. It was dug by hand, black powder was used for rock work. The first water ran through the ditch in 1874.

The extent of the mining industry in Jackson County alone is shown by the fact that 5,438 mining locations were made from October 1856 to June 1880. Of these, 16 were copper mines, 124 cinnabar, one tin, and the rest gold and silver.

After 1890 mining became sporadic. About that time the only large mines in operation were the Sterling and Blue Ledge (copper). Because of the low price for gold and copper, these also declined.

However, even at such a late date as the depression in the 1930's, many persons panned gold in the area and managed to scrounge out a living.

In many individual cases it is more than probable that the amount of wealth increased each time the story of a "strike" was retold, however, it is a fact that millions of dollars worth of gold were mined in the area whose center was Jacksonville.

Legends of "lost" mines persist to the present day. It was, in fact, on one of the early searches for a "Lost Cabin Mine" that Crater Lake was reported to have been discovered for the first time in June, in 1853. A small party of men searching for the mine under the leadership of John W. Hillman, unexpectedly found themselves looking from the rim and into the majestic beauty of the lake. Overwhelmed by its beauty, they decided to call it "Deep Blue Lake". Their search for the "lost" mine forgotten, they returned to Jacksonville to report the treasure of nature they had found, but since their discovery did not involve gold, apparently no one was particularly interested and Crater Lake was not rediscovered until 1862.

"Matters at Jacksonville in 1868" were summarized in the Portland Oregonian in its August 8, 1868 edition as follows:

"This place seems flourishing, and presents freshness and thrift not equaled by many of our Oregon towns. Stocks of merchandise here are certainly larger and better than any to be found elsewhere south of Salem. Imported goods of every description, including agricultural and mining implements, are hauled from Crescent City, California, a total distance of nearly 120 miles. The road is mountainous, and every pound of freight hauled over it to Jacksonville costs three and a half cents. This is the price at present though it is sometimes higher.

"From San Francisco to Crescent City, freight costs ten dollars a ton, so that, by the time goods reach here, they have paid a tariff of eighty dollars on the ton. A people who have to struggle with such disadvantage, must have many circumstances in their favor to counter-balance. These the people of Jackson County seem to possess; for it is certain that no part of Oregon shows better evidence of prosperity.

"The southern part of Oregon still derives great revenue from its mines of gold. These extend over a large area, and though few rich and extensive strikes are made the agregate amount of gold produced each year is very considerable. This keeps the 'circulating medium' in this part of Oregon comparatively abundant. Of course, many mines are entirely worked out, and, in many other places, work is suspended on account of scarcity of water; but, when water can be obtained, the miners are still delving away. Chinese are working over many old diggings; and, along the bars of Rogue River, these people may be seen in numerous places, employing their patient industry in washing out the gold which white labor has neglected as too small pay. In some places they have large wheels driven by the current, for raising water for their sluices. It will be many years before the placer mines of Southern Oregon shall be exhausted; and after a while many localities will be worked with profit which will not now afford sufficient pay. It is expected, also, that the quartz interests of the southern counties eventually will have great importance.

"For the products of agriculture, there is a fair market in Jackson County — quite as good, in fact, as in any part of Oregon. The supply required by the mines is a considerable item. For some time past, the Government demand for flour and grain at Fort Klamath has called for no small portion of the products of this valley. Flour is also sent from here into Northern California. Some of the best improved farms in Oregon lie in Jackson County, and their owners are doing fully as well as any farmers in Willamette Valley.

"The harvest is about ended here, and the yield is large. On the whole, this is probably the most productive season Oregon has ever known.

"The way the temperature rises here, in an August afternoon, is decidedly uncomfortable; yet it is not so hot now, by several degrees, as it was some days ago. It is not unusual for the mercury to rise above 100 degrees; and last Sunday it was 110 in the shade in this town. In the coolest place that could be found, the thermometer indicated 102 degrees. Yet the heat seems less oppressive in these parts than in many others where the thermometer indicates a temperature lower by ten or fifteen degrees. The hottest days do not produce the feebleness and languor which are experienced in many localities.

"Ashland is a thriving village, sixteen miles from Jacksonville, on the stage road. A number of buildings are going up at that place this summer, and the woolen mill, which is expected to be an interest of great value to this part of Oregon, soon will be in operation. A part of the machinery has already arrived. The building is now ready for the machinery. The manufacture in Southern Oregon of a large and important class of goods, which have heretofore been imported at high prices, will be a great point gained."

Early Population Growth

Some small hands of emigrants had used the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri to migrate to the west before 1843, but it was not until after that year that large trains of settlers moved westward. By 1847 nearly 5,000 people had come to Oregon.

Discovery of gold in California caused immigration to turn away from Oregon in favor of its neighbor to the south, and, in fact, men left Oregon to seek their fortunes in the gold fields of California. In 1849 there were only 400 new arrivals in Oregon, the total population having increased by that year to somewhat over 9,000.

In 1850, with the passage of the Donation Land Law, a device to encourage settlement of the Oregon country, the number of settlers again began to increase, about 2,000 coming to Oregon in that year alone. The land grant gave to every white man and Indian half-breed who was a citizen of the United States and a resident of the territory (or who might be a resident of the territory by December 1, 1850) a half-section of land. A married woman was granted a half-section for her own. The grant was cut in half for persons who arrived in Oregon between December 1850, and December 1855.

Public land elsewhere in the United States was being sold in tracts of 160 acres, but, in Oregon, a married couple could claim 640 acres for nothing (320 acres after December 1850). This led to a population explosion of sorts with an estimated 15,000 people making the long trek to Oregon in 1852.

About 13,000 people accounted for the total Oregon population in 1850, but by the end of 1853 they numbered more than 35,000, steadily increasing annually to 52,000 in 1860. Jackson County was formed in 1852; Coos, in 1853; Curry, in 1855; and Josephine, in 1856.

At the time Captain Fremont had made his early exploration of the Klamath Basin in 1843, he reported an Indian village established on the Link River near Klamath Lake. This was the site George Nurse homesteaded in 1866, maintaining a ferry across the river. By 1867, one hundred settlers had claimed land along the river, establishing a town named Linkville. Early inhabitants were primarily interested in raising cattle and sheep and in trade with the Indians.

The Modoc Indian War in the '70's temporarily halted the growth of Linkville, but, by 1885 the town had grown to 384. Four years later, Linkville met with the same fate as many early-day settlements and was nearly destroyed by fire, temporarily slowing its growth again. The name linkville was changed to Klamath Falls in 1893.

Indian "Troubles" and the Military

After 1850, Indian tribes which previously had generally been peaceful, apparently could see the end of control of their land, and trouble between the two races began.

A death called for its revenge — on either side. Then, a death and its revenge grew into group attack and group reprisal, until finally the long siege now referred to as the "Rogue River Indian Wars" involved all of Southern Oregon and spilled over into Northern California.

Cessation of the first action came in July 1851, ending difficulties in the area around Gold Hill and Table Rock when the Indians agreed to accept governmental jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, other trouble with coastal Indians was ended temporarily in December 1851, mainly by mutual consent, and Fort Orford was established as a military post the following year.

Emigrant trains following the Oregon Cutoff route into Southern Oregon, continued to be attacked by the Modocs, most frequently at Bloody Point on Tule Lake. This was a situation which had always existed from the time the first ill-fated train followed the trail in the '40's. Fort Jones was established in the Scott Valley in California in 1852.

Volunteer companies of Indian fighters were quickly organized when the occasion called for them, and, apparently in the opinion of some regular Army officers, even when the occasion did not call for them.

Fighting appears to have criss-crossed the present Oregon-California border no matter whether the Indians involved were Modoc, Shasta, Pit, Klamath, Rogue River Valley or related tribes, or whether the volunteer groups were led by men from Yreka or Jacksonville.

Less than a year after the treaty in the Rogue River Valley, the murder and revenge turmoil and confusion again became commonplace in the valley. Ft. Orford on the coast and Ft. Jones in California were the closest deterrent forces, and there was no Indian Agent in the area. Once again volunteer groups, led by a few Army regulars and civilians, became Indian fighters.

Joseph Lane, Territorial Representative to Congress, was living in Roseburg when a new outbreak of trouble called him back to command two battalions of troops, both regulars and volunteers, in 1853. Lane had been a general in the Mexican War and was appointed first Territorial Governor of Oregon in 1849. He was experienced in his dealings with the Indians and had gained their respect for his bravery in battle.

The main bodies of fighting forces were dead-locked in a fierce battle near Evans Creek on the slopes of Battle Mountain when the Indians heard that Jo Lane was with the white troops (he had been wounded) and they requested a meeting with him.

A treaty was negotiated, then concluded on September 10, 1853, by ten whites, led by Lane, and five Indian chiefs, including Lane's namesake, Chief Jo. The site is commemorated by a monument in Sams Valley near Table Rock.

Table Rock Reservation (100 square miles) was established as a temporary home for the Indians and Samuel B. Colver of Phoenix, present at the treaty signing, was made Resident Indian Agent.

Fort Lane was built near Table Rock overlooking the Rogue River. Its site is marked only by an obscure monument on a fenced-in, scrub oak-covered hillside on private land on the Tolo Road near Gold Ray Dam.

After a time, the treaty displeased the Indians and the peace was an uneasy one.

Finally, in October 1355, an event occured which eventually brought the "Rogue River War" period to an end.

It was early in October, probably on the 8th, that a company of about 30 volunteer whites attacked, without military orders, an Indian village located on the north side of the Rogue River near the mouth of Little Butte Creek a few miles above Table Rock. Accounts of the attack vary widely but it is generally accepted that the volunteers killed twenty-three Indians and wounded many others in the rancheria, inhabited only by women, children and old men.

There can be no question of the results of the attack however. The sparks of discontent were whipped into flames of hatred and revenge, and the next day, Indians appeared everywhere in the valley intent on retaliation against all whites. Settlers and soldiers took up the fight. A war of extermination raged through the valley of the Rogue and on to the Pacific Coast.

Hungry Bill, Galice, Harris Flat, Gold Beach, Steamboat, the Chetco River — all are names among those whose history tell events of those months of war that followed. The last resistence of the Indian tribes was recorded on June 29, 1856. Inevitably, they were rounded up and herded onto reservations, ending the costly bloodshed, for both races, over possession and control of the land.

The Klamath Country and Captain Jack

The Civil War had been in progress for a year when Lindsay Applegate initiated a bill through the Oregon Legislature asking Congress to construct a fort to protect the emigrant road through the southern portion of Lake and Klamath counties. Fort Lane on the Rogue River had been abandoned in 1857.

The fort was authorized in 1863 and Colonel C. S. Drew was chosen to select the site. Ashland and Jacksonville, recognizing the trade benefits, waged political warfare over location of the fort.

Fort Klamath was finally built in a location more available to Jacksonville than to Ashland, although somewhat remote from the emigrant trail.

The first road to the fort from Jacksonville was built in 1863 under Col. Drew's direction and later proved to be almost impassable. It was replaced in 1865 by a road which skirted Annie Creek gorge, providing a northern outlet to freight wagons, beef-on-the-hoof, and pack trains.

The Civil War being in progress, the fort was to be garrisoned by Oregon volunteers. The original garrison stationed at the fort, Troop C, First Oregon Cavalry, arrived in the fall of 1863 and spent the first winter in tents.

A primitive sawmill was soon erected and buildings were constructed during 1864. In the spring of 1865, Company I, First Oregon Infantry recruited in Jackson County the previous year, garrisoned the fort. This was the company which built the second road to Jacksonville.

The Civil War ended and regular troops took over the fort in July, in 1867.

As said before, the Modoc Indians had been a warlike tribe from the beginning of the settlement of Southern Oregon and Northern California. The tribe had finally agreed, in 1867, to a treaty which forced them to share a reservation with their traditional enemies, the Klamaths, and which had taken them away from their hunting grounds around Tule Lake. The Modocs, as a tribe, kept the treaty although it was unsatisfactory to them, but one of the Modoc sub-Chiefs, Kentipoos, or Captain Jack, gathered an increasing number of dissatisfied warriors into a band and they left the reservation under his leadership.

Excerpts from the "History of the Modoc National Forest" compiled in 1945 by William S. Brown, Sr., describe the subsequent events involving Captain Jack's band as follows:

"They wandered about the country from Tule Lake to Yreka, stealing livestock and committing acts of pilfereage. In spite of their later record as fighting men, these Indians were merely a ragged thieving band, often actually kicked away from the backdoors of settlers. They became much a pest that on November 8, 1872 military orders were sent to Captain James Jackson of the 1st U. S. Cavalry at Ft. Klamath to return the Modoc band to the Klamath Indian Reservation, the orders reading 'peaceably if you can, forcibly if you must'.

"Captain Jackson augmenting his force of forty soldiers with a body of settler volunteers, found the Indian party camped at Natural Bridge on Lost River, well armed and defiant. The Modoc band first surrendered, then decided to fight and although losing several of their own warriors, roundly defeated the white force, killing or wounding one-fourth of Jackson's entire command. Immediately after the battle, Captain Jack with the women and children and part of his warriors repaired to the lava bed region just south of Tule Lake and took refuge in an almost impregnable rock fortress honeycombed with caves and natural trenches, since known as Captain Jack's Stronghold. It is worthy of mention that neither then nor thereafter during the campaign did the Modoc band kill any women or children...

"The Modoc War was on. The name 'Modoc' became a household word all over the nation. In many sections there was a sneaking sympathy for Captain Jack and the beleagured Modocs which perhaps accounted for the slowness of military operations against them. Secure in their impregnable natural lava fortress in which writers of the time likened the Indians to 'ants in a sponge' the Modoc band kept themselves well supplied with arms ammunition and provisions by raids on military pack and wagon trains. During their five months occupancy of the Stronghold, only one Indian was killed."

Speaking of an engagement between the First U. S. Cavalry and the Modoc warriors on May 10, 1873, the account continues, "... This engagement is another Indian battle which has gone down in history as one of the most famous and unique in Western history, when individual soldiers without orders charged on the Indians and hunting them through the rough lava country, paid scant attention to the recall notes of the bugle. A few days after this fight the Indian party threw up the sponge. The band broke up into small parties and the leaders surrendered or were captured. On October 3, 1873, Captain Jack and three of his chief lieutenants — Mighty Voice Schonchin, Black Jim and Boston Charley — were hanged at Fort Klamath and several others sent to prison for life.

Fort Klamath was finally closed in 1889. When unrest among the Indians again began to stir in 1890-1891, the people of Klamath County wanted the fort regarrisoned, but the government refused. Uncared for and unoccupied, Fort Klamath eventually fell into ruins, its site now marked only by an historical plaque near the headwaters of Wood River.

Railroading

Oregonians' dreams of ending their comparative isolation from the rest of the country by means of railroad connections, was a frustrating series of starts and stops, bankruptcies, political maneuverings and bitter wranglings which lasted over a period of more than twenty years.

In 1863 and '64 surveys for a railroad from Sacramento to Portland were made. The line was to pass through Jacksonville and follow the Willamette River to Portland.

"First Railroad Subsidy in Oregon" was written up in the November 19, 1908 edition of the Portland Oregonian:

"A document of some interest, especially to pioneers of Willamette Valley, is published in the current number of the Oregon Historical Society Quarterly. It is the subscription list 'for defraying, in part, the cost of making a preliminary survey for a railroad route connecting the Pacific railroad, in California, with the city of Portland, Oregon'. The date is October, 1863. Among the names are many that belong to the past and stand for early endeavor in the development of the state. The limited means procured by even the leading men in the industrial life of the state, forty-five years ago, is attested by the subscriptions that stand opposite their names in this old document. Wheat was legal tender in the agricultural community represented by these names; hence, most of the pledges were in wheat, ranging from one subscription, of 100 bushels, to be delivered at Phoenix Mills, to five bushels, to be delivered at Ashland Mills. There were many pledges of from ten to fifty bushels, while the cash subscriptions ranged from two and one-half dollars to twenty-five dollars. The willingness of pioneers to help themselves and each other, in the beginnings of Oregon's industrial and business life, is attested in this old document. Of such as they had they gave freely, and waited patiently the slow returns which the years finally brought."

The Oregon Legislature in 1865 attempted to stimulate interest in a railroad to connect the two states with an offer of $250,000 to any company who would lay tracks for a distance of one hundred miles south of Portland.

Following the railroad land grant act of Congress (July 25, 1866), railroading was mainly limited to futile attempts to begin construction until, when in 1867, not one, but two factions incorporated to begin competitive building south of Portland on the two sides of the Willamette River. Both were known as the "Oregon Central Railroad Company", (east side) and (west side).

The two companies were embroiled in a political battle over the land grant monies and actual work on any railroad construction had come to a standstill when Ben. Holladay's company, the Oregon and California Railroad, took over the west side project in 1870 and promptly outdistanced the east side company.

Holladay had sold extensive stagecoach holdings to Wells Fargo. Control of the west side company called for an investment of 70,000. (Actually, through maneuvering during the legal wrangle over the railroad grant funds, the original east side company became the west side company and visa versa.)

At any rate, the two companies absorbed one another under Holladay, and by 1871 his tracks reached from Portland to Eugene. Meantime California interests, building northward from Sacramento under the name of the California and Oregon Railroad, planned to join Holladay's Oregon and California tracks somewhere in Southern Oregon.

After the O & C line reached Roseburg in 1872, however, Holladay was in financial difficulties and building was haulted.

Finally, in April, 1876, Henry Villard took over management of Holladay's railroad interest, but it was not until after much reorganization and investigation, that construction south of Roseburg began again in December, 1881. The track was finished to Ashland in 1884, but this was not the end of delays in connecting with the California line.

Now it was Villard who was in financial trouble. Control of the Oregon and California system passed to the Southern Pacific in 1887 and connection with the tracks from the Sacramento Valley was finally finished on November 17, 1887, south of Ashland.

The first train from San Francisco arrived in Portland on December 19, 1887, more than twenty years after the preliminary survey was made.

Typifying the everlasting hopeful patience during what must have been a difficult twenty years to keep hope alive in the dreams of connecting railroads, the Oregonian reported in February, 1884:

"An event of great importance is the opening of the railroad into Southern Oregon. It is important both for that district of the state and for the state at large. Rogue River Valley is one of the fairest and most fruitful parts of Oregon. Since first settlement it has been the home of a prosperous and stable community; but owing to isolation, progress has been slow. Its genial climate, fruitful soil and great resources have not attracted the attention they deserve, because there has been no means of transportation, and it has even been a serious task to travel into that district or out of it. All this disadvantage the railroad has now overcome or removed, and this very important part of the state will now be drawn into closer relations with other parts of it.

"This is a fact that signifies much. Heretofore, the part of Oregon which the extension of the Oregon and California Railroad now brings into communication with us, has been united with more bonds to the people of California, rather than with us. Elections have been about the only incidents to remind the people of that district that they were connected with Oregon instead of California.

"Rogue River Valley and the great country that surrounds it have capacity for very high development. Every element of natural wealth is there. That beautiful valley is destined to become the fruit garden of the Pacific Northwest. The climate is so much milder than that of the Willamette Valley, and the rainfall is much less, so as to make that part of the state desirable for residence."

A certain amount of railroading in that "fairest and most fruitful" part of the state is described in the pictorial album of "Pioneer Rogue River Valley Railroads" with the explanatory sentences that "some of the roads were designed and right-of-way laid out, but were never built; these are the 'Paper Railroads'! Some were probably merely stock-selling ventures. Others had bad luck and never built more than a few miles."

The account continues: ". . .The first Railroad of the Pacific Northwest was incorporated at the Jacksonville Courthouse on October 7, 1863. It was the California & Columbia River Railroad. It was a 'paper railroad'; never having laid a length of rail or owned any rolling stock. . . .

"The Pacific & Eastern Railroad, which ran to Butte Falls, was incorporated in 1891 (until 1906). In the meantime, the Medford & Crater Lake Railroad and the Butte Falls & Western Railroad were incorporated in 1904 and 1910, respectively. P&E finally won out, backed by Jim Hill, some say, and ran the first train into Butte Falls in the fall of 1910. . . .

"Several starts were made on a road from Jacksonville to Medford. The Rogue River Valley Railway & Improvement Co. (1891 to 1906) and the Rogue River Valley Railway Co. (1891 to 1904) both started; in 1904 the Barnum family acquired the road and reincorporated under the latter name, and the father and three sons ran the road for many years. John, the eldest son, at 14 was the youngest accredited railway conductor in the United States. Others owned the road from time to time, including the City of Medford. During one period the Bullis electrical firm operated the line as a street car under the name of Southern Oregon Traction Company."

Bibliography — and other sources

Scott, Harvey W., History of the Oregon Country (VI Vols.). comp. Leslie M. Scott, The Riverside Press, 1924.

Glassley, Ray H., Pacific Northwest Indian Wars, Binfords and Mort, 1953.

El Hult, Ruby, Lost Mines and Treasures, Binfords and Mort, 1957.

Sutton, Jack, The Pictorial History of Southern Oregon and Northern California, Grants Pass Bulletin, 1959.

Walling A.G., History of Southern Oregon, Walling Printing and Litho, 1884.

Clark, Down, Blue, A History of Oregon, Row, Peterson and Co., 1926-31.

Brown, William S., Sr., History of the Modoc National Forest, 1945.

Horner, John B., Oregon, Gazette-Times, Corvallis, 1919.

American Guide Series: Oregon — End of the Trail, Binfords and Mort, 1940.

Unpublished write-ups by personnel including: Early history of Klamath Falls, Paul Brady, 1960; History of Ft. Klamath, Robert Latzy, 1960; Notes of Historical Events, Applegate Ranger District, 1945, Lee Fort; Early Mining in the Siskiyous, Neil Suttell and Ralph Wiese, 1960.

Micro-film files of the Ashland Daily Tidings, Ashland, Oregon.