E RIVER VALLEY- BLY 1974

KLAMATH ECHOES

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Sanctioned by Klamath County Historical Society

NUMBER 12 The southwest side of Gearhart (Gayhart) Mountain as seen from the junction of Campbell Road and Highway 140, one mile east of Bly. The North and South Forks of Sprague River head on the slopes of Gearhart.

SOLI TUDE think I shall climb to the woods today Where nobody's there to know; Only a hawk in the high, thin air And only the cattle below.

And no one shall hear my coming. And no one shall see me pass.

Only the wind in the great gb~st pines And the eyes in the still. green grass. Belly Cornwell

- l . The Mitchell monument some ten miles northeast of Bly on the Dairy Creek Road. DEDICATION We dedicate this. the 12th is ue of Klamath Echoes, to the memory of those innocent and uninvolved persons who perished here as the result of enemy action. The marker reads: Dedicated to those who died here May 5, 1945 BY Japanese Bomb Explosion Elsie Mitchell Age 26 Jay Gifford Age 13 Edward Engen Age 13 Dick Patzke Age 14 Joan Patzke Age 13 Sherman Shoemaker Age J 1 The only place on the American Continent where death resulted from enemy action during World War II We deplore the inane stupidity of senseless vandals who have desecrated this marker. We suggest that some organization restore this marker to its former beautiful appearance. -II .. The girls' dormitory at Yalnax Sub Agency, with teachers and pupils, all unidentified.

The " Galloping Goose" used on the O.C. & E. railroad during construction days.

· Ill · Written on the front of this picture was the caption " Crater Lake Lumber Company". On the back: "Pete Lorenz Sprague River logging", presumably on the Whiskey Creek timber sale. ~

The old Sly Cemetery several miles west of town, situated in the edge of the timber. Dark stones in foreground and others mark some 20 unknown graves.

- IV - Klamath Echoes Staff

DEVERE HELFRICH Managing EdilOr HELEN HELFRICH Assistant Editor

OFFICERS Klamath County Historical Society

JIM CO LEMAN President WILLIAM E. KRAL - • ------Vice President MEL VENE NITSCHELM Secretary-Treasurer BOB ELLIOTT, LEONA ANGEL, WALLACE UERLING and DEVERE HELFRICH - - - · ------Directors

Address all communications to: KLAMATH ECHOES P. 0. BOX 1552 KLAMATH FALLS, OREGON 97601

Second Printing- 2005

THE COVER: The Upper Sprague Ri ver Valley and rail fence along the Campbell Road. As in all past issues of Klamath Echoes our cover for this year was drawn by Stephanie Bonoto Hakanson. -v- EDITOR'S PAGE

This, the 12th issue of KlamaTh Echoes. continues our historical encirclement of the Klamath Country. The Upper Sprague River Valley. running from east to west. and including in this order the communities of Bly. Old Garner, Beauy. Old Yainax Sub Agency and the town of Sprague River. is hereafter described historically as far as we have material. From the beginning, 1873, for the next 55 years. to 1928. this territory was strictly range and stock country. Then following the approach of the Oregon, California & Eastern Railroad, and the advent of the lumbering industry, the latter has been in the ascendency. although the cattle industry is still of major importance.

Al.l of the original pioneers have long since passed on and only grandchildren for the most pan were available for interviews and to point out locations. etc. However, intensive research in old newspaper files and county history have en­ abled us to unearth stories actually left by the pioneers, which we have repeated, feeling that these stories are unknown lo, and unavailable to most present day readers.

Only after setting down all of this information in chronological order has a true hisrory developed. Stories such as that of Yainax, the first post offices, the first settlements, and the land grants for roads have resolved some of the mysteries of the various communities. Old time pictures have been the most difficult item to obtain. Surely there are more in existance- but where? Probably after this book is printed some will be un­ earthed. We wish to especial.ly thank the following people: Mr. and Mrs. Everett Bell. Owen Watts, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Patzke, Mr. and Mrs. Ben Cornell, Olive Hall, Frank Obenchain, Jr., Dibbon Cook, Mrs. Mary L. Heidenreich, Mrs. Vernelia M. Hadley, Dibbon Cook and Mrs. Louella Anderson.

We wish especially to thank the Herald and News newspaper for the continued use of their flies of the Republican, Evening Herald and KlamaTh News.

·VI· <

Crane Mills at Bly with part of the Upper Sprague River Valley In background. Courtesy Riley Harris PRE-SETTLEMENT

Upper Sprague River Valley with its southward into the main Klamath Basin, communities of Old Yainax, Sprague across the mountains, via the Klamath River, Beatty and Bly, is the subject of River Canyon, to again return in early the 1974, or 12th issue of Kla.math spring and leave the vicinity southward Echoes. from Tule Lake early in May, 1827. This valley is enriched with expansive Undoubtedly some of hls trappers ex­ meadows, watered by the North and plored or trapped up Sprague River. South Forks of Sprague River, Sycan Sixteen years later, Captain John C. River and numerous creeks, the largest Fremont with his exploring expedition perhaps being Fishhole. passed eastward across Klamath Marsh The Indian name for Sprague River to Summer Lake in December, 1843. was Plai, or Plaikni Koke. Koke was the A William T. Hamilton claims to have general word for river, and Plai indicated camped on some unknown stream that the stream came from the upper or flowed into Klamath Lake during the higher country. The two forks of Sprague winter of 1843-44. He was supposed to River head on the slopes of Gearhart have been a member of a party of 43 Mountain sitting astride the north-south trappers led by Old Bill Williams, the line between Klamath and Lake Counties. Mountain Man. If so, he would have been For untold centuries the Upper Sprague near Klamath Lake when Fremont passed River Valley was the home of several through only a few miles to the north. wandering bands of Snake Indians. Then This story was first printed in 1905. In came the white man with his herds of 1960 it was printed by the Oklahoma cattle, horses, mules and sheep and ever Press under the title, "My Sixty Years On increasing lust for more of the Indian's the Plains, Trapping, Trading and Indian land. Lastly, beginning in the 1920's, the Fighting." This portion of the story lumber industry arrived and with it rall­ smacks too much of the ed Buntline roads, improved highways and farm roads. type of hlstory according to this writer's Who the first white men were to see or opinion, and is just another "yarn", not enter the Upper Sprague River Valley is to be considered as authentic Klamath unknown. However, documented history Country histo ry. records many near misses by exploring and trapping parties, some of whose During early May of 1846, Capt. John members probably did enter the valley, C. Fremont, with Kit Carson as guide, but if so it is unknown. Following is a once more entered the Klamath Country brief chronology of some of these parties: to circle Upper Klamath Lake, entering The Hudson's Bay Company party and leaving the basin via Tule Lake. led by Finan McDonald and Thomas During his stay here he had a battle with McKay who penetrated south from the the Indians on Williamson River. near the Columbia River in the early fall of 1826, present U.S. Highway 97 crossing. as far as the neighborhood of present day Joel Palmer, Superintendent of Indian Chiloquin on Williamson River where Affairs for Oregon, according to his Sprague River unites with the former. Pocket Diary of 1854, traveled up the The Hudson's Bay Company Fur Bri­ Deschutes River from the Warm Springs gade of Peter Skene Ogden, who late in Indian Reservation into the Klamath 1826 also traveled south from the Colum­ Country in mid-August of that year. How bia River to arrive near present Chiloquin long he remained or where he went is on December 6th (5th). He continued unknown at present.

-I- Lt. R.S. Williamson, who was attached Two citizens and one soldier were wound­ to the Pacific Railroad party, accompan­ ed. After the fight, LL Davis with his ied by Lt. Phillip H. Sheridan, traveled party returned forty miles to Allen's through the Klamath Country from south camp. Col. Drew sent a guard and am­ to north in 1855. by a route appro1limat­ bulance after the wounded. Considerable ing present U.S. Highway 97. trouble is anticipated." G.H. Abbott.lndian Agent for Oregon. Next, as previously printed in Klamath paid a visit to the Klamath Country. Echoes No. 9 for 1971. "Col. Drew probably in 1857, when it is told be opened up a new line of travel from Fort concluded treaties with the Klamaths and Klamath, via Sprague River, Drew's Valley Modocs. lf so. he may have traveled up (named for Col. Drew) and around the Sprague River as far as Council Butte. northern end of Goose Lake to the Apple­ This. however. is highly speculative. gate Trail which crossed over the Warner According t~ the History of Central Mountains at Fandango Pass. He was at Oregon, 1905, * * * considerable travel the time conducting a train of seven to the John Day country mines crossed wagons (Richarson's) from Shasta Valley Sprague River Valley toward Sycan and who were headed for the John Day mines. Silver Lake in both 1861 and 1862. The entire group made its way across There is documented evidence that a Southeastern Oregon south of Steen's party of miners traveling from Shasta Mountain to Ft. Boise. where the Oregon Valley, via Sheep Rock, to Canyon City Trail was intercepted. Drew and his men under the leadership of John W. King then retraced their steps but by-passed passed across Sprague River, then known their route through Fandango Pass to as Martin's River, in the spring of 1863 reach their outward bound route at the (Yreka Union, April 13. 1864). north end of Goose Lake (near present In 1864 a General R.M. Martin trailed Lakeview. Oregon). On rejoining their old some 300 bead of cattle and seven wagons trail, they found it u·aveled by the 1864 from Shasta Valley to Canyon City and emigrants bound for Rogue River Valley. beyond. He left Table Rock May 19th, Thus another by-pass of the Applegate arriving at Canyon City July 1st, crossing Trail was inaugurated." "Martin's River", (now Sprague Ri ver) The following is from the Oregon His­ enroute. One wonders if "Martin's River" torical Quarterly. March. 1959: "The was named for this man on this or some Oregon Central Military Road Company previously uruecorded trip-? was organized in Eugene in April, 1864 Shortly thereafter Col. C.S. Drew for the purpose of constructing a road started on an expedition from Fort Klam­ southeast from Eugene by way of the ath to the Owyhee River country near Middle Fork of the WiUamette River and the Idaho line. The Sacramento Daily the most feasible pass in the Cascade Union of July 6. 1864 in part records Mountains near Diamond Peak. and from this trip: "A letter from Fort Klamath. there to the eastern boundary of Oregon dated June 28th says: An expedition near the southeastern corner of the state. under Col. Drew were exploring a route The road was to be suitable for pack to Owyhee, and staned from that place trains, wagons and other conveyances. that morning. The expedition numbers and for military transportation. lf deemed from 80 to 100 men. necessary by the incorporators. a railroad "Another letter dated June 30th, 28 could be constructed along the same miles from the fort, says: W.J. AJien, route. just arrived, repons John Richarson's "Part of the route of the military road train from Shasta valley. numbering 23 up the canyon of the Middle Fork of the men. 8 or I 0 women and 7 wagons, was Willamette had been surveyed in 1864 attacked by Indians ncar Silver Lake, 85 and construction work was in progress by miles from here. Lt. Davis from Fort June. 1865. Creek. with I 0 men. fell in with them "Byron J. Pengra, superintendent of just before the attack. The fight ensued. construction on the Oregon Central Mill-

-2- tary Road. * * * B.J. Pengra. the chief of " * * * Not many days since 1 mount­ the surveying party. * * * ., ed a tOugh £ndian pony early one morning Lt. John M McCall was in charge of and started for Yainax. Our road lay at the military escort of 48 men. 19 citizens first over graceful ridges peopled with and 7 5 pack horses which left Eugene on lordly pines and soon came down to the July 17. 1865. Sprague Ri,er (written by banks of Williamson River which we that name in McCall' journal while en­ crossed \\here the valley was narrow and camped at Spring Creek on August 7th} surmounted another pine clad ridge that was reached the next day. August 8th. formed a narrow divide between it and Camp wa establbhed probably at Council the waters of Sprague River. Then for Buue on the 9th, where Pengra signed a miles. at a slow pace, we traversed a rocky treaty with Pelina (Paulina--- Editor) on canyon by a rough Indian trail. past the 13th. On the 20th the escort was bluffs at one place where the cliff is divided, McCall with Pengra following pierced by great. hollow caves, high up. up the North Fork of Sprague River and and under the shadow of it in one place the Sycan River toward Silver Lake, the banging wall made a cavernous sheller Summer Lake and onward to Alvord whose smoke stained roof told that it had east of Steen's Mountain. Surveyor Odell been for all known time an Indian camp­ with Capt. Kelly proceeded along Drew's ing place. All along this canyon we went return route of the year before, easterly past rocks piled up and made in to walls up the South Fork of Sprague River and and I learned that these were fortifica­ one of its tributaries. lsh Tish Creek. tions, antecedents of those made by the On his return from Steen's Mountain, Modocs in their defense of the stronghold McCall reached present Round Grove on in the lava beds. At this place the rapids State ~ighway 140 east of Bly on Sept­ and eddies of the river made an eligible ember 7th. After laying over one day site for a fi hery. and in old times the they continued westward, finding n new, Klamaths would be camped on the north less rocky. road than the old Drew route side pursuing their vocation and the across Dcvil's Gnrdcn. crossing the South hostile Snakes would creep down through Fork of Sprague River one mile above the rocks and timber on the ~outh and the present Sprague River Recreation attack them. The e walls and redoubts area camp ground. were put there many years ago to serve On September lith. McCall's party the purpose of defen e and many n left Sprague River after crossing the savaoe battle scene must have been en­ Sycan River. and took a ne"' route to the acted there since those rocks were piled. northwest. toward Klamath Mar\h that There has been no one to pull them down later approximated the Oregon Central and time moves them \ery slowly: they Military Road. From Klamath Marlth. will stand there as long as the generations McCaiJ made his way to Fort Klamath. of the Klamaths last to point 1 o the ac­ arriving there September 17th. Dunng the years of 1864 and 1865 tions of the past, and today Klamath~ and Snakes dwell together on the same reserve traffic became so heavy over rhe various routes through Sprague River Valley that and pass them by in peace. it would become monotonous to repeat " Farther up Sprague River. and fair the numerous comings and goings of the meadows encamp upon its borders and their arms reach around the hill points many wayfarers. and clasp the pine groves in a green em­ Sprague River Valley as i 1 appeared in brace. Here and there springs of cold 1873 is well described by Samuel A. clear water bubble up out of the hillsides Clarke in his Chapter 17, "Yainax". and flow off to make more vivid the em­ written while covering the Modoc War erald of the meads they wander through. as correspondent for the New York Times. We come to a higher ridge that reaches Clark was a newspaper man. poet, busi­ back from shore to mountain, named ness man and historian. {See Klamath 'Mahogany' for it is covered with the County Museum Research Paper No. 2, mountain mahogany ~o much used for by B.K. Swartz. Jr.) -3- fancy work in California, a dwarfed and looked down upon great gatherings held scraggly but valuable wood. nearly as in times when peace dwelt all along the den e as ebony. Beyond that lie the eastern border of the Cascade range. Yainax portion of the Sprague Ri ver From the Columbia River southward to valley. broadened and beautiful in com­ the head waters of the Sacramento. the parison with any region we have yet seen tribes seem to generally have maintained in all Modoc and Klamath land. Opposite peaceful relations, Sometimes the Snakes us, across the river to the south. is a were friendly also but the Klamaths and saddle shaped mountain. the highest por­ Modocs raided into the Pitt River and ti on of the divide between Great Klamath the Shasta and Rogue River country and Lake and Sprague River on the north and sometimes warred on the Snakes and Lost River and the cluster of lakes to the made captives that were traded off, many south, also the divide between the country of them, to northern tribes. and they heretofore occupied by Modocs and Klam­ received from them many things in ex­ aths. This mountain is viewed with rever­ change of civilized manufacture that had ence and stands on the boundary line a~ not yet found their way into the lake one of the favorite resorts of the Supreme regions. The tribes met under the shad­ Being to whom those who speak the ows of Yainax to barter and trade and Modoc language offer prayers. It is the chase the hours away in the recital of belief of all of them that if any man their deeds and to exhibit the scalps shall go to that summit and do some and spoils taken on the war path. The sncriligious or defiling act that he will be Warm Springs Indians came down to the stricken dead. Jake country to buy slaves, to purchase "Before us in the distance the valley skins and furs and trade horses. The Pitt is much wider and on its surf.lcc several Rivers were the armorers of those day buttes, independent mountains that stand and such bows and arrows as they made by them elves disconnected. One of them of yew and sinew no English bow ever we reach fir t is crested with volcanic rivalled. not even tho e wielded by bold ledges that jut out like huge excrescences Robin Hood and his merry archer men. from some giant head: beyond that again Modocs came and Snakes and Klamaths we have toward the river another such. were there and Indians came from the and then Yainax is a mountain that Columbia River with all the airs of seems to have risen amid the valley experienced foreign traders. The glory of meadows and stands there a monument Yainax is gone. but its legends are pre­ to tell legends of the past, of the time served in Indian annals. when no Indian farms were fenced in at "Gambling and feasting are events its base and before John Littlejohn. the that invariably accompany an aboriginal Yahooskin. had built his cabin on the gathering. They have a passion for games we tern slope. We stop at the agency of chance that equals the infatuation of buildings by the lukewarm spring and more civilized men. The manipulation of watch Yainax from a distance and while a small piece of hardwood was a frequent the sun is setting in the clouded west we subject of betting. One performer takes listen to the legend of the past. the stick in hand. chant the while a sing­ "The word Yainax means 'The Moun­ song tone in which the circle joins. and tain.' All around are mountains as far as throws it from hand to hand with great eye can see; this is but a valley butte, a dexterity. The better watches the game mere hill that lends its clearcut ridge to until both bands are held up to let him be a foreground to snowy ranges a hun­ choose. At that instant the chant ceases dred miles away. but in the past there and the gambler indicates which hand were associations that made Yainax the holds the wood and opens either to show histone mountain of all the lake region. that he ha lost or won. Then the chant Here. in this valley around the ba e of recommences with a derisive burst at the Yainax was a great meeting place of many expen e of the lo-;er and the linle joker tribes and the rugged butte has often flies again from hand to hand. The game is more honest than some modern ones yond and the women and children the Indians have learned since they have watched the performance from without. got an insight into the history of the All were circling and dancing with might Kings but it was one some were peculiarly and main and the scene was wild and adept at and throve upon as successfully savage beyond description. Here were toilets, too, that displayed all the ability as enlightened congressmen do on poker of the Indians for elaboration and orna­ and faro. ment. On the outside of the great circle "At Yainax they mer and gambled the chiefs occupied elevated booths where with such ardor that it was nothing won­ they superintended the revels and occas­ derful if some fervent devotee was re­ ionally made speeches. When a chief duced to a breech clout and went home would rise to speak the great clamour footsore. Horses were freely lost and would hush and all would listen while he won and when the excitement of the poured forth Lhe similes and figu.rative game grew high it might be that a passages that make Indian oratory so favorite slave or captive was put up as a eloquent and forcible, and when be would close, a great yell of approbation would stake to win all back or leave him love­ rise on the evening air and the dances lorn at her loss as well as otherwise would go on with renewed vigor. impecunious. They were like other gamb­ lers and the drum beat and chant would "And there was much matchmaking going on at Yainax during the times be heard until morning sometimes. Cap­ that these great gatherings were being tain Jack states that his boy had been held. Coy damsels and young warriors gambling all night before the battle of met there for the first time and ogled November 28 on Lost River. Some Mo­ each other through ever so many coats docs of old Sconchis' band, at Yainax. of paint, and belles were introduced 1 o had been over to Lost River on the society at their first season with as much gambling bout and made a night of it. solicitude as mammas are afflicted with "And at Yainax in the olden times elsewhere. The tribes that met at Yainax they held great dances and made great intermarried frequently and it was a great stroke of policy for the families of medicine. AI night fires would gleam on chiefs to form such alliances as would the sides of the butte and light up the strengthen the family pride and increase valley at its base. Other fires would glow its prestige. Many a romance of Indian in the center of the circling dancers and story has Yainax witnessed and if the their gay trappings would seem barbaric secrets that are treasured and hid in its and savage beyond description. Deer safe breast were but at my hand to write skin cloaks trimmed with quiUs and I could indite a more romantic Indian beads. war plumes waving from fur head h.istory than has been written since the pieces and faces made hideous with all days of the Incas. the elaboration of paint. Sometimes one At times too, ill blood would be a­ roused at Yai.nax. Gambling quarrels tribe would dance and the rest look on, sometimes arose, for barbarous nations and there would be one grand carnival are no berter than the rest of us and when aU would join and make the valley there have been instances where the of Yainax echo to the chorus of a thou­ differences that arose there had to be sand chanting voices and the thousands submitted to the arbitrament of war. of stamping feet. and medicine drums settled by the bow and arrow and the would make a dinning accompaniment to scalping knife. These quarrels were ha.lf the grand performance. At these united the time, no doubt, caused by some woman. for there never yet was much dances willows would be planted to en­ trouble in this world without a woman circle half an acre and the dance would go at the bottom of it. on within. 1n the center the chief warriors "Such was Yainax in the olden time mimicked the scenes of the war path, and 1 have broken off the thread of my crept upon the victim, or lay in ambush narrative for awhile to describe the place, to hurl swift arrows and then use the rich with historic associations to which scalping knife. Other warriors occupied the old Chief Sconchis wished to win his ibe nearer circle, old men and boys be- erring tribe." -5- Yainax Sub Agency, looking west: Left, Matron's house, Yainax school, office and barn. Right, in foreground, the jail which served Spink <11 his first store and post YAINAX

As early as 1849 certain citizens of the Following the founding of Fort Klam­ WiUametre Valley of Oregon proposed to ath it was nearly a year, on October 14, treat with the indians and purchase lands 1864 in fact, before a treaty was signed from them in the Klamath Country. between J.W. P. Huntington. then Super· Therefore during the ensuing years many intendent of Indian Affairs for Oregon, complaints were raised against the "thiev­ and the Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin ing propensities" of the Klamath Country Snake Indians. As. a result these tribes Indians. Finally in August, 1854. Joel agreed to relinquish their claims to a Palmer. Superintendent of £ndian Affairs large portion of Southeastern Oregon for Oregon made his visit, previously and some of Northern California, and mentioned, into the Klamath Country. enter upon a much smaller reservation He departed feeling "that the Agent for for which act the U.S. Government the Southeastern District of Oregon would furnish them certain supplies and should reside in the vicinity of Klamath services. In addition certain boundaries Lake, and that should the reservation be were supposedly agreed upon as des­ envisaged come into being, a cavalry de­ cribed to both parties through interpret­ tachment should be posted there." ers, one of whom was Lindsay Applegate. Each year brought new requests and Probably due to a great extent to these efforts to put some such plan into interpretations many misunderstandings effect. At last definite plans to establish and disputes arose in later years, and a military base in this area were an­ were not settled until well into the 1900's nounced. However, instead of building a and often times not satisfactorily even post along the Applegate Trail emigrant then. route, it was erected in Wood River Val­ ley, north of Upper Klamath Lake, where The final terms of the 1864 Treaty Fort Klamath was established in the fall "reached the Interior Department on of 1863. February 24, 1865, too late for Senate -6- office, the new girls' dormitory which later became the Day school. action during the winter session. The plow. axes. wedges and other tools- the treaty. along with verbal amendments of Applegate party arrived at the north end July 2. 1866- supposedly agreed to by of the Upper Klamath Lake on May 12. the Indians over Captain Jacl..\ objec­ 1866. An agency wa then established at tions-was not ratified until December. nearby Kowa ta. where it remained until 1869. Not until February 17. 1870 was the spring of 1868. It was then transferred the treaty formally proclaimed by Wash­ to its pennanent !lite on Agency Creek ington. And, incredibly, not until March near its junction with Crooked Creek. I 4, 1871 - more than six and a half years Due to dissention among the various after the Council Grove pow wow-did Indian tribes on the newly established President U.S. Grant. by Executive reservation. the defection of the Modocs Order, reserve the 768,000-acre tract for under Capt. Jack. and for the benefit of the treaty Indians • * *" the many Indians residing in the Valley In the meantime. the lndians a~ked of Upper Sprague River. a sub-agenc) that Lindsay Applegate. interpreter at was established at Yainax in 1869. the treaty negottauons. be appointed "To keep the peace. Superintendent their agent, which appointment was not A.B. Meacham drew a boundary between made until June 28. 1865. but it was the Snakes and the Klamaths. and ap­ October before instructions and funds pointed the commi~~ary at Yainax. Ivan arrived when Lindsay Applegate and son D. Applegate. in charge of the Snakes O.C. (Oliver) set our for Fort Klamath, and the remaining Modocs. " the temporary headquarters where they Whether the above events took place arrived later that month. However, the earlier in I 869, or at the time of Meach­ treaty not yet being ratified, but little am's visit. is unknown. We do know that. could be done. They left. to return to according to his book Wigwam and War­ their home in the Rogue River Valley. on path. he and his party probably arrived December 3 I st. and it was spring before at "Yai-nax" about mid- ovember. where they were ready to return to the Re~erva­ he recorded: "A lone hut marks the spot. tion to assume their duties. • • • The next morning's sun finds a Leaving A hland about May 1st. with busy camp: every able-bodied man is a four-yoke ox-team and wagonload of ordered to work: trees are falling. axes supplies- including seeds. a breaking plying, and Jog cabins rise in rows. and

-7· Valnax post office in the Wolford and Wann store at the Valnax Sub Agency before 1923. Courtesy Ester Wilson

Erskine Beal, Indian Policeman; Watson Tupper Duffy, Indian Policeman; Jasper Turner Jackson and John George Smith. Courtesy Dibbon Cook

-3- the new home of the Snake Indians be­ lowing information indicates the probab­ gins to appear to the eye a real, tangible le date of a school being founded was thing. sometime in late 1871. "Six days pass, and the smokes from The History of Klamath County fur­ thirteen Indian houses join in procession ther informs us that under date of June and move off eastward, borne by the 8, 1871, Ivan D. Applegate, Commissary breeze that sings and sighs, or howls in in Charge at Yainax Sub-agency, wrote anger among the trees around Yain­ to A.B. Meacham, in response to an nax. * * * " inquiry as to how much "subsistence" Ivan Applegate. the newly appointed would be required by his post during the Sub-Agent, gives a slightly different ver­ year: sion of the founding which is probably '1 have estimated for subsisting at the correct one. In a letrer (National least a portion of the school children and Archives Microfilm) to a brother, dated those Lndians assisting in carrying on the Klamath Agency, Ag. December 15, 1869 schools. My plan would be, first to he in part wrote: '1 am back again Came establish some order and discipline among in a week ago - built 5 houses at YaiNax, the young Indians, to have them spend a left ----- Reub and Alex McKay in portion of each day reciting English charge, while I go with the Supt as far as language, practicing before the black­ Ashland. * * * " board, using the 'picture chans'; then a In writing up the biography of Ivan certain time at work. the girls in making Applegate. the History of Klamath up garments, knitting, etc. AU the houses County, by Rachael Applegate Good in can be built with little cost and kept in 1941, in part states: " * * * Captain repair, furnished witb wood. etc .. by the Applegate returned to his occupation as scholars. J think the school house ought a stockman. and with his brother, Lucien, to be quite large and well ventilated, and with whom he was associated, removed during the win ter season, as the children to the Swan Lake Valley in rhe Klamath advance, the older Indians should be country, establishing their homes and required to auend a certain number of business there in 1869. In the same year, days each week. By this plan I would Captain J.D. Applegate became assistant hope not only to educate the rising gener­ to A.B. Meacham, Superintendent of ation. but. by a very gradual process, Lndian Affairs in Oregon, and with him greatly to improve the present pitiable negotiated a satisfactory peace with some condition of the parents. In this connec­ of the bands of Paiute Lndians who had tion 1 would say that one year ago I terrorized Northeastern Oregon for many selected four Indian boys and kept them years, and conducted Chief Ocheho. one about the Agency in order to teach them of the best known of the Paiute war our language, teach them the use and chiefs, with his band, to the Yainax sub value of domestic animals, tools, etc.; agency on the Klamath Reservation, a this project has been crowned with the station which Captain Applegate had most flattering results. AU the boys established and where, until near the understand and speak our language very time of the Modoc outbreak, he con­ well, milk the cows, drive teams, cut ducted the affairs of the Sprague River wood, and in fact have a very correct Klamatbs, Paiutes, and a large division of idea about all kinds of work, and will be the Modoc tribe under the loyal Chief of great value as assistants in the school." Schonchin. * * * ·· [And no doubt would be of great assist­ Although the office of Indian Affairs ance to the Sub-agent. himself-Editor.j once wrote on May I 0. I 940: "The first The above mentioned communication school established on the Klamath Reser­ from the Lndian office also stated that vation was at Yainax in 1865," the the Yainax Boarding School opened in statement is quite obviously a mistake. 1882 with 31 pupils; and that tbe attend­ We have now shown the sub-agency was ance increased until in 1897, for instance, not established until late 1869, and fol- when there were 110 pupils enrolled. -9- Ninety Years of Klamath Schools records Regarding Yainax. the History of Cen­ that Laura Alice Alvord taught there in tral Oregon. 1905. tells us that "Ivan the 'SO's later marrying Judge Levi F. Applegate was in charge of this ub­ WiUets of Klamath Falls. agency until the summer of 1871. With In the reservation schools. the children one white assistant he built a few log were fed. clothed. schooled. and trained buildings, organized an Indian police in manual arts for ten months of each force, fenced some land and raised a crop year without cost to their parents. Holi­ of grain the summer of 1870, with the day!> were observed with progress, parties. aid of the Indians. During the summer of or picnics, as the season suggested; 1871 about twenty log cabins were Christmas was always a big occasion, erected at the sub-agency for the Indians. with a tree and gifts for everyone. The and other improvements were made. O.C. course of instruction corresponded 1 o Applegate then took charge." about the first six grades of our public In a recent ( 1971 ) book, Modoc War school : promising pupils were sent 1 o by Erwin F. Thompson. the following more advanced government boarding is recorded; " Ivan and his brother, Oliver. schools, such as those at Chemawa, had assisted their father, Lindsay Apple­ Phoenix and Carlisle. Attendance at the gate, when he was agent for the reserva­ reservation boarding schools was compul­ tion. Ivan knew the Indians and their sory, and those pupils who were not problems well and, possessing the char­ voluntarily brought in by their parents acteristic abilities of hi s prominent family, the first of September were "rounded proved to be a capable administrator of up" by Indian policemen. Subsequently the eastern Indians. Acting almost as an the policy of the department changed. independent agent. he was to maintain and during the period from 1908 to 1910 his special position at Yainax through the five day schools (the term used to indicate administrations of Knapp. John Meach­ they were not boarding schools) were am, High, and Dyar (All Indian Agents at opened in Sprague River Valley: Klamath Agency- Editor). Alfred Meach­ Day School No. I . wa~ probably that am (A.B .). assuming the Modocs would located at Yainax after the boarding trust Ivan, hoped this reorganization school ceased to operate. would encourage Captain Jack to return Day School No. 2. was located exactly to the reservation. But Jack was far too two miles due west of present Beatty. but disenchanted to live again near the Klam­ was later moved to Beauy at a cost 1 o aths. the county of about $1.500. It was then "A few writers have mistakenly con­ located about one fourth mile due north cluded that Oliver Applegate was the of the Beauy StOre. It was later sold to special commissary in charge at Yainax. Frank Schmidt. It was not known al> a Oliver did help the \arious agents from day school after being moved to Beatty. time to time and at the outbreak of the Day School No. 3, wa located four war was in charge of the Modocs on the miles due north of Beatty at Piute Camp. reservation. Ivan Applegate lost Captain It may have run up to 1he 1932-34 Jack's favor in 1871 when he caused a perjo

Old Yalnax, looking west on the main street or road, whichever. Left to right: Doctor's house, Matron's house, Yainax School, offioe and bam. Dark building In right fore­ ground, the jail, at one time Spink's first store and at another the home of Dibbon Cook. Courtesy Ester Wilson

-J :!- business in the government jail. We lived muslin, hair ribbons, cheep childrens' in a large upstairs room of the old board­ shoes, bright silk bandana scarfs for ing school building. This was convenient women, neck-ker-chiefs for buckaroos. as mother was employed at the school hard candy, gum drops. a couple of grab for a time as teacher and the little boy's bags, a few overalls, cotton shins. stock­ matron. Later we transferred to a two ings. socks, and certainly coffee and tea. family government house which we shared All for $300. A dollar went an awfuUy with a young couple [Hamilton- Editor], long way in those days. the Industrial teacher and his wife.*** "The entire stock was sold by mid­ afternoon and he was out of business. "Part 2. Yainax was stretched out Father hired two wagons and two heavy along the main thoroughfare from Klam­ teams from Joe Coburn and Tom Barkley, ath Agency. A passage of bottomless mud brothers-in-law. He took out for Klamath in winter and a repletion of dust in sum­ Falls that evening to freight back more mer. from one rounding hillock across a merchandise. Fred Schallock and Claude half mile depression covered by sagebrush, Daggett furnished him this emergency greasewood and scrub pine, to another. order and others as well so that he could The hillocks nestled against higher rocky continue in business until the store was hills surmounted by an ascending forest. finished and his original order from the The main buildings, office aod most of wholesale house in Portland and Sacra­ the dwellings were o n the upper or forest mento arrived. side of the road. A residence or two, the barns, jail and later the new day school "Our living apartment of four rooms were on the lower or field side. Water and outside plumbing was built beside was furnished from wells on top of each and connected to the store. No sooner of the two bills and a large spring down had we moved in. gotten straightened by the barn. The settlement had a stark around. open for business, successfully appearance as it faced barren Yainax drilled and brought in a deep cold well Butte, overlooking gray sagebrush flats provided with a convenient water bucket beyond the fields. A small clover lawn and a watering trough for stock, when graced the front of the school buildings almost overnight, a tOwn mushroomed with a flag pole in the center, around up outside our fence. These teepee, which the school children played. The shacks and sod buts housed the fami lies only time that there was a general sem­ of school children of those that yearned blance of softness and beauty was when for more urban surroundings. Within a the grain and hay fields were growing and year there must have been twenty five ripening. dwellings sponed among the sagebrush and scrub pines. A gate in the fence and "On the first day of school, in early a path to our well solved the problem of September of 190 I, Father opened his a water supply for drinking and sanitation new venture in a small building across for the growing population. the main road from th e boarding schooL It had been built and used as a jail but "Some of the children lived with their since it was empty most of the time the parents in the make shift village and were government rented it to him as a tempor­ pupils at the school. * * * ary accommodation for a store until the permanent building being erected on the " * * Knott Egbert, the sub-agent * * opposite hillock, entering town from the "Mr. Egbert was absorbed in his work west was completed. and sincerely concerned as to the ultimate "On opening day the small building destiny of the Indians on the Klamath was crowded with as much stock as it reservation; bur as be was a man with could hold. It consisted of flour, sugar. strong convictions about pursuing certain bacon, beans, lard, some canned goods. policies, he met wi tb some opposition dried fruit, crackers, yard goods, bright and was eventually transferred to a reser­ calicos. outing flannel for underwear, vation on the Coast. * * *

-l 3- "Mother substituted as teacher and gradually opening up to the white people matron everal times, taught a Sunday in various ways; leasing Indian lands. School Class and played the organ for buying lndian cattle, some small sales of church as she had done at Klamath Indian timber. improvements being built Agency. By substituting, she kept her on Indian farms, beuer housing. barns, a seniority rights in the Service in effect. higher scaJe of living for the Indian people Father did the same thing after the store requiring more of the white man's merch­ was established. He hired Frank Apple­ andise. The railroads were surveying for gate for his clerk and manager. During the best location to build their lines to the next few years be was away from bring out and process the vast timber time to time. filling appointments as resources of the country. All augered for Chief clerk or assistant superintendent. a great era of prosperity. No doubt a new town would spring up some where "Lyda Williams was the daughter of on the reservation. A large mill town and the agricultural director, or Farmer to the he would transfer there. That is exactly Indians. He advised and demonstrated what happened in 1915. how to cultivate their farms and improve the quality of their livestock. • * * "Yainax moved to Sprague River but it was Wolford and Wann who moved "In driving to Bonanza for the day or the store there, having bought father out on our way to Klamath Falls. we always in 1910. Ben Wolford platted the town stopped at the Whiskey Creek Saw Mill of Sprague River, and the partners built to eat lunch with Dad Kimbrough. He the first building. Thus father vacillated wa the sawyer, a lean, tall Texan whose from one career to another for six castle was a two room rough lumber years. * * * shack be ide the mill. * * •

"Father was swayed between two "A pnm111ve telephone service from ambitions. First, to stay in the Indian Klamath Agency to Yainax and various Service, making it his career and trying other points on the reservation including to advance as far as possible. So far he the Whiskey Creek Sawmill. was con­ had done quite well, as his last appoint­ structed by stringing and auaching wire ments had been Assistant Superintendent to the trees in the timber and on spindling and prospects of obtaining a full Superin­ lodge poles across clearings. This was an tendency were in the near future. But exclusive inter-reservation system, with after that, what? As an Inspector, he the exception of one or two individuals would be required to do a lot of travelling being allowed to connect up to it. William away from home and family. with the Crawford. at hi s Big Springs Ranch about remote possibility that some day he might half way between the Agency and Yainax, be promoted to a supervisory position in was one of these. Thi was as much for the Regional Office or in Washington D.C. the convenience of the reservation em­ at a comparative low salary. Then there ployees. fire wardens. policemen. doctor, was always the inter-department politics. or field matron; whomever might be in The higher on advanced in the Indian that area, as it was for their own personal Service the more vulnerable he became. use. Second, to continue on with the store in Yainax. The store was successful to date and probably would be until such time "Before starting on our journey we as when the school would be discontin­ always considerately called Dad Kim­ ued. Then the business would no doubt brough to warn him of our company at move elsewhere. Back to Klamath Agency meal time and 1 o ask him if there was perhaps, where he had been considering anything he wanted us t o bring him. I another enterprise. The reservation was thought of him as an old man then but

-14- as I look back I don't beHeve he was much metal plates. heavy handles and diamond over forty. As he Jived a lonely bachelor' and rosette shaped ornaments in siher life and sometime saw no one for days. finish. be always seemed glad to have guests. "A funeral was a momentous event for an Indian family, as a vast amount of food was prepared and erved to the "When entering into the clearing and large crowd, which always allended for approaching the mill we could usually most of the day. The cost generally hear him singing at the top of his voice, amounted to several hundred dollars and smell the ham frying and knew that there for some of the more prosperous, nearer was a big pan of bi cuits baking in the to two thousand. This was o ne time when oven. credit might be extended on a long term ba is. • • • "Be ide conducting a Public Utilit) (water senice) for Shack Town. the of­ "Frank Riddle, the white husband of ficial po t office was in the store for Winema, seemed so much older than she. several years. Joe Coburn had the con­ to me. As 1 remember him his hair and tract 1 o carry the U.S. mail from Bonanza mustache were almost white and he was to Yainax. When the boarding school was the distinct, spare, frontiersman type. abandoned the Post Office was vacated. They lived on the upper end of the Then it wal> up to some of the remaining reservation and came to Yainax store frequently. employees to pick up the mail whenever they went to Bonanza and bring it back. A the alphabetical pigeon-hole section "Winema. because of her fame for remained in the store the mail was bravery and sagacity. quite over-shadowed her husband Frank. However he seemed brought there for distribution. People content to remam in the background, still called for it there and posted their proud of the respect and recognition that out-going letters. she received from her own people as well as from the whites. She posse>scd a kind. "Father also performed some of the strong face and a friendly reserved de­ services of an undertaker. Funeral caskets meanor. To us children ,he was a demi­ were standard merchandise in his stod. god and we regarded her with no little and he became quite proficient and artb­ awe. whispering to each o ther when she tic in 'trimming' them. They were \LOred passed or came near. 'Oh! there goes and displayed on the second noor of the Winema!' * * * building. Tho ~e for adults were polished walnut. mahogany and imitation ebon) "Jeff Riddle. the son and I think the fini h. The childrens' caskets were covered only child of Frank and Winema Riddle, with a white or pale pink cloth resemb­ was married to an Indian woman whom ling silk brocade. They were all padded I do not remember. However. she could with cotton batting. overlaid by imitation have been a Schonchin. a.~ many of the white satin or sateen. The pillow was of Sconchins claim Winema as their direct ancestor. Jeff Riddle'1. children were hand­ the same material. Upon special request, some progeny. The girls as I remember a long extra pad was made for the bottom were: May, Birdie and Minerva. Of the of the casket. This was bound around the boys. l recall Simeon and Bidwell. May edge by a silk cord and decorated with was married to Ralph Jackson. the neer­ corner tassels. as was the head pillow. do-weU son of Henry Jackson. a former Mother always made these and the shroud Pitt Ri\'er sla\'e who at this time was of heavy white china silk. Father em­ considered the wealthiest Indian on the belli~hed the exterior of the coffin with reservation. Ralph also died of tuber-

-15- culosis, which took a high toll of the especially the women, to come to the Indian people for many years. This was store to lay in upplies was a social event while they were making the transiuon as well as a business trip. They arrived from their snug sod and skin covered early in the morning, situated themselves air tight houses to the ones like white near the stove if the weather was un­ people; built of thin, warped and green pleasant, or sat on the store porch in the lumber, that shrank and left large cracks sunshine and visited with friends whom in the walls and floor. The icy winds and they hadn't seen for months. They never snow blew through, chilling the inhab­ brought any lunch or goods with them itants and causing them to catch colds but indulged in a repast similar to the one and pneumonia which they seldom, if listed above. The women, when they ever, had before. Then contracting the hopped. bought their individual pur­ dreaded and fatal 'consumption', * • * chases one item at a time and paid for "The vocation of freighting was a good it. Then after a half an hour's conversa­ source of income for many of the Indian tion would pick out and buy something teamsters who hauled freight for the else. This way they prolonged their stores at 1% per pound in the outlying pleasure and since they bad plenty of towns and trading posts, as well as for time to spend. they might as well spend firms in Klamath Falls. These freighters it in this way. On a chilly day the store were, as a whole, dependable and careful would get pretty crowded at times and of their cargo. They usually drove four the air prelly pungent as well. * * • horses pulling two wagons. Sometimes six horses were used if the roads were " * * * In 1906. when he was assistant difficult and the trip an extra long one superintendent under Mr. Chalcraft at or the wagons over loaded. Some wagons Chemawa he received word that his father were covered with heavy canvas, but not had died in Georgia and Uncle Bernard as a rule. They hauled from Hornbrook. must return to assist grandmother. This Medford. Ashland. and from the ever left the Yainax store without a respons­ changing terminals of Pokegama, Ager ible manager. Mother said !.he would man­ and Thrall. It was a long hard trip and age the Yainax store for the time being. sometimes perilous over Topsy Grade. Now was the time for father to decide on It was an anxious, heart thumping time at opening up another store in Klamath best, when vehicles and teams met and Agency and going back there to operate had to pass on this high narrow road. it as he had planned to many times. "Johnny and Homer Hutchinson were "He made a clean break. He resigned two good freighters: energetic, as a rule permanently from the Indian Services steady. good natured. but somewhat gar­ thereby relinquishing aU seniority rights rulous. I was always right on the spot and he returned to the Agency establish­ when they brought their wagons in and ing a mercantile busines~ there and set­ unloaded them, for they had lots to tell tling in Klamath. * * * us about 'The Falls' and where ever else they had been. "Father had already decided to open a second store at Klamath Agency. This "Another freighter was Dick Brown. would require his full time as well as He, too, was a good conversationalist mothers: for it wa!. decided that she and he often bro'ught Gertie, his daughter, would operate the Yainax s tore for a­ with him. We would have a long time to while. He turned in his final resignation play while Dick was unloading his goods. at Chemawa Training School. where he Mama would ask her to eat lunch with was assistant superintendent. Tbey left me. Rarely she accepted, for I think she me in the Sacred Heart Academy in preferred canned sardines or salmon. soda Salem and he and mother turned back to crackers. wedges of cheese and peaches Klamath for the last time. never to leave speared on a pocket knife, to our hot it again. They proceeded to build the new fare. For many of the Indian people, store at Klamath Agency.

-16· • • • One summer day around Gatschel. in Dictionary of the Klamath 1907-1908. as was inevitable. an automo­ Language(1890). uses the name Yainaga bile appeared in Yainax. containing two for the butte. Yainaga is the diminutive passengers. One was an executive of the of yaina, meaning bill or mountain. For JJ. Hill Railroads and his driver. * • • many years the butte has been officially " The so called highway through Yain­ known as Council Butte, and the Yainax ax was a main road from Klamath Falls, Butte became transferred to a mountain around the east side of the Upper Lake with an elevation of 7226 feet, about I 2 through Klamath Agency across the reser­ rniles to the southeast. The name Council vation to Yainax, veering to Bonanza and Butte had its origin in the council held Bly, then on to Lakeview and Alturas, at the little butte when a treaty was California. A Trail of Biuerness' for the signed between the whites and certain reluctant Modocs, as was shown by their Snake tndians on August 12, 1865. subsequent revolt; over which they travel­ Government surveyors used the name ed to despair and resentment when they Council Butte in 1866 when they sur­ were transported from their expansive veyed the town hip. During the past few homelands in the fertile Lost River Valley years efforts have been made by some of and familiar hunting and fishing grounds the older residents of the county to have of the Lava Beds near Tule Lake, in the name Yainax returned to the little Northern California to be isolated in the butte near Yainax community, but it forbidding forests and rocky bills of was not considered practicable to do so Yainax and the Sycan. • * * because the name Council Butte had "The first reservation telephone lines been so long in use by some of the were built about 1907 and 1908 under government bureaus." the supervision of an Indian Service em­ ployee by the name of Clark Terry. His It would seem to this writer that this po ition was an itinerant one, for he is another flagrant example of a govern­ ment agency arbitrarily disregarding and moved from one reservation to another sening aside an ages old, sacred fndian to install or revise telephone systems. • * name and substituting one of their own. "When he returned to the Klamath the choosing of which had but liule reservation in 1918 to make extension significance. and revisions to the system he resided The council and treaty of August 12, here for some time. meanwhile marrying 1865 referred to, was bet ween J.W. a local young teacher who was part Perit Huntington, Superintendent of In­ Klamath. Then twin daughters were born dian Affairs for Oregon, 1863 to 1869. in 1920 but one died soon after birth and and one "Pel ina (Paulina- Editor) rep­ is buried in the Henry Jackson Cemetery resenting, as of August I 01 h. 1865 "23 on the hill behind the Sub-agency and all told in. some more yet to come" school. However, there was just a day Snake Indians who had not signed the school functioning here at that time." October 14. 1864 Council Grove treaty (The End.) near Fort Klamath.

The above described "Yainax Bune" is situated exactly five miles due east of Furthermore the "Government sur­ the town of Sprague River and according veyors" of 1866 probably knew little of to Oregon Geographic Names, ( 1952), is Indian tradition and custom, and cared described as follows: less. All they knew was to use the white "COUNCIL BUTTE. This butte is near man's new name supplied by Lhe big­ Sprague River about two miles from wigs at Fort Klamath. Yainax. The United States Board of Geo­ This writer. personally. feels that the graphical Names adopted the name Coun­ name Yainax should be restored to this cil Buue in 1927, thus bringing to an end little butte standing out by itself in the a controversy of many years standing. Sprague River Valley.

-17- Looking north in Bly from the old Forest Service tower about May 14, 1934. The old Reed hall at left, once the entertainment center of Bly. BLY Who the fLTSI wllite settler in the veyed by Mr. Mercer. of Corvallis. He Upper Sprague Ri ver Valley. or Bly submitted his map to the Indians at that vicinity was, cannot be ascertained posi­ time. They then claimed that be had not tively. It seems reasonable to assume that included all the land which they had no settlement was made prior to 1870, supposed was reserved to them in the and probably not for another year or so. treaty. His survey cut off a portion of Sican [Sycan-Editor] valley and the The reason for tllis seems to be quite whole upper portion of Sprague river obviou . The History of Central Oregon , valley. The Indians declared that all tllis 1905. page 937. records: "At the period country bad been included in the tract the original treaty with the Klamath reserved as they had agreed upon in Indians was made the reservation had not making the treaty; but Mr. Mercer could been surveyed. the boundaries being de­ not ftnd it so in the treaty. The Indians scribed by what were supposed to be well then insisted that it was not written as defined topographical features. This tlley understood it: bu 1 the Mercer survey treaty was signed in 1864. accepted by was accepted and ratified by the govern­ the Indians and ratified by the govem­ ment Thus the whole land business and ment. But when a survey of the reserva­ settlement of Kl amath County conformed tion was made it was found to be a diffi­ to the survey as placed upon the records. cult task to locate the boundaries; this The difference between Mercer's reading led to complications wllich were not of the treaty and the version of the settled for many years after. Indians is the question as to what point was to be considered the junction of " In 1870 the described line wa~ sur- 'Asb-tish' creek and Sprague river. The

-J 8- Bly Hotel and Pastime Tavern can be seen. Courtesy U.S.F.S.

From the Forest Service tower, looking east at the extreme southeastern section of Bly and the Pelican Bay Lumber Company railroad extension to their logging camp. Courtesy U.S.F.S.

-19- From the Forest Service tower, looking west, the old Bly grade and high school build· ing, still standing but now unused. Courtesy U.S.F.S.

treaty provided that from a point near the Indians through an interpreter. Neither the head of Klamath marsh th e line he nor th e witnesses to the treaty went should run to 'the point where Sprague over the lioe, and it is oot surprising that river is intersected by 'Ash-tish', or Wax opportunity was Left for future disagree­ creek. Now this creek after emerging ment. The description in the treaty was from its upper and mountainous course, vague and indefinite. and the surveyor. spreads out, somewhat after the fashion Mercer. undoubtedly interpreted it cons­ of Lost river. over a wide nearly level. cientiously and properly. [One wonders. marshy plain, which is called upper did he?--Editor.] Sprague river valley. but does not inter­ "Thus the mauer rested for many sect any other water course until it years. The Indians were dissatisfied with reaches what is called the middle ford of the survey of 1870 and believed that they Sprague river. The surveyor ran a line to were entitled to the whole of Upper this, the first point of intersection with Sprague river valley. as they understood another stream that he could find. and the treaty of 1864. The government hav­ maintained that he could not follow the ing accepted the Mercer survey of I 870, directions and do otherwise. [Therefore leaving out of the reservation the rich the east boundary of the Klamath Indian lands of upper Sprague river val ley, this Reservation became located one mile land was settled upon by whites and west of the old Ivory Pine Road. or what patents to the lands were issued by the is now known as the Camp Six Road­ government. Editor.] The Indians said they considered "At last efforts were made to affect 'Ash-tish' creek as ended where it reached a settlement of the perplexing question. the valley or plain, and that the stream As the representative of the Indians, Mr. thence onward was Sprague river: and Ivan Applegate went to Washington. D.C. . they had intended to keep the whole of where he succeeded in having action upper Sprague river valley. The treaty taken. It was during the second adminis­ was written by Agent Huntington and tration of Grover Cleveland that congress the boundaries were described to him by authorized the appointment of a commis- ·20- sion to investigate and report the claims Muoz (Muntz) of more or less question­ of the Indians. This commissiOn was com­ able character. The Gearharts probably po~ed of William C. Coleman, of Missouri. first settled some two to three miles east Richard R.P. Hammond, of California of present Bly on what is now the 7C and Ivan Applegate. of Oregon. Ranch. once owned by the BeU family. "Upon investigating the case in all its Munz settled on what later became the details the commission found th at the Bloomingcamp Ranch, now known as the treaty provided for the whole of Sprague BK Ranch. river valley to be included in the reserva­ tion; that according to the later surveys a Gearhart Bi ography large portion of that valley had been left out and had been senled by whites; that John W. and Catherine (Brown) Gear­ between 500.000 and 600,000 acres of han lived in Howard County. Missouri. land had thus been denied the rightful Their son James Polk Gearhart was born owners. the Indians. The commission October 14. 1844. Another son. William fixed a value of about 78 cents per acre H. was born Februar) 12. 1847. Possibly on the land and recommended that an another son. Isaac, wa~ born sometime appropriation be granted the Indians in between this latter date. and the date of payment. The report was accepted, but the mother's death in 1851. up to the present time f 1905---Editorj The father, with the remaining mem­ the appropriation has not been granted bers of his family came west across the by congress, although attempts to pass plains by ox-team in 1852 to Benton such a bill are made at nearly every ses­ Couory. Oregon. There they remained sion." until 1858 when they removed to Jose­ The HisiOT)' of Cemral Oregon. page phine County. 941, further states that during the three It is recorded ( Hisrory of Baker, Grant, year proceeding the Modoc War. 1870- Malheur and Hamey Counry. 1902) that 71-72, " ettlement was quite vigorou~ " the father moved to California in 1861. in the Klamath Country. However. in and James Polk to Grant County in 1862. their list of arri' als during these years, later moving to Humboldt. where it is not one name of a later known Sprague assumed. the remainder of the fami ly Ri ver Valley resident was given. Neither then resided. all seemingly engaged in the does the Hisrory of Klamarh Counry, cattle business. 1941, contribute any information as to It is further recorded that William H. who the first settler might have been. came to Kl amath County in 1872, and If there were a few scattered squatters James Polk in 1873, where they soon in the valley before the Modoc War. they after went in to partnership in the caule probably reacted much the same as these business. driving in a band from the in nearby LangeU Valley. mo\ ing to Humboldt country of orthwe tern Cal­ either Linkville (Klamath Falls). or the ifornia. Rogue River Valley. ln support of this lf this information is correct. then taner part referring to Rogue River Val­ William H. Gearhart may well have been ley. Edwin J. Casebeer. long time resident the first settler in the Upper Sprague of the Bly area once wrote: '1 think River Valley. nearly all of the early sertlers of the valley The Gear harts remained in Klamath came from the Rogue River Valley." County until 1882 when they again These people would have left the vicinity moved. this time to Harney County, at the outbreak of the war to return as seuling on the North Fork of the Malheur soon as the Modoc Indians were subdued. Ri ver. James Polk twenty-two miles. and Of the e fir~ I ettlers. two names stand William H. fourteen and one half miles out as being perhaps the earliest to mo'e west of Drewsey (once known as Gouge­ to th11-. territory. the Gearhart family. Eye) Harney County. Oregon. William John W.. William H.. James Polk, and H's house was the first built west of lsaac, or a German. Jacob Fritz ( Fred) Drewsey and was conqructed of juniper -21- logs, Jame Polk assisting in the erection. they were met by eight or ten white men James Polk Gearhart married Margaret led by "FritZ" (Munz- Editor). Well fort­ A. Davis in 1873 and lhey became the ified by whiskey, they left LinkviJJe. wilh parents of live children. the avowed intention of avenging Nus' WiJiiam H. married Agness Durkee on death by seizing the Indians and bringing May 6, 1883 and they were the parents them back to town for hanging. It was of two children. William H. married a immaterial whether they were guilty of second lime, Mrs. Eliza E. (Davis) Met­ any crime. they were Indians and that calf becoming his wife October 29, 1894. was enough. She was the mother of five children by a The Indians overheard talk, became first marrieage. frightened, sneaked out of camp and fled John W. seems to have lived on a part to the hills south of their home at Hot of the present 7C Ranch. James Polk at Creek. Forty-five lnd1ans. of whom at or very near present Bly on Fi hhole least fourteen were warriors. thus joined Creek. and William H. immediately east Jack and his band holed up in the Lava of the present Campbell Road and north Beds. who might otherwi e have remained of the Weyerhaeuser logging road leading peacefuUy situated on Klamath Agency. northeasterly toward Gearhart Mountain, far from the scene of ho tilities. or north across the Weyerhaeuser Road Probably soon after Captain Jack was from the Everett Bell home. An old captured, Munz made his way to the skeleton of a barn stood there unti I re­ Upper Sprague River country and found­ cently. Oddly enough, Klamath County ed his cattle ranch now known as the BK Deed Record books show a Gearhart Ranch, Nearby Fritz Creek was named name but once and that on August 9. for him. 1882 when the State of Oregon deeded One of the favored "yams" told by thi. tract, probably School Land, to old-timers concerned Munz and one of William H. Seemingly the Gearham had hi escapades. Recorded by E.B. Loosley not completed their claims, if any, to the and printed in the £1·enir1g Herald of lands upon which they lived or squatted. August 17, IQ41 on!' of the ver!;iOn!; Therefore they simply relinquished any follows: rights to whoever followed them and "The BK ranch at Bly is one of the that person when title was completed, well known spors in Klamath county and would become the first owner of record. like most old locations there is attached No further information concerning J ohn to it many stories: perhaps one might W. and Isaac Gearhart has been located say the different personalities have left except that small amount which will be their imprint. Some of these tales it is given in the following pages. easy 10 believe as living was a struggle in those days. At first there was either no Munz Biography law or its center was so far distant that men were forced to take matters into The other possible "earliest se11ler". their own hands. Jacob Fritz Munz. a German, is known "The BK was in 1873 owned and to have been in or around Linkville operated by a bachelor. Fritz Muntz (Klamath Falls) at the time the Modoc (Munz- Editor). who had a large herd of Indian War commenced. A friend of caule. The Indians, not yet used ro white Munz. Wendelin Nus, another German, mans occupation and vast herds consum­ and the first white settler of the Klamath ing the range felt 'put upon.' Basin. was killed that first day, November "It is a fact the present reservation 29. 1872 while approaching the Lost was laid out by natural boundaries such River baule. as rivers, streams, meadows and marshes Several days later the Hot Creek band rather than metes and bound. Later this of Modocs. who did not wish to take the was all corrected. The Indians met and war trail, led by John Fairchild. ~tarted requested Preston. McKay and Lindsay on their way to the Klamath Agency. Applegate to speak, as they were present While encamped at Whittle's Ferry (Keno)

-22- at the treaty of 1864 at Crooked creek. rodeo staged here on a large scale. Through the medium of these men the "The ranch now belongs to the Connor tribe later received a fixed price on some estate and is leased to the Yamsey Land 500,000 acres. and Cattle company. D.O. (Buck) Wii- "But a certain Indian was disgruntled: liamsistbehead of the Yamsay company. felt Muntz was crowding in and he and (Ted Hyde, a nephew of Williams later Muntz quarreled. This is the story that operated this ranch, but the present was lOid at that time: Muntz ordered the residents are the Hill fami ly---Editor] ." native away: some time after he was seen Recent research in Klamath County by Muntz sneaking about. In a fit of Deed Records has uncovered some facts temper Muntz, who was not an expert that seem closely related to the above shot. grabbed his 44. intending only to story: Munz did not receive a deed to take a pot shot to scare the tar out of the some of his property until the years 1880, man. To Muntz' amazement he shot the 1882 and 1883. He sold his property to Indian through the jugular vein while be Alexander Martin. Sr., on April 25. 1887 was running at 520 steps. It was incred- and September 22, 1887 for $ 11,000. ible. The old 1 wo story Klamath County Court "Astounded and realizing his position house. still standing as the Walnut Apan­ Muntz gave himself up and was placed ments was completed July 2. 1888 for under $9,000.00 cash bail. The longer $3.500.00 by W.S. Moore & Co. Martin Muntz thought the more alarmed be be- sold part at least of the Munz property came and he departed not to be seen or to A.A. Frink on September 30, 1887 heard of to this day. for $4.500.00 and Frink in rurn, sold "And that $9.000.00- which was a back to Munz on April 12, 1888 for the lot of money in those days--was the same amount. $4.500.00. nucleus for the first courthouse in Klam- Finally. through his attorney, FrankS. ath county. This building was the old Moore, Munz sold to John F. Blooming- wooden one that predated the 'three camp on September 3. 1890 for $7.000. courthouses' we had. [It was one of the Wbether or not funds from Munz went three, and still exists as the Walnut to pay the then new court house is Apartments in Klamath Falls--EditOr] . questionable. It would seem that first "Its location was the exact site of the they would have gone into some sort of present courthouse. [ It was located east General Fund, or. whatever then existed. of the present courthouse. where the Part of the above statements are fur- presem Memorial Shaft is located--Edi- ther authenticated by the Journal maps tor]. of Major John Green, 1st Cavalry, com- "The BK ranch was then acquired by manding at Fort Klamath. Major Green three brothers. Henry. Ed and George left Fort Klamath on September 9. 1872 Bloomingcamp. who were the first to and traveled to Fort Bidwell in Surprise give it its name, BK, being their brand. Valley, California. via the Applegate Henry was digging a ditch at North Fork: Trail. From there he continued on to he was 300 yards away under a tree when Camp Warner. in Warner Valley, Oregon. the blast went off. A rock no bigger than returning from there to Fort Klamath a turkey egg came that distance; hit him via the Sprague River route. Passing on the head and killed him. The two down Sprague River Valley on October other brothers ran the place for some 3rd and 4 th, his sketch map indicates time in conjunction with other holdings three habitations, probably log cabins, at in Klamath. approximately the locations of the pre- "Later the place was bought by J.C. sent 7C and BK Ranches, and a third Mitchell (Big J. he was called to disting- presumably near present Bly, possibly uish him from Old J.C.). who built a large the William H. Gearhart or even the James ranch house on the property. It was Big Polk Gearhart cabin. J . who put on the Bly rodeo. This be- As previously stated under the hislOry came an incorporated show and was of Yainax, three post offices in the brought to Klamath Falls, being the ftrst Klamath Country. Linkville, Langell's -23· Valley and "Yanax" were authorized on with $4.110. The entire list follows: December II, 1871 with a mail route J.A. Stewart- S800 (no further infor­ established through the Sprague Ri ver mation): J.P. (James Polk) Gearhart­ Valley from Ashland to Lake City in (see ahead); Fred (Jacob Fritz) Munz­ Surprise Valley, California on July I. $41 I 0 (see ahead); W.O. Ferrill (Ferrell)­ 1872. (no further information): J . (John) W. Next comes our ftrst bit of document­ Gearhart- Sl082 (see ahead): Isaac Gear­ ed evidence concerning an original set­ hart- $482 (see ahead): S. Gardner­ tler. According to U.S. postal records $1800 (no further information); W.M. John W. Gearhart on September 30, 1873 Prine, Jr.-$815 (no further information): made an application for a post office to R.W. Scoville-$980 (no further informa­ be established at his place (now the 7C tion); J. Brown- $270 (no further infor­ Ranch) called Sprague River. At the 11me. mation): W.M Prine, Sr.-$1227 (no fur­ Gearhart's address was a post office ther information): J. (John) A. Smitb­ called Hot Springs. a short distance south S660 (According to U.S. Postal records of present Lakeview. Oregon. His new John A. Smith. the po tmaster following office of Sprague River was situated 28 J ohn W. Gearhart probably conducted miles east of Yainax and 50 miles west of the office from his home also. The build­ Hot Springs in the Southeast Quarter, ings seem to have later served Walt Fair Section 6, Township 37 South, Range 15 as his home and were about one mile East Willameue Meridian. Further it lay northeast from the present Campbell two miles east of Fishhole Creek and 20 Road bridge across Sprague River. or yards north of Sprague River. The near­ near the point of a low hill adjoining the est railroad was Eugene City, 200 miles main valley. In fact the original road. re­ distant. John W. wrote that there was placed by the Campbell Road, kept "no village as yet" but the post office around the base of the hills to the east): would serve a population of I 00. It W. (William) H. Gearhart- $2269 (see would be on Mail Route No. 15156, oper­ ahead): J. Jones- S3280 (no further in­ ated by James Kilgore. The application formation). wa signed.john W Gayhart. (The micro­ The biographies of several other early film copy of this application shows quite settlers of the Upper Sprague River distinctly that Gearhart himself, signed Valley follow: his name as Gayhart- Editor.) Bloorningcarnp The post office of Sprague River was John F. and Adeline Bloomingcamp, established in what was then Jackson both natives of Germany. carne to Calif­ County on November 12, 1873. Later. ornia in the 1860's, settlin~ in Siskiyou on October 24, 1874 it was transferred County on the old Yreka-Lmkville stage to Lake County when that county was and freight road. where they engaged in created, and finally on October 17. 1882 the stock business. In 1890 they expand­ to Klamath County when the latter wa ed their holdings, purchasing what is now established. known as the 8 K Ranch from Fritz The History of Central Oregon, page Munz. By 1905 the ranch included 1240 967, records names of several early set­ acres which were under the management tlers, anyone of whom could have been of Bloomingcamp Brothers, Edward and George. first. It is a list of Lake County taxpayers who were residing in Sprague River Valley Garrett east of the Klamath Indian Reservation in Thomas W. Garrett. born in Missouri, 1875. Taken from the Lake County came to California in 1884, removed to assessment roll for that year, it gives the Goose Lake Valley in 1886 and finally to gross value of all property owned by the Bly in 1895 where he managed the various individuals. Here again indications Pioneer Hotel for two years. Be then are that the Gearharts (four in number) purchased a ranch of 280 acres immed­ Iately north of Bly. His home. still stand· and Munz had accumulated the largest ing, was the small shingled bou e on the holdings. in fact Munz was the large t left of the present Highway 140 heading

-24- west from Bly, just before reaching the married Edwin Casebeer in 1869. turn north of the present Weyerhaeuser sawmill. He served as constable of the Sprague River precinct for a number of Casebeer terms. Edwin Casebeer, born in Ohio in 1849, moved to Kansas in 1867, to California Owen in 1871, and to Rogue River Valley in James and Susan F. (Tull) Owen were I 872 where be ranched until 1879 when born in New York and Kentucky respect­ he came to the Sprague River Valley to ively. Coming west to California at an eng~ge in the cattle and mule rai ing early date they remained there until 1878 bus10ess. He married Caroline (Owen) when they came to the Sprague Ri ver Watts in 1889 and to them two children Valley. Senling at Round Grove on the were born, Edwin J. and Susie May. In Sly- Lakeview stage road some eight or so late 1896 Casebeer purchased 3 20 acres miles southeast of Bly, Mr. Owen kept a of tbe James Barnes (this writer's great­ stage stop and raised stock for many great uncle) estate of which part was years. He passed away in 1901. Six meadow adjoining Sprague River north of children were born tO this union. Caroline the Casebeer home and part was up Fish­ H. Watts, John S., Mary L. Kilgore, Mar­ bole Creek: but north of the old Taylor garet Long, James H., and George W. place. In 1898 Edwin Casebeer headed Caroline H. married S. Watts in 1879 to overland to Alaska with a band of mules. which uni on two sons were born, JohnS. but djsposed of them upon reaching the and James 0. Wans, both of whom be­ Stikeene Rjver in British Columbia. He came merchants of Bly. James 0. was made his way to the coast and returned the father of Owen Wans presently em­ to Seanle by boat. In 1900 he sold his ployed by the U.S. Forest Service in Bly. cattle and by 1903 entered the sheep Mr. Waus passed away and Caroline H. busine s.

Babe Bell and Barbara "BIIt" Owen at Round Grove, right background. Courtesy Doris Bell -25· The Obenchain Ranch on Meryl Creek north of Bly on the Camp 6 and 9 road.

Obe nc hain Madison and Minnie Obenchain came It took four days to drive to Jackson­ to the Sprague River Valley in 1881. set­ viUe to trade and six days to retum with tling on Meryl Creek about eight miles a load of fruit, nour and other staples. northwest of Bly. Mr. Obenchain carne Frank, Sr. built his first home with from Iowa to California where he re­ lumber hauled from the old Al Fitch mained one year before coming to south­ sawmill some di tance west of Bly. em Oregon. Mrs. Obenchain was a nntive of Germany. They had one child, Frank Reed Obenchain. Sr., who was educated in the George and Anna E. (Mitchell) Reed grade schools of Jacksonville. Frank came from the province of New Bruns­ Obenchain. Sr. was the father of four wick, arriving in Massachuseus in 1865. children, Marie, Madison (Matt), Frank. ln 1870 they moved to Iowa and from Jr., and Harry. The home ranch eventually there to Colorado in 1872. From Colo­ grew to more than 2000 acres, while rado they went to Wyoming nnd in 1887 hundreds of white faced caule roamed came to Oregon. seuling in Ashland. Two the neighboring area. years Later they moved to Lake County. Frank, Sr. went to school each sum­ homesteading near Paisley. Three children mer at Bly unless the money to pay the were born to the Reeds. the second being teacher "ran out." Teachers in those days Walter F. who attended school in Ash­ were paid $30 per month and "found" , land. He purchased "the Bly Ranch" in eating with the families of students. and 1903. By 1905 he owned the Pioneer frequently sharing a bed with one or two hotel. which contained twenty rooms, daughters in the household. had become the postma ter a year before. -26- At the old Parker Ranch some two and one half miles west of Bly, now the V .L. Rentles home. L. to R. Grandmother Mary Parker; Jesse Parker, In the hack; Glen Parker and John Capus on horseback. Courtesy Doris Bell

wa the proprietor of a large li\'ery and Jesse Parker was the son of Wm. G. feed stable and kept the stage station for and Lucinda (Tetherov.) Parker of Parker the Klamath Falls-Lakeview Line. In addi· Station on the old Southern Oregon tion he owned the town hall of Bly. a Wagon Road between A~hland and Link­ building 26 x 60 feet. known as Reed's ville. In 1846 Wm. G. Parker had assisted Hall which stood one block south of the in laying out the Applegate Trail. present Jack's Bar and was used for pub­ James and Mary Parker were the par­ lic entertainments and social gatherings. ents of Bessie, who became the wife of Walter F. and Mattie B. (Mulkey) Reed James Bell, the mother and father of were the parents of five children. Everett Bell who has been of great help in preparing the history of Bly. Parker Taylor The old Jesse Parker place. about two The present Diamond Newman ranch and one half miles west of Bly on the south of Bly some t\\ o or more miles up south side of Highway 140 i!> now occu­ Fisbhole Creek began as the Robert and pied by the Y.L. Rentles, who its first Louisa Taylor ranch at ~orne unknown settler was is unknown, but sometime time. but before November 16, 1876 between June, 1877 and August, 1881 when the State of Oregon deeded the James H. Clark. who had been the post­ property as Swamp Land to Taylor. As master at Yainax previously for a short early as December I , 1882. the Jackson­ time, established the Sprague River Post ~·ille Democratic Times reported: "Robert Office at his ranch on August 25, 1881. Taylor. who has been acting as foreman Then on October 15, 1883 James H. and of Jesse D. Carr's !.lOCk ranch at Clear his wife L.L. sold to this writer's great­ Lake. Cal., left for Aritona t o seek a great uncle James Barnes for $1000. who location, leaving his family at Ashland." in turn sold to Jesse A. Parker for S 1600 Then in 1883. this writer's great-great on June 25, 1886. uncle. James Barnes. bought the property.

-27- The Bell family, left to right: Waldo, Bert, James (father of Everett Belli , Middle Row: Grandfather Jeff, Aunt - · · · ·, Aunt Hulda, Front: Floyd and Angie, grand· children. Courtesy Doris Bell kept it about three years and sold it in James Bell bought the old John W. Gear· 1886 to James Taylor, probably some hart (7C Ranch) in 1919. Everett thinks relative of Robert Taylor. Scott Warren's Albert Walker bought from Gearhart; parents once owned this property. The John Wells, who had arrived in the Bly original ranch buildings (recently torn country by 1882, from Walker and Bell down) sat on the west side of the Fish- from Wells. hole Creek meadows. Anderson Quinn Anderson settled about one Finley mile east of the present Frank Obenchain William "Bill'' Finley, the father of ranch on a meadow watered by Fritz Ross Finley, and for whom Finley Cor­ Creek. He was the father of 0 .T. "Buck" ralls was named, originally settled on the Anderson who once lived at Beatty. later W.D. "Walter, Campbell ranch. This Several Anderson descendents still make place is now the home of the Owens their home there, including "Buck's" family, no relation to the Owen family widow, Louella Anderson. who settled at Round Grove on Highway Lundy 140 near the Klamath-Lake County Line. Amos Lundy, the father of Garner Lundy for whom the Garner school of Bell 1902-4 was named. Gamer's sister Carrie The Bell family, originally from the Lundy married Frank J. Schmitz, long­ Rogue River Valley, came to Bly in I 908 time Beatty merchant after 1920. when Everett was about four years old. W alker The father James Bell freighted for the Albert Walker was born in Iowa on Bill Smith store in Bly from both Monta· May I 2, 185 8 and in 1864 was brought gue and Ager over the old Topsy Grade, west by his parents to Portland, Oregon,

-28- later moving to Ashland. where he at­ Lake County's first general election tended Ashland Academy. When Albert was held June 5, 18 76 with the following first came to the Sprague River country officials for precinct No. 3, Sprague is unknown but it was probably by 1879 River: Judges: Enoch Loper (who served or before. as postmaster at Yainax from January to Albert's future wife, Sarah Adeline June of 1877). J.A. Smith and William "Addie" Witt, was born in Roseburg on Prine; Clerks: B.B. Deming (perhaps Dem­ July 5, 1858 and came to the Sprague ing Creek was named for this man, who River country on November 3, 1879. may have lived nearby), and Robert where she spent two winters with sisters Scott, of whom nothing further is known. before marrying Albert Walker in 1881. These first settlers also had the use of The Walkers li ved one and a half miles thousands of acres lying adjacent to their west of Bly on the north side of Highway ranches in the Sprague River Valley. Ly­ 140 (second house on the right past the ing to the south is a high timbered coun­ turn), once known as the Dixon place. try dotted by many lush meadows and Three sons, Roy, Earl and Luke, were small streams, stretching across some 28 born to the Walkers. miles of almost unsettled country to the Albert Walker became the owner of California-Oregon State Line. Bisecting it four fine ranches, stacking around 2500 from north to south is the Klamath-Lake tons of hay annually. Later, Mr. Walker County line. It has more or less figured in helped organize and was one of the trust­ Bly history since early range days. ees of the First National Bank in Klamath This territory was briefly touched up­ Falls. It was a long day's drive in those on in the Klamath Echoes issue No. 10 on early days from Bly to Klamath Falls, yet Langell Valley-Bonanza, published in it is told that Albert Walker once made it 1972. on pages 17-21, "Beyond Goodlow .. in half a day with his fast team. Rim. First used by Capt. James Barnes be­ Louis and Ida Gerber fore the Modoc War and possibly others The Gerber ranch was the first build­ now unknown, ir has witnessed consider­ ing o n the north side of Highway 140, able strife and a few range wars. It in­ west past the turn north of Bly. They cludes Barnes and Fishhole Val leys in also owned a large ranch. now covered by southeastern Klamath County, and Yo­ the waters of Gerber Reservoir near cum in extreme southwestern Lake Coun­ Langell Valley. ty. Barnes and Fishhole settlers include Miscellaneous the Tull, Bachelder, Pi try, McKendrie, Lapham. Owen. Kilgore. Dillard and De­ Other names showing up in early day vaul families. Post office and school his­ records but of whom liule is known are: tory was covered in Klamath Echoes No. Chas. W. Slade, 1882; Chas. K. and F. I 0 for the Fishhole, Gerber and Barnes Klum, 1882; Bill Smith, early day store­ Valley sectors. Yocum Valley was of keeper in Bly of whom slightly more has considerably more recent years, and will been learned; and Uncle Billie Robinson. be covered later. The History ofCentra/ Oregon, page 869. further states ihat on Lake County's Some of this territory witnessed ex­ first County Court meeting, February I , tensive logging operations around the 1875, the county was divided into nine 1929-1939 period by the Pelican Bay precincts. No. 3 precinct was given the Lumber Company which extended a rail­ name Sprague River. road south from Bly during the very On June 7, 1875 , the County Court early '30's. At approximately the same appointed the first election judges of time Ewauna Box Company built a rail­ each precinct. Named for No. 3, Sprague road east from Bly over Quartz Mountain River, were J.A. Smith. William Ferrell, into the Quartz Valley timber area. Fin­ and WM. Prine. Sr.. with the polling ally. present day Weyerhaeuser Timber place to be held at the house of John Company logging operations centering at Smith. Camp 16, on the Klamath-Lake County

-29- line. some 5-6 miles north of the Calif­ Well. as December Wa!. getting along ornia-Oregon State Line will bring re­ toward Holidays. I got the fever to eat newed activities to the area and harvest some of Mother's good mince pies. and timber well into Modoc County. bought me a horse and saddle started for Recollections of Linkville, Lake County. Oregon. My J. 0 . Hamaker route lay (on account of the deep snow) (We now come to the account, written via Wi!Jow creek. Catlow valley. Roaring about 1935, of an early day traveler springs. and the sink of Rock Creek. a through the Sprague River Country which Dodson and Zimmerman horse camp. 1 follows- Editor): arrived at the latter place the fourth day On the third day of October, A.D. out and had traveled about 120 miles to 1879. a 'tender foot' of the age of get 50. This Dodson and Zimmerman twenty-three years. who was born in ranch was my undoing for the trip. My Marion County, Iowa, on the 30th day horse. who was rather of the Jack Demp­ of July. 1856, and attending common sey nature. picked his Ia t fight there in that corral. -his antagonist put him down chool in Iowa. and Kansas. and havmg been left an orphan (partially), crossed and out. broke his leg. and I was com­ the State line of Idaho and entered the pelled to borrow a Spencer carbine and Great State of Oregon, which is, and I finish the fight, which l did before break­ fast the next morning. Thus left on foot, hope always will be, my home. I expected to either buy a pony or hire During the year of 1873, my two the boy to take me the next lap of my older brothers. J.W. and J.D .. had located journey toward Linkville. but no. '1 in Linkville (Lake Co.). Oregon. and dur­ reconed not with my ho!.t" for if he was ing the early Summer of 1875. my Mother only a boy I could not induce him to do and youngest Brother, S.C., had migrated anything of the sort for he told me he to that same town of Linkville, Oregon. had no authority to do so and that I (no\\ Klamath Falls). Of course. it i not could walk to the Heart Ranch. only necessary to say that this was my object­ ive point for which I bad crossed into the abvut 40 milt:~ and that lu: wvuld show me where the trail crossed thru the notch State of Oregon. in the mountain. I took some sourdough My conveyance was a four-horse wagon bread and strips of bacon, made a sand· loaded with flour, in company with two wich, and started the 40 mile treak. Being large sixteen-mule teams and 'Prairie young and healthy and with a ravenous Schooners' loaded with a like product • appetite. I soon finished the sandwich and flour, all billed for Camp McDermit. that I would get Breakfast at least at the Nevada. The tonnage of these three wag­ Heart ranch. Again l had not figured cor­ ons was about forty thousand pounds. rectly. for at dark that night I was at the We loaded at Weiser. Idaho, about the foot of Heart mountain and not half way first day of October. '79. and crossing to the ranch, • did it snow? I am telling Snake River on the 3 day of October. It you it did, and it was then nearly three was Oregon weather, - raining. Our route feet deep. Luckily r found some willow was southwesterly thru the Owyhe valley brush at a corral and made me a fire. car­ to near the Stein's Mountain: along about ried some of the large pole bars. put them th e middle of the month of October I on the snow and spread my saddle blank· stopped at the Devine-Todhumer "White et on the poles for a bed, not to sleep but Horse Ranch" where I became employed to rest. as Cook for nearly two months as ncar as Funny ain't it? That fire would not 1 can remember: and during that time I stay on top of the snow and persisted in was getting experience every day also sinking down and by morning was about trying to learn to talk Mexican or Span­ two and a half feet below my poles and ish. at which I did not have very much bed. uccess and I am not yet a real Mexican The next morning it was still snowing linguist. and I took to the hills. climbing up. as

-30- l did not know where the Notch in the "Right or Left." but having tried the mountain was aU I could do was to get to right end of the road for about five mi les, the top of the mountain, and it was work I found it was the left hand that! should I am telling you - if you don't think so. bave taken. for the right end ended in a just try it. hay corral where the;e had been camp About night it broke away and I sheds covered with old hay were in evi­ reached the top just at sundown. Was I dence. but no food except red Mexican hungry-? Don't a~k such questions. I found beans, raw, and Chickorie coffee. The a large old Juniper that was clothed with beans were not good and I can hardly dry bark and proceeded to make a fire. eat them today - cooked, because I tried but my old China Block of matches was them raw. The coffee was rather palatable at the last fire where I stayed the night and I filled my overcoat pocket with it. before. T found one in the lining of my thinking that it was in this modern time vest and proceeded to make a fire, using when we could get o nce in a while "Dry my bump of caution 1 made a teepee out Ginn" - perhaps the name made it good. of my blanket and guarded that match Well, I retraced that five miles and an­ until I had the fire going good. Oh. Joy! other before I saw any signs of habita­ it burned and sure was a good fire. The tion. then 1 began to get hungry. there snow was level there and I spread some were evidence of human life around this bark and my saddle blanket on the bark, place but no one to answer my loud laid down with my feet to the fire and J "Ha-los". Horses and cattle were just say I went to sleep. lately fed new hay and I was sure there I put in a fairly good night only my would be someone near. I tried the door smooth snow did not last. the bed of the bouse which was locked. but my dropped between two large boulders and ingenuity as a housebreaker led me to left the smoothness all out. but 1 was a­ examine a sardine can nailed to the door live. and if could only have a sandwich - jam. There l found the key. I. of course, how I would have given all my money unlocked th e door and entered. looking for a good meal. but what is money if for something to eat. 1 found a large dish­ you are where you cannot spend it? Once pan in verted on the table. and it covered 1 can say I have tried it and tell the truth a milkpan full of wonderful homemade I had nearly Twenty Dollars and could Doughnuts. I did not look to see if they not spend a cent, and Hoover had not de­ were "optomistic doughnuts" or not but clared a moratorium on money either went to work eating. and looking for then. One thing. 1 had down grade this what 1 might find to go with them I morning and it was shure down too, part opened the oven of the cook stove and of the time I was head first and part of discovered baked spare-ribs! Was that the time was rolling sideways then sat "Heaven" to a young man that had been down and "slide Kelly slide" which I did. ar least forty hours without tasting food: but if I had not got down l never could l will always think that this was. if not have wriuen this tale. so it seems that I actually the "Garden of Eden" it was not was destined to survive. for 1 am now far from the gate' nearly 54 years older but I don't want to r partook of a goodly share and then try it over just to see how it seemed, for finding a good, warm bed. crawled into l believe I can recollect near enough how it and fell asleep. -during the night some it was. When you drop more than 22 1/2 time I awoke and decided there was more degrees you know just when you get to due me, so getringup I took on some more the bottom and there you stay as long as rood: and the next time I awoke it was you can. Sun-up and a man was feeding the stock WeU. on reaching the bottom of the in the corral. I went out and pleaded mountain I was confronted with a road guilty to housebreaking. telling the facts running at exact right angles to the way of my last three days. He told me to get I had been going, and f did not know some breakfast and then the Heart Ranch from where I was whether I wanted to go was only about 2 1/2 miles down the road.

-31· and also. that he was merely feeding the asked. "Linkville. Oregon, " was my ans­ stock for Mr. Anderson who was in Fort wer. " What is your name?" was the next Bidwell spending the Holidays. After question. "Hamaker." l told them. "Are thanking him and eating some breakfast, you any relation to Squire Hamaker? " I took the road for the Heart Ranch and "Only a brother." was the reply. "I the good old "Samaritan" an Irish cook, thought so." was my interrogator's ans­ took me in and said "Be Yea Warmed wer. "I have just been over as a witness in and Fed." All of which I surely was. I his Court not long ago and J can see you told the good Cook my story and he are his brother by your resemblance to took care of my physical body and "bade him." Mr. Henry Sites, who had been the me rest." man l was talking with said "You can go l tarried there for two days and while home with me and stay for the time until there met Bill Finley. who was my best you can bear from the folks." I went friend for the next fifty years. 1 then home with him in the evening. He lived moved across the Warner Valley to the about one half mile from the Pine Creek Jones sheep camp where, I had been told, Post Office. l think it was just across the I could get transportation to Bidwell, California line. Well, I borrowed station­ which 1 did after about a week, at that ery and stamp and wrote to J.W. (Squire) trip riding a mule and a pack saddle with Hamaker. my brother, who responded blankets across the saddle to make the with an answer and some little cash. Not seat and ropes tied to the front end for in the automobile days was this bu t it stirrups, · good saddle and comfortable - tOok actual ti me of three days for a letter if you are in a hurry to get home some to get to Linkville if it did not snow too time, try it. We were part of two days hard and the weather would permit. making the trip and arrived in Bidwell otherwise it got through some time. This in good shape, where we stopped at the was a tri-weekly mail that was plying be­ hotel for the night. !there engaged trans­ tween Ashland and Lakeview, and some portation to Willow Ranch across the time you were lucky to get any mail at "Fandango Pass" where in former days all. the Indians slaughtered those innocent ln due time the mail brought me emigrants who were enroute to Goose orders and I took another start on the Lake Valley to locate and settle this pan long trek home to see if it would be pos­ of the State. sible for me to reach that Goal. Now, did it ever occur to you that the The journey for the first day was to first settlers of a new country are really Lakeview, this being February 26, 1880. the bone and sinew of the land which February 27, 1 started for Drews Valley they, by their early pioneer hardships and and what was then the Lofton Ranc h privations. have made it possible for the where the mailman stayed all night after latter residents ro live there? fighting snow all day trying to get from I arrived at Willow Ranch in California Lakeview to Bly an all day's ride and I about dark. I remember it was on Satur­ day evening. l paid for my supper and will say a cold one. bed. This tOok all my ready cash. I was Of course. I had letters of introduction about to leave for up the Goose Lake to aU these people from Brother, J.W. Valley when the landlord said "Why who as the times were then, knew every­ don't you eat your break fast?" I told one and they were all friends and neigh­ him I had a headache, and he said "Are bors from the California line to the coast, you broke?" "Yes, " I said. He made me as this was a wild Pioneer Country at go into the dining room and eat break­ that time and "the open door" was ·al­ fast. l then took the trek for the Lake­ ways ready to swing open, when anyone view country, traveling about 5 or 6 miles was in want or distress there were no res­ I came to a farm house that looked pros­ ervations (in any bouse that would be perous, went in and asked for work for opened to the ri ch and the poor alike), my board until I could write home for in fact. the whole country were one large some money. "Where is borne?" I was Fraternal Family, and the "Law of Un i-

-3'2- versa I Brotherhood" prevailed the coun­ also on that trip the famous "Devii's Gar­ try over. den", for some years the blackeye 1 o The genial hos t, Thos. Lofton. was a that trip from Drews Valley to Bly. was real entertainer, and the long winter even­ covered with snow and the mud was ing passed quickly. A good meal of "Sour­ frozen so it was fairly good traveling. dough" bread and Venison, was surely the thing to make you sleep, but the cold WeU. having had some experience in morning of the 28th of that cold Feb­ the snow on the East side of Warner Val­ ruary came too soon, and at the peep of ley l was not entirely bluffed out. ln due day 1 was feeding myself some more of time I arrived at Bly. Oregon. and after that Good Old Ranch Grub and preparing introducing myself to Mr. Gearheart, the for the hard journey over the mountain propriotor, be saw that I was well taken to Bly. care of for the night. This was my first Leaving Drews Valley at what at that advent into the town of Bly, which has time was known as the Tom Lofton been near me ever since. Ranch, on the morning of the 28th of It is s ufficient to say that it was a long February, with my trusty roadster (a and all day ride to cover that 22 miles. as splendid Saddle horse), l turned my face it was impossible to travel faster than a to the Northwest for the town of Bly. horse could walk on account of the deep Oregon, which at that time consisted of snow and the trail having been made at a ranch house and post ofnce belonging that gait and each day filling up at night to one Polk Gearheart, who was then so that the only guide one had was the landlord of the Bly Hotel and Postmaster little bunches of s now thrown on top by of the Bly Post Office, also ran the Livery the horse's feet the day before - the travel Barn. The distance between points was on this road consisted of one trip each from Lofton's to Gearhearts. about 22 day by the mail carrier. miles. However, T arrived at Bly in the even­ In conversation with the Mailman at ing, about 4:30 P.M., and was taken care Lofton's, I learned that the s now at of by the genial landlord in typical West­ Quartz Valley was about seven feet deep. ern Style. i.e. "One of the family." and the information l also gleaned from February 29th. After having spent a the said mail carrier was that when he good. comfortable night with the Bly came over the day before the wind was people I mounted my horse for the con­ blowing the snow in whirls, when his tinuation of my journey toward Link­ horse put its foot down to make a track ville. which was to be my future stopping in that seven feet of s now, ready to fill place "for a while at least." The road said track as soon as the horse's foot was from Bly was then through Yainax, and raised. so as to smooth the surface. like the day before was deep s now and a After getting all the information as to "ride-in-a-walk road all the way." I ar­ trail and bidding my host good-bye. 1 rived at the Yainax Indian School about mounted my saddle mare and started to noon and this being Sunday, I stopped to explore the mountain between Drews obtain some information regarding the VaHey and Bly, via Round Grove, and trip over the mountain from there to (don't forget Quartz Valley) the summit Dairy. Mr. W.C. Clark was the Sub-Agent of the mountain. The snow as said was at Yainax and insisted that I put my seven feet deep at that point and I was horse in the barn and have dinner {he willing to take their word for it as it was being weiJ acquainted with my people in snowing and blowing at that time and Linkville whom l had not seen for seven about 16 degrees below zero. Fortunately years). I accepted his kind offer and did the heavy pine timber kept this snow justice to the good meal set before me. from drifting badly and the marks of t he After having been "warmed and fed" trail of the horses that had traveled it the I again took up my journey toward its day before were plainly in evidence so "last lap." Now. by losing the time at you could see the next s tep of the horses: Yainax and the short days I was over-

-33- taken by night before l had passed thru On my arrival 1n Sprague Ri,er Valley Buckmaster Flat (which still bear!> that on November 3. 1879. my first Impres­ name to this day), it having been named sion was 'ery unfavorable. There were no for a family of that name who had ven­ fences. no houses in sight. The wild rye tured there to make a home and had to grass grew so high that the low log cabins be moved out that winter on a hand sled were hidden from view until one was on account of the deep snow. Herbert within a few yards of them. Big haystacks Dyer afterwards preempted the place and were in sight over the valley, standing out it is now a part of what has been known without shelter in the rain and snow. 1 for the last twenty years as the Colahan wondered what made people stay in such place in Buckmaster Flat, also the Stra­ a desolate looking place. Little did 1 horn R.R. traverses the entire length of think l would make my home there and the flat. I plodded along until about 8 raise a family and be happy and content­ o'clock P.M. before l discovered a small ed for 30 years: but on June 23. 1881.1 light a little off to the side of the road was married to Albert Walker, a stockman and \\Cnt to it. where 1 was taken in and who was among the earlier settlers. kept all night by Mr. T. Jefferson. The Sprague River Valley was one of Mr. Jefferson tOld me he had orne the most pro!tperou~ localities this side of wheat hay that he had raised near Rattle the mountains (Cascades). Cattle and Snake Field and hauled it down to his horses from the range. which wa~ covered house on a hand sled, he traveling on with bunch grass two or three feet high. snowshoes. Well, right here l want to say were rolling fat when gathered for market that better people never lived anywhere but the task of driving stock to Montague, than the people of those days - they were California. our nearest ~hipping point. all human and generous to a fault and a was an arduou~ one. hard on both man man \\-as a man "rich or poor" - the and beast. Stockmen from near and far people \\-ere one large family. gathered stock for each other and mailed Well. I was well and handsomely cared postcards to one another with informa­ for all through the trip. tion that strays were being. cared for until The morning of March the first. I such time a they could be driven home. mounted my steed and traveled about or sold. in which case a check would be four and one-half miles to Dairy. where I sent to the owner. Stock trayed from was invited to a good warm fire. and as Sprague River to Yonna Va lley. Langell the thermometer was rather down below Valley, Fort Klamath. Si lver Lake, etc., zero. I was not at all adverse to accepting and there were no fences to stop them. an invitation to a good warm fire. I spent Stock on the feed yards drank from the ~orne little time there in getting warm holes cut in the ice on the river banks. and then to the Shook ranch where I and many a fine beef steer ventured on asked the venerable John S. Shook about the ice. broke through and '"as drowned. the trail O\erthe hill to the Horton Ranch Under these primitive conditions, how­ where I expected to find m} Mother. and ever. more money was made than later. did find her. well and hearty. when the range became limned and pas­ The next day 1 with Mr. Horton rode ture had to be rented. The hard winter to the town of Bonanza, which ( I was of 1879-80, that caused such heavy losses then ignorant of the fact) was to become in stOck, was a lesson to the ranchers. my fu tu re home. * * * * * who now learned to keep their herds re­ End duced through the winter to make sure the hay would last unti 1 spring. Recollections of Weather conditions in the eighties and Mrs. Addie Walker early nineties were very se\'ere in winter. I have seen the largest haystacks and high [A'> \Hitten in 19-W for Klamath County stake and rider fences buried out of sight History. by Rachael Applegate Good­ under huge ~nowdrift . the snow being Editor.] packed so bard and the rise from the -34- level being so gradual that one could tell you we had delicacies unknown to easily have driven a team and wagon over any but pioneers. Fish-small speckled them. Our thermometer registered 40. trout- were almost at our doors; Sprague below zero, and I have seen the mercury River ran through our meadow not half a congeal in the bulb and stay there for mile from our home. and our lillie boys weeks, and weren't we glad when the could run down and catch a string of mercury rose and snow began falling; it these speckled beauties any time in sum­ seemed so warm. Imagine, ladies, you mer. In winter the Indians brought us who have never pioneered. having to wear the large salmon trout from springs along woolen 'undies'--sleeves to the wrists. the river on the reservation. It was a con­ pants to the ankles---under cashmere hose, venience to have them come and bring underskirts crocheted from heavy Ger­ fish or game or come and do the week's mantown yarn, heavy woolen dress, heavy washing. and they were glad to come, as sweater. heavy overshoes (not galoshes it meant a lillie money and a 'big eat.' but three-buckle overshoes) over bouse Peddlers came in summer with green shoes. 1 wore all thi s load of clothing vegetables, berries, melons, etc. One lone about my work for weeks, and was I peddler came selling bed springs in gunny comfortable? I should say not! All sacks. Of course we bought everything we through the freezing weather it took an could make use of, and the bedsprings hour to thaw steaks, milk and sour dough filled very nicely into our scheme of rude before cooking breakfast. When the morn­ improvements. Our home was a log cabin ing work was done and I finally got back of four rooms; our furniture was all made to the fireplace, I stood on the hearth of pine boards--bedsteads, tables, benches and kept on turning, for while one side for the dining table. etc. I made a dressing was freezing the other side was burning. Living as we did absolutely isolated table of a big goods box. put in shelves. papered it inside with white paper, cov­ from the outside world in winter, it was ered it with a pretty flounce of print. put a rare treat after the haying was done and the horses and callle marketed to go after an embroidered piece on the top. hung a mirror over it, and when my washbowl supplies for winrer. and many times I and pitcher and toilet articles were placed have driven a two-horse buggy over these it was quite allractive and added-the rocky mountain roads and enjoyed it, feminine touch to my bedroom. I also too, keeping in sight of the freight teams. made a couch for the living room, with a There was no scarciry of food at our little h'elp, and those gunny sack springs ranch: we had a haying crew of twenty­ were used in that creation. It did not five to thirty men for six weeks or more take my Indian maid and me long to every summer and it took a lot of good make rag carpet enough to cover our liv­ eats to make them happy. Flour, salt, ing and bedroom floors, and all the coffee, and sugar were bought by the neighbors loved to come to our house thousand pounds and everything else in and visit, 'we had things so nice.' proportion, and in addition to the loads of staples we would go to Father Walker's We bad no theaters, no church, no fruit farm near Ashland and get a wagon­ places of amusement except those of our load of canned fruit of all kinds---jams, own making. Before the stork arrived jellies, pickles, preserves, etc., enough to with his loads of love, Husband and I last a year. ln addition to all this there played cards. the winner t o light the was an abundance of wild game for morning fires for a week. When I fell heir sport and profit; our men hunted bear, to the job. T didn't mind, for I had the panther, and coyotes. For a change of kindling prepared; and when I won. and diet they brought home wild ducks, he had to get the breakfast, he was game. geese, and sage chickens, and when one Thus we made our fun in many ways. was lucky enough to bag a brood of There was no Red Cross, no Community young mallards just before they were Chest to raise funds for the poor. All able to fly. or a brood of young sage were ready and willing to help each other chickens following their mother, let me as the need arose---sitting long nights

-35- through. gtvmg medicine and nur ing in Township 15 East (the present 7C Ranch) the back room of Bill Smith's store at twenty yards from Sprague River on the Bly and lined. covered. and trimmed the north side and two miles from Fishhole diamond shaped coffin. There was no Creek. beautiful hearse filJed with flowers---only For a short time before this, September a handful of neighbors who read from the 30th to October, 1873 Gayhart's (Gear­ scripture, sang a hymn. and offered a hart's) mail was addressed to the Post­ prayer at the graveside. All stood steady master at Hot Springs, 50 miles eastward. to rejoice with those that did rejoice and a few miles south of present Lakeview. weep with those that wept. I remember On October 24. 1874 Lake County was very well when Bill Finley's cabin home created out of the eastern portion of burned to the ground, all the neighbors Jackson County in which Sprague River rushed to the smoke and saved as much was then located. of the household furniture as pos ible. Postal receipt up to September 30. and Albert Walker came home bringing 1875 amounted to $11.10. the Finle) family of three to remain at ext. on March 24, 1876. John A. our cabin home for weeks, until the Smith became the Postmaster. The office neighboring men had gone to the woods was probably moved to Smith's home with tool and built them a larger log which seems to have been in the South­ cabin. Thus the pioneers on the frontier east Quarter of Section 24--36--14. or grew very near to each other-- much near­ about one mile northeast of the present er than acquaintances met under more Campbell Road bridge across Sprague favorable circumstances, who do not feel River. near the point of a low hill adjoin­ so keenly the need of comradship and ing the main valley. Wah Fair many years the helping hand. And in after years. later lived at this location. Nothing seem when the family ties of our little neigh­ to remain there today. borhood were broken. one felt a lack of Postal receipts for 91 days. up to something that had left an emptiness and September 30. 1877 amounted to $4.50. taken a certain measure ot sweetness out The office wa di~continued April 4. of life. 1878. End Less than a year later it was re-estab­ lished on February 28, 1879 with James P. (Polk) Gayhart (Gearhart) as post­ Found in the Ashland Tidings of Nov­ master. o location has been obtained, ember 24. 1881: "A rodeo will be held in but according to J.O. Hamaker the office the Sikan valley and all the cattle in the was located in Gayhart's (Gearhart's) valley will be gathered up and driven to home which seems to have been at or winter range on the desert. This will most very near present Bly when Hamaker likely end the rodeos in this county for passed there on February 29. 1879. This the present cason." office lasted only until June 9. 1879 Ashland Tidings of March 21. 1884: when it was disconunued. "Measle and land jumpers about equal in The office was officially re-established Klamath County." March 16, 1880 when John V. (Vestal) Kuhn became postmaster. Penciled notes, however, on the application indicate there was a post office in operation from Bly Post Office January 21, to February I I. 1880 before In the beginning a post office named Kuhn became the postma~ter. but who Sprague River was established November ran it is unknown. The location of Kuhn's 12, 1873 in what was then Jackson office was described as being '1/4 mile west County. with John W. Gayhart (Gear­ of Fishhole Creek and 2 l/2miles south of hart) as first postmaster. The office was Sprague River in the NEI/4of the NEI /4 of in his home situated in the Southeast Section 3-17-14, which would place it Quarter of Section 6---Rangt 37 Souch- in present Bly. This may indicate that

-36- The present Bly post office the office was in the original hotel once Jesse Parker ranch where the V.L. Rentles run by J.P. Gayhart (Gearhart). All Bly now Live) which was according to his ap­ hotels have been located in the same plication,l/2 mile south of Sprague River, place and all have burned at one time or and 2 1/4 miles west of Fishhole Creek. lL another. The office was further described was to be in the Southwest I/4of Section as being 27 miles west of Drew's Valley 28-26--14, with mail delivered tbree post office. probably run by Thomas Limes per week by mail contractors Ferree Lofton who also ran a stopping place and & Worden. The office was to serve L8 stage station on Drew's Creek, where it families. first enters the valley. This location was On January 31, 1881 four events took pointed out to this writer by John Yaden place: Elizabeth Lofton became post­ whose father was once mail contractor on master: the office was moved back to or the Klamath Falls to Lakeview run. The near its former location in present Bly: mail contractor during Kuhn's term of the office was now listed on the newly office was S.E. Huntly, sub-contractor for formed Klamath County records, after John McCurdy. Mail was than being de­ that county was created out of Lake livered six times per week. 70-75 people County on October 17, 1882: and lastly, were being served by the Sprague River the name was changed from Sprague post office. River to Bly, a name thought by some to The road in those days seems to be have been proposed by Elizabeth Lofton. the one now used by Weyerhaeuser Log­ However. on February J 9, 1883 James H. ging trucks entering Bly from the east, Clark made a report stating the name "of past the old Casebeer Ranch. my office is Sly, its local name is Sprague Up to July 1, 1881, Kuhn took in River * * * ·· Signed March 7. 1883. The $35.87 in postal receipts. reader can draw his own conclusions as to James H. Clark became the next post­ what actually transpired. master on August 25, 1881. The office Marcus D. Childers followed on May was moved to Clark's home (the old L9th. I 883 as the next postmaster. turn-

-37- ing in a second quarter report of $20.62 (Sprague. we suppose) on the west for po tal receipts. (south?) side of it and will be a quarter By October 22, 1883 Riley Hamersley, mile from the nearest creek (Fisbhole?) (another distant relative of this writer) on the east side of it. A country post of­ had become postmaster to be succeeded lice, population to be served 60. Present by James F. Mansfield on April 15. 1884 site Southeast Quarter. Section 34-36- who on July I, 1885 turned in his bien­ 14, and the proposed site Northeast Quar­ nial report of $75.97 for postal receipts. ter, Section 2-37-14. Signed September James H. Lindsay became the next 20, 1901, Mary L. Kilgore. proposed postmaster on February 26, 1886 to be Postmaster. followed later the same year by Walter C. From the above description given by Johnson as postmaster on December II, Mrs. Kilgore it seems the old office site 1886. would have been located on the north Johnson during his eight years plus side of present Hi ghway 140. or Main term, turned in three biennial postal re­ Street. The newer location would have ceipt returns: July I. 1887 for $125.06: been at the Casebeer Ranch where Owen July I. 1889 for Sl47.96: and July I , Watts now lives. According to Mr. Watts, 1891 for $160.96. No report for 1893 a hotel once stood where his residence has been located. now stands and the post office was in a The location of the post office under building across the present road, to the any of the above short termed post­ west, on a site now occupied by a trailer masters, Lofton 3 112 months, Childers 5, house. This information corresponds to Hamersley 6, Mansfield 22 and Lindsay Mrs. Kilgore's description. 9. is unknown. Although Johnson served Charles V. Pattee became postmaster for slightly over eight years, his office on March 4, 1903. The Klamath Repub· location i also unknown. It is po sible lican of April 28, 1904 records the fol­ the post office during this entire time lowing: "Charles Pattee. the postmaster was in the hotel or a building attached at Bly bas sold his store to J.S. and J.D. thereto. Watts and will probably resign the post­ On February 4, 1895 William W. "Bill" mastership as he contemplates going easL" Smith became postmaster, the post office This and the following Republican article presumably being located in his store. the places the Watts Brothers store and Pat­ building still standing and occupied by tee's post office at the Casebeer location. Jack's Place (also considered the oldest building in Bly). Smith turned in a bien· On September I, 1904. Walter F. Reed nial report on July J, 1895 for $143.01 became postmaster. He issued a biennial postal receipts. Four years later. in 1899 report on July I, 1905 recording $217.74 Smith constructed a new store building, in postal receipts. across the street west. Today it serves as Klamath Republican, September 8. pan of Patzke's Shell Service. 1904: "Walter Reed was appointed Post­ On March 30. 1899 Mary L. Kilgore master at Bly on September lst. since became postmaster with the office locat­ Charles R. Pattee has resigned." ed in one or the other of the Smith store Klamath Republican. October 13, buildings, probably both at times. Her 1904: "Walter Reed of Bly, reports that husband. E.G. Kilgore is reported to have since the removal of the Bly post office once carried mail on the Klamath Falls­ to old Bly, the Watts Bros .. who had a Lakeview run. but when is unknown. Mrs. tore at New Bly, where they kept the Kilgore made a biennial report on postal post office, have bought out the Smith receipts of $110.94 for July I , 1899 and store at the old site, and the Casebeer of $197. 17 for July I, 1901. hotel at New Bly has been closed. and On July 2. 1901 Mary L. Kilgore peti­ hereafter all bu iness will be done at t be tioned for a change of location for the old Bly site (present Bly-Editor)." pol>! office. She described the new site as Reed's site for the po t office would being on route 73362 between Ager and have been the pioneer Hotel site. location Lakeview. daily. "1 mile from the river of former post offices.

-38- Seneca C. Hamaker, a brother of H.O. December 18. 1933 according to the Hamaker. became the next postma ter on Po t Office Department: January 4, 1934 October 9, 1905 with the office remain­ according to the General Services Depart­ ing in the hotel location. ment. Klamath Republican, Augu t 31. 1905: At some unknown time the office "W.F. Reed and family and Miss Sadie seems to have been moved back to the Mulkey. of Bly, were in town Tuesday on nonh side of the Highway 140 (at one their way to Portland and other points. time known as 66). Agreeing with this Mr. Reed has leased his hotel at Bly to statement, we lind that on October 22. S.C. Hamaker for one year and he will 1940 Mrs. Casebeer sent in a report. probably not return to Klamath County giving the location of the post office as until the lease expires." being in the Southeast Quarter of Section The following year. on August 24, 34-36- 14. facing Highway 66. south of 1906 Walter F. Reed again became post the office I 0 feet. Funher the railroad master. However. the post office seems station of the O.C. & E. lay 1/4 mile to the to have moved to the south ~ide of Main east. Street sometime in early March of 1907 Finally MIS. Vernetia M Hadley be­ as reported by the Klamath Republican came the postmaster on March 31, J 959. of March 7th: "Bly is still growing. One The Klamath Herald & News of June 3. of the stage drivers could not find the 1960 wrote: "The Senate has officially post office. whkh has been moved to the confirmed the President's nomination of new building across from the Pioneer Vernetia M. Hadley for postmaster here hotel." (Biy) Mrs. Hadley has been acting post­ Less than nine months later. on May master since April I. last year. when the II, 1907 Miss Ada Erb took over as post­ former po tmaster. Mrs. Georgia Case­ master. On July J. 1907 she filed a bien­ beer. retired. Mrs. Ca)ebeer had served in nial report of $258.00 for postal receipts. that capacity for more than 20 years. Mrs. The Klamath Republican, of July 9. 1908 Hadley is the mother of Mrs. Gerald reported: "Miss Ada Erb, postmi~tress at Dilavou of Bly and the wife of Herben Bly, returned on Thursday from Portland, Hadley. fue control officer for the Bly where she ha~ been a witness in the Ragan Ranger District of the Fremont National case before the Federal Court." This was Forest." the post office robbery at Royston be­ Actually we find that Mrs. Casebeer tween Bly and Bonanza by Nellie Ragan, served for a few months over 25 years: as written up in Klamath Echoes No. 10, that the office she de1.cribed above was pages 20-21. at the site of the present Pastime, but However. Government record show later was moved to the building immed­ Elvina Connolly followed as the next iately south of the pre ent post office postma ter on Juoe 20. 1908. It may be building. This last building was erected that she served only during Miss Erb's about 15 years ago, at approximately the absence. as we have Della G. Ander on time Mrs. Hadley who is the present post­ becoming postmaster on October 26. master, took over the office. 1908. She fLied a biennial report on July I. I 909 of $278.00 for postal re­ ceipts. lona James became the next post­ Bly master on February 15, 19 I I . She turned in a biennial report on July I , 191 I for The actual founding of Bly is some­ $260.00 postal receipts, the last that has what clouded. At first and for several been made available to us. years there was no town. village or trad­ Then followed Clara Taylor on Decem­ ing post in Upper Sprague River Valley. ber 21 . I 9 I I ; Thomas E. Wallis on Feb­ The only center of the community was ruary 19, 1921 ;Della G. Walker on June the school house and the post office. The 26. I 933: and Mrs. Georgia Casebeer on first school house. a log building. was

-39· Construction of the old "Bill" Smith store In Bly durlng1899. This building Is now the rear part of the Ed Patzke Shell Service Station. Courtesy Everett Bell

Pack train In front of the original "Bill" Smith store at an unknown date, but probably i n the late 1920's when electricity first arrived. (Note the pole I n the background.)

-40- The Bly Hotel which burned a few years ago. It was once known as the Pioneer Hotel and at the last, Halfway House. Courtesy Corky Smith

North of the Sycan Store. AI Swasey house, still standing (now painted green), barber shop, and the Green Lantern. Formerly a bakery, later, ice cream, notions, etc. George Campbell and Olive Protsman. Courtesy Edward Patzke

-41- Jack's Place in Bly, thought to be the oldest building in town. It once served as Bill Smith's general store before 1899, when his stone building (Patzke Shell Service) was constructed.

The present Ed Patzke Shell Service Station building, the back part of which Is the old Bill Smith 1899 mercantile store.

-42- buill in present Bly. exact date unknown. and Ewauoa Box cast of the ummit of just back or to the southwest of the old Quartz Mountain. Later. in 1931, a saw­ Logger's Club. The po t office in those mill was built at Bly itseiL which had early days moved about from ranch to much to do with the growth of the town. ranch. wherever the current postmaster It was claimed by John W. Gearhart in might reside. It seems to have first moved his 1873 application for a post office to a site in present Bly, about 1879. that the Upper Sprague River Valley had Later. in 1882. the office was moved a population of I 00 persons. This would to a point two plus miles west of present seem to be an over estimate in light of Bly. on the old Yainax-Linkville road subsequent statements. As late as Jan­ (now the home of the V.L. Rentales uary. 1880. John V. Kuhn applied for family). The next move. on January 31. the post office and in his application 1883 relocated the office at approximat­ estimated a population of 70 to 75. ely its former location in later day Bly. Just prior to this. in 1879. H.O. Hamaker stated that Bly (buildings prob­ It must be remembered that prior to ably located where the old hotels have this last move the office was known as stood, on the north side of the Hi ghway Sprague River. This move saw the elim­ opposite Jack's Place, consisted of a ination of that name and the assignment ranch house which served as a hotel and of a new. that of Bly, supposedly pro­ post office belonging to James Polk Gear­ posed by Elizabeth Lofton. bart. who also ran a "Livery Barn." According to Oregon Geographical The History of Central Oregon record~ Names, page 59, "Bly was a word of the that "in the summer of 1888 Bly consist­ Klamath Indians meaning up or high. ed of one store and a hotel combined." According to Captain O.C. Applegate of Next. according to the U.S. Censu!> Klamath Falls. it meant the old village up of 1890. the Sprague River (Biy) pre­ Sprague River from Yainax. White people cinct had a population of 119. which appropriated the name and applied it to had 2rown by 1900 to 145. a town east of the Klamath Indian Reser­ Toe History of Central Oregon further vation. A.S. Gatschet in his Dictionary stated that in 1905 Bly had two general of the Klamath Language (U.S. Geograph­ merchandise stores. two hotels and a ical and Geological Survey. Wa hington. saloon, (surely there would have been at D.C.. 1890) gives the word as plai, and least one or two livery barns ---Editor): says that it meant among other things that the precinct at the last election ca!>t the Sprague River Valley and sometimes 150 votes. wbjcb would indicate a popu­ simply the Sprague River as distinguished lation of about 750 in the entire precinct. from the lower country along the William­ In describing the valley the hi story son River. Plaikni were people living also stated: "The products of t be valley high up. or along the upper reaches of consist of horses, cattle, mules and sheep. Sprague River. P'laikni was also used to although the Iauer are few in number. At mean heavenly. or the Christian God. least 1.000 head of cattle. 1 00 head of Further, the Klamath County History, horses and a like number of mules are page 132, records. "its name. said to have sold annually from this valley. The soil been given by Mrs. Lawfton (Lofton­ products are oats. red clover, Alsikc Editor) the first postmistress (of Bly-­ clover, timothy and natural meadow hay. Editor). is short for Blydell, a Klamath At least 4.000 tons of bay are cut annual­ Indian word meaning Heaven." lv. The schools are good. there being two The growth of Bly was slow until districts in the valley. J.O. and J.S. Watts 1928-29 when the O.C. & E. (Strahorn) under the name of Watts Brothers. are Railroad reached the present town of conducting a large merchandise bu iness Sprague River and began its extension at Bly. dealing also in farm machinery toward the former place. Coincidental and implements. W.F. Reed is postmaster, with the arrival of the railroad at Sly was also proprietor of a hotel. J.W. Well~ is a the construction of two large logging large property owner and a worker for operations. the Pelican Bay south of Bly the interests of Bly." -43- Pastime Tavern about 1929-30. Marvin Cross and Charlie Mason, builder. Courtesy Madeline Kettler

Documented hi tory regarding the On July 25. 1929 the Klamath News growth of Bl) during the next twenty wrote: "Jumping from a place of a fe"" three years has not been located to date. houses into quite a prominent town of We do know, however, that early in 1928. 300 people, Bly residents are anticipating when the Oregon, California and Ea!>tern stilJ more rapid growth during the next Railroad began its extension from Sprague two years. River toward Bly, the latter place began "Building of the railroad now jointly to "boom." This "boom" was further ac­ operated by the Southern Pacific and centuated by commencement of work on Great Northern companies, the comple­ two large logging camps nearby, Ewauna tion of the highway through here. the Box to the east. and Pelican Bay to the locating nearby of big logging camps, to­ south .. gether with an already rich stock country, Anticipating the "boom," J.C. Edsall. are the conditions responsible for the May Edsall and T.M. Edsall secured land, sudden development of this trading cen­ then platted and filed the origi nal town­ ter. site of Bly o n June 25, 1928. "On the north side of the highway Later, during that year, on November last September there were no buildings. 24th. the Oregon. California and Eastern Now there is a row of frame business Railroad tracks were finished into town. houses. New commercial places have been Following this event, the Klama!lr E1•en­ added to the older ones on the south ing Herald of December I st wrote in side. giving the town quite a prosperous part." • • • 2 stores, 2 hotels, a ware­ aspect. house, Shell Oil Company distributing "Among the thriving enterprises in plant * * *." Evidently the "boom" was the town now are: Williams Lumber just beginning. Company, with the main branch in Chil-

-44- l

Inside the Green Lantern, slot machines, confectionery, notions, bakery, soft drinks, etc. George Campbell and Olive Protsman. Courtesy Edward Patzke

Inside the Pastime Tavern, Carl Chase, Doris Bell and John Bellman about 1940. Courtesy Mrs. Everett Bell

-45- Former home of M.L. Johnson, Insurance salesman for Lyle Kellstrom of Klamath Falls. Left portion had been a garage, right the home. Courtesy Madeline Kettler

...... , • •.f ...... The Bly Hotel after a face lifting and name change to Halfway House about 1960. Pastime Tavern in background. Courtesy Edward Patzke

-46- ...... Fishing was fine near Bly in 1939. L. toR. Edward Patzke, John Taylor, Clay Thomas and Tufty Jacobs. oquin: SheiJ and Standard Oil Companies. ..On Mr. Conner · ranch is one of the Kerner cleaners: Bly Mercantile, under largest known hayfields. comprising near­ Marvin Cross. and Walker's restaurant ly 2.000 acres of fine hay. which is now and confectionery. being cut and stacked. Walter Campbell " Shafer's hotel, managed by Jack and other prominent stock men have House; Harbin & Maust garage, Stanley & ranches near Bly." Wimer's garage. Bly Inn, kept by Jack Again on September I, 1929 the Snyder; Pioneer Meat Market, under O.R. Klamath News wrote: "During the past Stewart; Bill Bloom's Lunch. Davis Rest­ month several new buildings have gone aurant, the Bly garage and Bly pool hall. up in this city, others are being planned " The Bly Drug company. Theodore while a number of newcomers have start­ Snyder. proprietor; the Van Jones store. ed business enterprises here. a fine new depot and a new well providing "The K.K.K. store of Klamath Falls the purest of cold drinking water, is trans­ now have a branch clothing store handl­ forming Bly into a community of con­ ing merchandise here with O.M. Hector a siderable importance. manager. They are located in the Marvin "With the Ewauna and the Pelican Cross building. Mr. Cross is in a tempor­ Bay Lumber companies locating their ary location but plans on putting up a logging camps near here, large payrolls new building, starting work within a few will give impetus to local trade and the days. town will thrive accordingly, local busi­ "In a nice new but modest size build­ ness men believe. ing Julia Hixon has opened a restaurant "Near Bly is one of the largest cattle while a building is nearing completion ranches in Oregon. owned by C.C. Con­ designed for a soft drink parlor to be nors, over whose vast acreage nearly operated by Mrs. T.E. Teeg of Klamath 2.000 head of cattle graze. Falls.

-47- A fine buck bagged by Edward Patzke near Bly in 1959. Courtesy Edward Patzke

A good day's hunt near Bly in 1959. L. to R. Neil Griffin, Howard McGreer, Hank Hall, Barbara Rentle, and V.L. Rentle. In doorway, John Dillavou. Picture taken on the loading platform of the Sycan Store. Courtesy Edward Patzke

-48- .------~~------~=------~---

"Lorenz Hardware and Plumbing Com­ found three grocery stores. five service pany of Klamath Falls have the contract stations, two beauty parlors. three barber for installing the new water system. A shops, one drug store, two garages. one good water supply is available from a variety and hardware store, six eating city well and the work of piping the town places, one hotel, one telephone office, is now under way. A four-inch main leads one liquor store, one photo srudio. one to the Ewauna Lumber yards and the postoffice, and one church (Methodist) railroad buildings. although the tubing with a membership of about fifty. The has not alJ been put in. combined grade and high school bas nine " The three-room school in Bly will be rooms and gymnasium, with a faculty of taxed t o capacity this year in order to 11." accommodate all the students. The teach­ It was estimated around 1935-36 that ers are Miss Esther Moore and Miss M Bly had a population of 910. but after Grimes. the two logging camps were abandoned. ''Van Jones is building three fine new the town went downhill. homes here and a number of other resi­ dences are contemplated by the progres­ sive citizens of this city." KlamaTh County History (1941) wrote Bly Schools that .. * * * with the comingof the Crane There is evidence that a school was Lumber Company in 1931. a new growth established in present Bly during the started. The mill plant now employs 140 summer or fall of 1873 called Sprague men and produced in 1939 more than River. This was due to the influx of nineteen million feet of lumber. A survey settlers during the summer of I 873 im­ by the high school newspaper in 1940 mediately following the conclusion of

The Bly school sometime during the 1890's. Back row, unidentified. Second row: Lola Parker (Driscoll, Everett Bell's aunt and Pete Driscoll's mother), Cora Finley, teacher, Clara Taylor, Roy Walker, Ross Finley, unknown. Third row: Clarence Taylor, unknown, unknown, Earl Walker, Bertha Parker (Bell, Everett Bell's mother), unknown, unknown, unknown. Front row: Fourth from left, Luke Walker, others unknown. Courtesy Everett Bell

-49- the Modoc War. Probably most of the farther back on the hill, southwest of the people whose names appear on the 1875 log school. Pinpointed further, it stood tax and precinct lists arrived at that time. northerly from the present gymnasium Where most seuled is unknown but some building, near the new trailer park being can and have been described previously. constructed. According to the History of Central On October 10, 1910 according to the Oregon, Page 877, "No school was held Klamath Republican. " * * * a handsome in the boundaries of what is now ( 1905- new school at Bly has just been complet­ Editor) Lake county prior to 1873 * * * " ed by D.E. Burrell. It will be heated by a During the fall of 1873. however. a school Waterbury heater. and has light~ on one was established in Goose Lake valley s1de and the rear, and will have an oiled some five or six miles south of present noor." This school burned on June 27, Lakeview. A second school. located at 1932 at 7:30 in the evening. Valued at Kelly Creek was commenced in 1874. $10,000, i 1 was covered by $4,700 insur­ It is definitely known that Linkville ance. The burned school was immediately (Klamath Falls) was first. consequently replaced by another which was to open it was designated District No. I. The by September 12th. but the date was de­ second school was not far behind and layed until the end of the month. This was established near the present town of latter school with additions still stands Bonanza. in the Lost River settlement. " but is unused. In 1928 a gymnasium, Therefore Bonanza became District No. still standing, and a teacher's house were 2 of Lake County. constructed. According to the Ashland Tidings of Ninety Years of Klamath Schools, June 24. 1876. a report issued by Lake ( 1960). states that "In 1887 there were County School Superintendent Quincy A. three pupils in attendance: Lola Parker. Brooks. "Sprague River became District her cousin Roy Walker and Frank Oben­ No. 3, Pine Creek No. 4 and Antler No. chain. Their teacher was AI Hudkins of 6. IncideOlally only six schools were Dairy. Other pupils were Carrie and O.T. taught in Lake County during 1875. Anderson. It therefore follows that since Lhe "Other early teachers were Mr. (E.G.?) Goose Lake schools were commenced in Kilgore and Katy Wight. It was during late 1873 and early 1874, Sprague River the term of the Iauer that home-made (Biy) No. 3 must have been organized at desks were replaced by "store-bought" a prior date, po sibly in late summer or desks. She had the boys remove the buck­ early fall of 1873. Because of the weather les from their overalls. so the fine new encountered and distances to be traveled. desks would not be scratched. most of those early day schools could be "The 1930 list shows two teachers and held during the summer months only-­ ~4 pupils. and then for only a three months term. "In l 960 there were I I teachers in Further. the University of Oregon has elementary and high school." information that lists a Sprague River When the Bly school was established School for 1873. on Klamath County school lists in 1883. Exactly when that first little log school 11 became District No. 9. The Chairman was built is unknown (there is evidence was Wm. Robinson, with Mart Childers. that those first schools may have been Jas. Clark and Albert Walker, board mem­ held at different settlers' homes from bers. At that time the post office address time to time. the teacher boarding at was given as Sprague River according to that place as well as some of the children). Klamath County School records. It is known. however. that the log school A 1921 directory lists Mrs. J o D. Givan was located approximately behind the as teacher. present Sycan Store about south of the Finally. the presem brick grade school old Loggers' Club. A later school. estab­ was constructed and occupied in 1962. lished around the 1885-1890 period. but High school classes were probably long since passed into oblivion. stood taught as early a~ the 1933-34 school

-50· The old Bly grade and high school as it looks today.

The new and present Bly grade school.

-51 - year, or even before. since it is definitely the Ashland Tidings. September 14, 1887 known that the 9th and I Oth grades were which under Bonanza Items stated there being taught during the 1934-35 term. was a "sawmill between Langell Valley Before and at this latter time. students and Sprague Ri ver." who desired further education attended There are two vague locations possible other high schools, Ashland. Klamath where this sawmill may have operated. FaJis and perhaps Lakeview. The mo t likely. and especiaJiy if the Next we know that all four grades of community of Sprague Ri ver (before it high school were being taught at Bly by became known as Bly) was meant. would 1938 at least, as Mr. George Elliou have been somewhere in the Keno taught in the high school at Bly during Springs-Royston vicinity. the years from 1938 to 1943. Lastly, Bly high school was closed in If the Sprague River Valley was meant. June. 1968 with students being given the sawmill could have been located on their choice of attending ei ther Bonanza the approach 10 Bly Mountain as now or Lakeview. crossed by the present Highway 140. Lumbering in Klamath by W.E. Lnmm Lumbering and Logging records that Colahan had a portable, at Bly steam driven, circular mill on Bly Moun­ tain by 1885. Also that it was moved to Early day ranch buildings in the Upper the White Ranch (Royston) by 1889 Sprague River (Biy) country were prob­ where it was operated by A.A. Fitch and ably of log and shake construction. There bis brother. may even have been some whip-sawing Other information as told to this done to help in home buildng. For a few writer by Sykes Hamaker is I o the effect years after the Modoc War there was but that Wells, Walker and other Bly people. one sawmill in existance east of Linkville at a very early date, had a sawmill on the old Shook sawmill at Bonanza. the Bonanza road about half way between Practically nothing is known of the that place and Bly. Further, Frank Oben- St

Ewauna Box Company moving a tent house from the Ish Tish Creek vicinity toward Quartz Mountain about 1929. Courtesy Cart Proebstel

·52- Pelican Bay Lumber Company jammer at Squaw Flat above Robinson Spring, 12 miles south of Sly. Carl Proebstel on cat, Ray Chase running jammer and Joe Tuchon on logs. 1930 period. Courtesy Carl Proebstel

chain. Sr., once stated that he hauled announced that the Strahorn line would lumber from the old AJ Fitch sawmill to be extended to Bly. Shortly after May build his firs t house for his new bride. 20th, work actually commenced on the At an early day, Jesse Porker hud a 26 mjle extension. mill some three or more miles west of By J une 26th it was stated that the Bly and just east of the old Klamath Pelican Bay Lumber Company would Indian Reservation. It is possible that soon build a logging railroad to a point this mill and the WeUs. Walker, etc .. mill some 12 miles south of Bly where they were the same but at different locations would establish a large logging camp. and or e'en the same. Sykes Hamaker also move their present operations from the told of a shingle mill. and perhaps even a area just northeast of Crater Lake. awmill. once located up Ish Tish Creek ext, on August 31st. it was reponed just inside Lake County. He further that the Ewauna Lumber Company had thought there may have at one time been purchased the 37.000 acre Booth-Kelly a small mill located near the Obenchain tract of timber east of Bly and would ranch on Meryl Creek. build a rail road into it within a year. £t also seems that at times the Reserva­ The O.C. & E. Railroad reached Bly tion sawmills near Old Yainax and Beauy on November 24. 1928. On January 11. may have supplied lumber to the valley 1929 the Pelican Bay logging road was ranchers near Bly. which might or might under construction and by March I st. not have been "boot-legged." seven miles had been completed. After reaching the present town of On April 4. 1929 the Ewauoa Box Sprague River in 1923. the O.C. & E. Lumber Company commenced buying Railroad suspended extension for nearly right-of-way 10 the Booth-Kelly tract at five years. Then on May 5. 1928 it was Quanz Mountain. Nine days later. on

-53- Ewauna Box Company saddle tank, rod engine at Quartz Mountain camp. Courtesy A.S. Clawson, Jr. April 13th, Pelican Bay Lumber Com­ ·•on a natural park site the bunk and pany made their first shipment of logs to cook houses are pitched and the result is Klamath Falls. that the employees and their families enjoy By June 21st, switching tracks for pleasant living conditions. Ewauna had been installed at Bly, where "New cabins are being erected contin­ two steam shovels and a number of "cats" ually. Large barns for the horses have been were shipped in. On July 14th, Ewauna had put up, giving the camp the appearance of a extended their railroad bed 7Ya miles east of busy building center. Sly. At the same time Pelican Bay stated that "A building to be used for school pur­ their railroad would soon be completed 15 poses is to be set up in a few days and a miles south of Bly. teacher employed to instruct about 20 The Klamath News of September 22, 1929 children of school age, now living with reported: "Pelican Bay Camp on Fishhole. their parents in the camp. " When fully completed and all the "With nearly 200 men employed and necessary cabins erected, the Pelican Bay several locomotives, many "cats" and Lumber company will have one of the largest jammers in action. the virgin wilds have logging camps in southern Oregon not far been transfom1ed into life and activity little from here. dreamed of before the company moved "The company recently moved their here. logging headquarters from Diamond Lake to "Over a good logging road the timber is this section for a permanent location. There transported to Bly and by rail again from is timber enough in sight to keep the outfit there to the miU at Pelican City. cutting for many years. "Among those directing operations at The camp site is located at Robertson the Sly Pelican Bay camp are J.C. (Cruel (Robinson) Springs, ll miles southeast of Jimmy) Johnson, superintendent; J.P. Sly. Here seven springs of clear water gush Baker, camp foreman; C.J. Hagen, clerk; from the sands, providing pure water for the A.L. Thalafer, time-keeper. crews and stock. ·'John Couman, falling boss; Sam -54- Heisler No. 1, used on the run from Quartz Mountain to Bly about 1938 or 1939. At the Sprague River Recreation Area road crossing. Courtesy A.S. Clawson, Jr. Kelby, barn boss; E.J. Smallfield, cater­ Marvin Cross was completing a new pillar mechanic; A.H. McKeen. Bert Ma­ service station at Quartz Mountain and son, George Owen, J.P. Breman and C.V. Redfield Brothers would soon start on a Montgomery comprise the five scalers. camp ground and service station near the "W.W. Kyniston and H.E. Williams railroad crossing. ln addition the com­ are the filers. AI Dubbs is the chef, while pany had just completed installation of a James Vickery is second cook. Excellent water system to half the residences and food is served to the men. Well-cooked and were working on the balance. served in enormous quantities, the items Finally on December 14, 1929 it was on the bill of fare are an alluring attraction reported Robert Sloan was installing a to appetites made keen by rugged work. service station at Quartz Mountain. "The Pelican Bay outfit is celebrated On November 24, 1930 a post office throughout the west for having the cham­ by the name of Quartz Mountain was pion log loading crew. In May they broke established on Highway 140 a short dis­ the record by loading 71 cars ready for tance southeast of the pass. Mrs. Vera A. the mill in one day. A jump of nearly 20 Real was the only postmaster. The office cars over their own previous championship was closed to Lakeview. August 31 , 1943. record." The first mention of the Crane sawmill As reported On November 3, 1929 in Bly was reported in the Klamath Pelican Bay was in full swing and by using News of May 31 , 1931 when they wrote: two jammers was loading out 35 cars per " * * * the Crane mill pond construction is day to ship to Klamath Falls. under way." At the same time it was announced that The Crane sawmill, a semi-portable Ewauna Camp, one mile east of Quartz band miJl, employing about 25 men Mountain (in Lake County) was just was owned by Harold Crane and Walter moving in and would start with 28 sets of Beane. Its actual starting date was fallers with 30 to 40 car loads of logs per about June 20, 1931. By October 22nd, day shipped to Klamath Falls. " * * * the Crane mill became the electric

-55- Inside the old Crane Mill in 1940. Sawyer, Ivan Courtwright. Courtesy Edward Patzke

band aw type." Crane managed the mill 1940's ( 1945). who wa~ operating it in which some years later added a planning 1948 at least. Then 10 1952 the owner­ mill. Log were obtained from a number ship and name \\a~ changed to Bly Lum­ of small purchases of timber '' ithin truck­ ber Company with Gil Lilly as manager. ing distance. and Ralph Webber. mill wright. "In 1934." according to Lumbering About 1956 Dan and Roberta McGee in Klamath. "this company built a cir­ bought the mill and in turn sold or leased cular mill about ten miles northwest of to E.H. and A.H. Loveness. Bly. which was managed by Mr. Beane The mill burned once during Spangler's until 1936. when the mill was sold to the ownership and once during the Lilly­ Ivory Pine Company, Ed Ivory being McGee regime. On November 6. 1966 manager. In 1937 Ivory Pine Company fire destroyed the dry kiln at the Love­ installed a band mill: in 1938 it built a ness mill. planning mill. and in 1940 the plant wao; After this the Modoc Lumber Com­ electrified. Logs for the mill have been pany 10ok over from LO\'eness to them­ obtained from small purchases of private selves sell on July 7. 1970 to Weyer­ and Reservation timber in the vicinity. haeuser Timber Company for $400.000. "On October 22. 1948 the last log June 11. 1973 saw the beginning of con­ went through the Ivory Pine mill at II :50 ~truction on the new $12.000.000 pro­ A.M. It took three or four months to ship ject. John McCalgin, Modoc's manager. out the remaining lumber. During the 15 remained to work for Weyerhaeuser. year~ the mill ran it cut 250.000,000 Finally. November 5. 1973 was set as feet of lumber. Pat Ivory, George Butler. the target date for the present new Jim McMillan. AI J. Jones. Jim Michael­ Weyerhaeuser plant to open, which seems son, Jim Ivory and AI Coke were the to have been the approximate date it officials. The plant was dismantled and began operating on a small scale. moved 1 o Dinuba, California where it Two other sawmills have operated in <;tarted running in April or May of 1949. Bly at different times. One. the Bly Tim­ In the meantime the Crane Mill in Bl) ber Company, a subsidiary of Weyerhaeo­ was sold 10 Spangler during the mid- ~er Timber Company. ran for a year or

-56- Ewauna Box Company log train at Inspection point, midway between Quartz Moun· tain and Bly, where Sprague River Recreation Area road now crosses old railroad bed. 1938. Courtesy AS. Clawson, Jr.

Bachelor cabins being moved from Quartz Mountain to a new camp northeast of town of Sprague River in 1940. Art Messner, engineer, Inspecting the engine. Courtesy AS. Clawson, Jr.

-57- two around 1930. upposedly cuuing First probably was that over Bly timbers for construction at the main mill Mountain approximating present 140. at Kl amath Falls. The other mill. O\\ ned Traffi c including supplies for the Goose and operated by a man named Woodcock. Lake country from Rogue Ri ver Valley tood south of Highway 140 about two passed this way. Colahan Station. at the hundred yards and west of the railroad. summit of Bly Mountain, probably open­ where some cabins are now located. It ed up by 1880 or ve ry soon thereafter. ran around the 1934-35 or even later period and cut logs from the South Bly Secondly, the Keno Springs route burn. probably developed at about lhe same The Williams Company once had a re­ time. as a much shorter route between tail lumber yard at Bly beginnin~ about fast growing Bonanza and th e country 1929 or 1930. around present Bl y. How much freight When Ewauna and Pelican Bay logging pas ed over this route is unknown. but it camps were dismamled around 1he 19 3 7 did become the mail route for many years to 1940 period. the economy of the with Royston a way-stop. Sprague Ri ver country suffered a severe Next. when the fin.t railroad was setback. However. to a somewhat smaller constructed into Klamath County in degree this was offset by the establish­ 1903. stopping at Pokegama, con iderable ment of Weyerhaeuser Timber Company's freight for the Lakeview and Paisley Camp Six and the logging road that even­ country began to be tran sported tllrough tually led to Camp Nine, on the Summer the Bly country. In 1904 a road. at con­ Lake Rim. and later Camps I I and 14 on siderable expense to both Lake and Klam­ the Klamath Falls-Silver Lake road. ath counties. was built northeasterly from Bly. north of Gearhart Mountain and down the Chewaucan River to Paisley. with the road 1 o Lake' iew receiving Roads some improvement. By the late teens and early twenties. A~ we have seen, the firs t road to emer the Sprague River Valley was in th e considerable agitation arose for better 1863-64 period when miners and others roads between the Kl amath Bas in and passed through on their way from Calif­ Goose Lake Valley (The S.P. Railroad had reached Klamath Fall l> from Weed in ornia points. via the Lost Ri ver country. to the John Day mines. May. 1909). Up to that time the two At about the same time. a road was roads were liule better tha n cow trails. being almost impassable after early fall laid ou t from Fort Kl amath to the Goose rains and winter snows. until quite late in Lake country and beyond. Most of it the spring when the mud holes bad dried through the Upper Sprague Ri ver Valley up. Competition grew keen between the also became the Oregon Central Military supporters of the Keno Springs road and Road of 1865-67. This road approxtmates those favoring Bly Mountain. present Oregon Stare Highway 140 from The Klamath News of March 13, 1923 Beatty to Lakeview. reported that the Bonanza. via Keno In 1872. when the first mail route Springs. to Bly route had been chosen by wa~ established between Ashland :111d the State of Oregon as th e best route for Lake City . a combination of these tw o an improved highway. roads became the line of travel. The John Seen thereafter several things trans­ Day road to Yainax and the Military pired to change the picture: the 0. C. & E. road to Goose Lake Valley. Railroad to Sprague Ri ver, the founding At about this last date, or a ~oon as of Beatty and the amount of pressure the Upper Sprague River Valley east of brought by certain citizens of those com­ the Kl amath Indian Reservation began to munities turned the tide. be seuled. 1 wo new and shorter routes In addition, there is a Story current came into u~e. around Bonanza. that the engineer in

-58- charge of 1he survey crews investigating automobile was corning, it was telephoned the two routes had a sudden change of throughout that section, and quite a dele­ heart. At first, favoring the Keno Springs gation of ranchers rode into town to get route, he suddenly changed in favor of their first sight of the "devil wagon." the Bly Mountain or present 140 route. Nearly the entire population had the It seems that he had a dog. of wbjch he pleasure of a ride before Mr. Peltz left. was quite fond , and some thoughtless One thing the trip demonstrated was the soul in Bonanza. becoming incensed at impossibility of establishing an automo­ some action of the dog, killed him, whi ch bile line between this city and Lakeview. caused the engineer to turn against the The condition of the roads is such that no Bonanza people. (At least this is the story machine could stand more than one trip. wld this writer.) Of course the official unless in the hands of an expen and then version given was that there was much driven with the ulmost care." more wayside business to accommodate (As told to this writer by Everett Bell.) on the Bly Mountain-Beatty route. This A man by the name of Clapp drove the statistic was quite true in light of more first au to stage through Bly on the Klam­ recent developments. ath Falls-Lakeview run. According to Mr. Bell, the kids would climb on top of the Improving roads approximating present fences to watch for his coming. They 140 was begun in the summer of that could see the dust for some time as he year with the U.S. Forest Service adding approached. Later be was iJJvolved in some improvements in the Fremont Na­ some sort of car parts theft ring in San tional Forest to the east of Bly. Bonanza, Francisco. however, kept the fight going and it was not until 1927 that it was officially an­ nounced that Bly Mountain would be the Telephone route of the new Klamath Falls-Lakeview Highway. Telephone service was inaugurated in Bly on Monday, August 22, 1904 by the The Klamarh Republican of October Midway Telephone and Telegraph Com­ 24. 1907 recorded a bit of history well pany of Klamath Falls; H.V. Gates. own­ worth reprinting: "The first auto to reach er, O.B. Gates. Superintendent. Bly arrived there Monday afternoon about two o'clock.. making the run from this city to Bly in six hours. The party con­ Electricity sisted of Mr. and Mrs. E.J. Murray, D.B. Kendall and Harry Peltz, owner of the Electricity reached Bonanza late in machine. The route followed was through 1908, or early in 1909. but it was not the reservation and Sprague River valley. until September I 929 that the California­ Nothing marred the pleasure of the trip Oregon Power Company began extending until within three miles of Bly, when one the line to Sprague River. Beauy and Bly. of the springs broke, and notwithstanding The Bly elecuic light plant was installed the fact that it was repaired at Bly it was about January 3, 1930. Exactly when the source of a great deal of trouble after­ elecrricity arrived is unknown. wards. The start for this city was made Tuesday evening, and when a short dis­ Water tance out the spring broke again. Its interference with the steering gear neces­ sitated the runrung of the machine at On November 3, 1929 the Klamath low speed the rest of the trip. An insuf­ News printed the following information: ficient supply of gasoline necessitated "The Bly Water Company, Jobo Boyle the abandoning of the machine at Jack president; R.C. Groesbeck, vice-president: Horton's. and Ed Kendall, secretary and general manager, started development of the When the news reached Bly that an water system in town about one month

-59- Cook House at Ewauna Camp on Quartz Mountain during winter 1930. Courtesy Carl Proebstel

Everett Bell pulling an automobile out of the Oevil's Garden mud on the old Sly­ Lakeview road. Courtesy Doris Bell

-60- A broken axle near the 7C ranch on the Sly-Lakeview Highway. Left to right: Unknown, Everett Bell, Vern Meyers, the owner and an unknown. Courtesy Doris Bell

Everett Bell working on the Sly-Lakeview Highway near the 7C ranch east of Bly. Courtesy Doris Bell

~I- ago. Water was secured from a 300' well. there. However. there are about twentv The company purchased the original ys­ graves with headstone\ of slab lava rock tem from A.J. Hannon. A re~ervoir. of upon which at some distant date names. 50.000 gallon capacity has been con­ or initials and dates were inscribed. These structed. Water has been delivered to are now indecipherable. so. to whom the Ewauna Camp since July lst. and to the graves belong and when the individual O.C. & E. yards since September I st. The was buried there must forever remain system just completed consists of 700' of unknown. 4" main. and 3.500' of 2" main. with 1wo fire hydrants just installed. The in­ stallation crew is now employed hooking Race Track up private homes to the main. service to four now being delivered." Bly once had a race track and rodeo grounds where celebrations were held yearly. 1t was !.ituatcd on the southeast Thea ere corner of the inter~ection of Campbell and Weyerhaeuser Road.,. Further. it was A community hall. dance hall. or gen­ situated on the unfenced land slightly eral meeting place. known a~ Reed's Hall. over one mile east of Bly and immediately once stood on the northeast corner of west of the Evcreu Bell ranch. Ed ler and Edsall Streets (one block south The Klamath News of May I I. 1930 of Main). Here perhaps were ~hown the advertised a "Racing Meet" to be held first movies to be seen in Bly. Then May I 6. I 7 and 18, with a dance to be ~ometime in tile 1950's a theatre, the held each night. How long before this Arch. still in use occasionally, was built celebration had been held there is un­ by George Fullerton. known or whether held at other times of the year.

Cemetery R a n ge War

There was once an old graveyard There have been several range wars in acros~ the street (Highway 140) and a the Bly area, a few of which were men­ lillie north of the present post office. ln tioned in Klamatb Echofs No. 10. "Lan­ other words. about where the U.S. For­ gel! Valley - Bonanza" Issue. We will estry rel.idcnce now stands. There were mention but one here, a more recent and some seven or eight graves in evidence. famous case in its day. Only one bad a tombstone, which "was It concerns two sheepmen. Way and loose and kicked around b) 1he kidl>." Morgan. who met in the Devil's Garden Only the name "Cruickshank" i'> remem­ vicinity during Augu<;t. 1925. quarreled bered on this !>tone. It appears this man and fought O\er a black sheep. Morgan worked for the Bloomingcamps. got was killed. Way was found guilty and drunk. fell off the saloon teps and was sentenced to 15 years in the State Prison killed. in Salem. Later a cemetery came into use which By January, 1926. after five months is situated some 3112 miles west of Bly. in there. he was out on $5.000 bail. Section 30-36-14. l/2miJe south and 1/2 Retried in June. 1927 be was again mile we~t of the junction of Highway found guilty, but this time received a 140 and the old Ivory Pine or Camp Six sentence of one to seven years. Road. It lies about 1/2 mile east of the old On April 15, 1930 the Klnmntb News Klamath Indian Reservation line. It wa reponed that Wa} had died in prison. thus in u e from about 1901 to about 1943. ending the county's la~t beep-cattle war. according to dates on tombstones located small though it was.

-62- Stock History heads to help him get the wild white faces loaded on the cars. Then the three or four old timers would decide that it From the Klamath News, was their time to howl. and show the May 10, 1928 effete citizens of northern California how the real hairy-shapped be-men of the great open spaces really "put it on," when the beef-drive was over. lt is a far cry from the livestock indus­ The owners and foremen usually re­ try of today in Klamath county, with turned as soon as the beef were loaded shipping facilities at Chiloquin. Klamath and the check received from the buyers. Falls, Midland. and Texum to the years Some of the buckaroos stayed a month. from 1870 to 1909, when the big outfits some a few days. For a whole month drove from here to Red Bluff. and later after the long trail had been covered with to Montague or Gazelle. Weeks and long, slowly moving, dust encrusted men months were required for the drive; in and animals, the former unsteady in the the "eighties" the Walkers, Barkers. Tay­ saddle, all of them with hanging heads, lors, WeUs, Finleys, from the Bly district, might be seen slowly retracing the road the Melhases and others from Fort Klam­ to the old home ranch. Sometimes it was ath and stock from the Carr ranch (now 150 miles: if the buckaroo happened to Dalton ranch) were trailed to Red Bluff. have come from Summer Lake. Harney or Eight to nine weeks sufficed for the trip. Malheur counties, it would be as high as Perhaps the cattle were in a field no more 300 miles. Then the year would start than three times in the entire distance; over again. with its round of riding. brand­ the rest of the time, the "buckaroos," or ing, etc. vaqueros, or cowboys. or whatever one In lhe eighties and nineties. horses and chooses to call them, bad to "sing to 'em mules were more profitable than cattle. at night. " At one time. about 1900, Albert Walker From 20,000 to 30.000 bead of prime had a yearly contract calling for 150 beef steers were moved out annually in yearling mules at $I 00 per head. In addi­ this manner. They were taken. as a rule, tion to a herd of 2000 cattle, he ran 1000 in herds of from 1500 to 2000. As a horses. A man who did not own at least rule, one big rancher or perhaps two 2000 cattle in those days was 110t consid­ would take their beef through. Then a ered a stockman at all. number of smaller fry would pool tO­ The traditional sheep and cattle war­ gether and drive theirs down the long fare has had its usual run of trouble in trail to the railroad. this country. Its first manifestation was It was a wild country. in those days. io 1890 to 1895, when the Blooming­ All would go well on the beef drive as a camp brothers had sheep in the Bly coun­ rule, until the last night. The cattle would try. There was much playful poisoning of be held in pasture a few miles our of sheep, filing of lawsuits, shootings threat­ town. Then the buckaroos would decide ened and more or less actual between that the drive was nearly over. Whether factions of early pioneer seulers. This has the town was Red Bluff, Yreka. Montague all blown over now. and the contesting or Gazelle, there would be bars and bars. parties are now the best of friends. Other dance halls, all of the lures of civilization, sheep and cattle rows in other parts of relatively speaking. the county were not settled so amicably. The hardy horseman bad been back in No mention of early stock raising in the mountains for a solid year, drawing Klamath county would be complete with­ their wages a dollar or two at a time. out mention of the Goodlows. There is a They never thought of resisting tempta­ mountain east of Langell valley which tion. No one expected them to. The next still bears their name. and the memory morning, it was a lucky buckaroo boss of some of their escapades will never be who had more than three or four old erased from the minds of the old time

-63· stockmen. They are said to have carried The winters of 1878-1879 and 1889- on a wholesale business in caule stealing 1890 will live long in the memories of and all kinds of banditry. They were Klamath stockmen. Old timers slill talk "tough hombres," it is said (and gloried of their severity, the depth of the snow, in the fact). The entire family finally the extreme cold. l n both years, the hold­ died out, with considerable help from ings of Klamath stockmen were in some the more accurate marksmen of Klamath cases entirely wiped out, and hardly a county. man escaped losing half his herd. ln In 1870 the now closely populated March of 1890, the Shook brothers gave Sprague River valley in the neighborhood half of their remaining herd to Alben of Bly was a wilderness. Jim Taylor and Walker, Jim Taylor, and other Bly ranch­ Albert Walker built the first fence in the ers. They could not feed them enough to section. Neither of them ever used their keep them alive. There was snow on the homestead rights. With so many thou­ ground to a depth of from six to eight sand acres of wild meadow land open. feet. And in March, the thermometer was neither thought that the country would below zero. The Carr herd was practically ever be settled. They finally bought land wiped out. From the Steele swamp and that others had homesteaded. LOl ranch, Carr was then running from For those who are always deploring 6000 to 7000 caule. In the spring, all but the hurry, bustle and worry of modern 200 or 300 had died of starvation and life those days, in some ways, must seem cold. The winter had been so unusually a Nirvanah. Bills were paid once a year. severe that every bit of hay which the Who wouldn't have liked to live then? country could muster was not sufficient In the fall of the year, when the men to keep the stock from starving to death. had returned from the Montague beef In the nineties, Henry Jackson was the drive, the entire household of the more most influential Indian on the reservation. well-to-do families of this section pre­ He ran as high as 2000 head of cattle, pared for their annual shopping tour. and was looked upon by the Indians as Ashland was then the metropolis of their guiding light. their .. major domo . .. southern Oregon. A four or six horse The lesser indians depended upon him team, drawing a freight wagon and trailer for work, advice, help, both financial would head the procession, winding down and otherwise. Jackson later lost most of the steep mountains out of the Bly sec­ his fortune. tions, across the Klamath basin, and on Charlie Horton was one of the most over the Green Springs mountains to the influential cattlemen in this country in city of Ashland. After the wagon, riding the period 1895 to 1905. Horton. be­ in what for that day was luxury. would sides operating his ranches in this section, come the women and children of the made regular trips through Lake, Mal­ family -in a back - or, in cases of rare heur and Harney counties in the spring, opulence, a surrey. At Ashland, the buying beef to be marketed in the fall. freight wagons would be loaded with These cattle would be trailed as far as provisions for the maintenance of a ranch Sprague River valley, where they would for a year. And the women and children be held in pasture until fall. Then. after a would have the time of their Lives. buying second long drive, they would be loaded such finery and knick-knacks as the city on the cars at Montague. of Ashland could furnish. Stockmen differ greatly in their esti­ Ashland merchants carried the stOck­ mates of the number of cattle and sheep men of Lake and Klamath counties on shipped from here now as compared to their backs for a year at a time. A man those shipped in the early days. Most of paid his bills, and his buckaroos, once a the old timers believe that the number year - when the beef was sold. was vastly greater then. However, it is For this shopping trip, a month was pointed out by those in close touch with taken as a rule, although the trip could the indusuy now. the entire output of be made by rushing matters, in 18 days. Lake and Harney counties came through

-64- here before the railroad came to Lake­ not more actual cattle shipped now than view. Where there was one shipper for the old days, yet prior to 1895 sheep 1500 cattle in those days, there are now were unknown. Butter. cheese, even 15 with 100 or even 100 with 15. Then. cream and milk is now shipped out. The too, dairying was unheard of in those total value is vastly increased, it is be­ days. Ranchers with thousands of head lieved. of cattle bought wagon loads of canned [And, be it remembered. the above milk. They disliked "dairying," as they described drives and railroad shipments called the milking of a cow for home have undergone further changes during consumption. the past several years, being replaced by It is believed by those who have seen huge trucks that load at the ranches and the old times, and are still in close touch haul the entire distance to the big city with the situation, that there are perhaps markets.-- Editor] GARNER

Due north of Bly. some 3 l/2 airline George Boyd ranch home. miles. there once stood a school named The school and post office are said ro Garner. Approximately at the same time have been named for the first pupil, and about 114 mile farther north there was Garner Lundy. Exactly when the school a post office of the same name. commenced or ended is unknown. Ninely To reach the site of this former school, Years of Klamath Schools tells us that travel east from Bly on Highway 140, one "Ida Grimes taught a 2-month school and a half miles to Campbell Road; fol­ there in the fall of 1903. Then the school low that road north for three miles, turn funds ran out. and school was closed as west one mile. and again north approxi­ was customary. Nett Drew Peterson taught mately one half mile to Fritz Creek, her first school there in 1904-5. approximately the site of the Garner The post office was established June 7, school. It stood on the east side of the 1902 and discontinued June 3, 1903. The road, and the location is now a salt first and only postmaster was Jessie M. ground for cattle. Boyd. A few old-timers still remember The post office was approximately the school. one fo urth mile farther north at the old YOCUM VALLEY

Written by Bertha Covert Sickels Falls, Oreg. with an iron wheeled wagon Tonopah. Nevada, March 15, 1957 and a 3 horse team. We hitched the odd for Ruth King horse to the end of the wagon roung at In answer to the short piece wrote every hill going back to Yocum, as we about the settling of Yocum Valley Lake picked up a ton of potatoes ncar Klam­ county Oregon, sent in by Mr. A.M. ath Falls. We wenr thro Langell valley Zevely of Lakeview Oregon. a few weeks and to the Frank Gross Rim Rock Ranch ago. I'll try and state this correctly as 1 and from there on into Yocum valley can. I was one of the Homesteaders with there had been but one wagon tbru, and my husband Charlie B. Covert and my no road. Henry followed the one wagon Daughter Pauline who was I 0 year's of track till it got dark. then Charlie held age at that time. We landed in Yocum on the team while Henry lit matches and October 23rd. 1914 about 3:30 P.M. hunted out the track. We had to make it Henry Albertson had met us at Klamath to a small valley called Wild Horse. Henry

-65- had never been there but be tbot there and left Lhir claim, a family named Green was water there for the horses and for had the same claim, they to cou !dent take camp use. We got there finely Long after the Hardship. and moved on Kreigh's dark. It was swampy at a place near a stayed 3 years. the First winter we dident large bunch of willows, so Henry took a haveaschool untill the Fall of 1915 when small shovel he had on the wagon and Miss May Bergoin of Portland, Oreg. was dug a good sized hole, then he came in to our First Teacher, she Boarded with sister camp and we all helped get our camp in Mary Be'craft, Mary Jived in Brother Clar­ order for th e nite. October nites are ence Albertson's cabin near where the pretty cold up in the bills near Yocum school was held, in Brother Henry's valley and we had shipped our bedding cabin. He had one corner of his cabin it had failed to arive in Klamath Falls, closed off with a canvas as he had his befor we were ready to leave so we only Belongi ngs Piled behind it, so as to leave had 2 heavy robes and a heavy coat for room for the school. Miss Bergoin was a bedding. When Henry went out to the very good teacher. the children that hole he had dug it was full of water He atended school From Each Family I'Ll do filled 2 pails for camp use then watered my Best to name. should I leave out any and fed his horses. Next day we arived in one Please dont be afended, there were 7 Yocum valley. It was beautiful then all from the Gober family, Virgie, Lemual, open and wild no fences. Henry and Jack:, Clarence Minnie, Elcie, Mary. Albert clarence Albertson had their cabins about and Velma Reizenstt!in, Pauline Wieck. built and Henry had moved in to his Ruth and Russel Pardue and Frank Al­ cabin with Henry was sister Pearl 19 years bertson, corlas, Florn and Corvas Krcigh. old and Brother Frank 15 years old and and the little Myers girl. r dont remember our mother Mary Counts Albertson, an­ her name. and the following year, our other sister and her two children had teacher was Miss Verna Weaver now Mrs. come to Yocum with my mother and May. 1 believe of California, she taught Brothers Mrs. Mary Reizenstein, she later school in the same cabin. Belonging to married Mr. Cy Be'Craft of Long valley, Henry Albertson. He was not a sheep about 7 miles north of Yocum valley. hearder and He dident go off on a tool at They had one child Everette BeCraft. any time. he was working at the time 1 these People. the Albertsons and the belive on the Old Howard Ranch in Pardue Family's and the Kernan Family Drews valley. feeding cattle all winter, and the Gober Family had all come in to the cabin still had the same canvas up to settle in yocum valley as Homesteaders hide what things that were stored behind From Roseburg Oregon they had all I it. there was no family Having 2 little believe arived in yocum in late June, all girls of that age living in yocum at that come with wagon and team's. We came time. Miss Verna Weaver Boarded and from The Dalles Oregon. none of us had had a room of her own to her self at all ever lived where there was so much snow times. with us. the Charlie Coverts, she or cold weather so we froze our toes a had the sa me children in her school as of Little that winter. and we learned to use the year befor. then in 1917 the new skies. there was several other Fami lys school house was built the lumber was Located in yocum valley at that time. the balled by wagon and 4 or 6 horse team Kreigh's they Got a Postaffice in yocum from Klamath Falls, Oregon, a trip of the following year in 1915. called Kreigh. about 75 miles. the school house was howEver, it was changed to yocum, later. ready for use the fall of 1917. with Miss I cant say for sure Just what year it was Aneta Kester of Poe Valley as teacher, changed. There was a family named Dun­ the taylor family came in to the valley man lived on what is known as Alberts that fall and homesteaded. virgie Gober Homestead now. they had quite a house did not go to school that fall, there was there at one time It had several rooms. 4 taylor children Bill-Lena-Hellen and some one used the lumber to Build their Jessie went to school. Dreighs moved Homestead house after they moved away away that year and the Myer's family to

-66- moved out but for the rest of us life went and have it stocked with Rainbow trout. on not easy but Pleasem to us that by a Great place to camp and fish during the that time were use to hardship and cold summer months. they also irigate several winters and eating cured meat and dryed hundred acres of meddow and grain land fruit with plenty beans. Miss Kester for hay and grain. Everette Be'craft also boarded with sister Pearl and Brother raises a couple hundred acres of grain to Clarence, she taught the yocum school thresh these last years. there is two good several years I believe. there was 3 older roads coming into yocum from the east boys of Mr. and Mrs. Luther Pardue that and one from the west. when we first bad homesteads in yocum. Mr. Alex homesteaded we had no road, we just Pardue (who married Miss Pearl Albertson drove over the hill over rock's and down In 19 18 and passed a way, the following a creek bed that was terriable going down november of the same year.) and Marvin into Dog Lake, the team could just pull Pardue. we were a happy lot of people the empty wagon up the creek bed. then tho our houses were just cabins not warm we would carry all our load up on our or nice they were borne and we bad lots backs to the wagon, then halll/2of it to of fire wood to keep us warm yocum the top of the big hi ll. unload it, and go valley is realy beautiful its a good sized back and load up the other half of our valley about 4 miles either way. with a load and when we reached the hill top we high rock peak or hill in the center of it. loaded on the Ballance of our load and called center peak. the land is a dark went straight down the steep open bill doby soil will grow any thing thats hardy side into the valley. we never tryed to use enough to stand the frost if given plenty a wagon [f it was wet on account of the of water. Now the valley is owned by stickey mud. but it was pardice in yocum Henry Albertson and three sons and a those days to us. We loved it. california company that runs sheep in Wrote by Bertha B. Sickels, of on thir holdings every year. and Mr. Bonanza. Oregon Everette Be'Craft and Mr. Jerry Ahern P.O. Box 162 the Albertson's have built a large Resivore

Present Beatty United Methodist Church on the northwest corner of Beatty.

-67- BEATTY

In 1908. as recorded by Klamath dam in 1909, and proved up on his home­ County History, 1941. Mr. and Mrs. stead in three years under the soldiers' Peffley came as Methodist missionaries exemption. to the southeast corner of the Klamath Mr. Simmons operated "The Beatty Indian Reservation. One faction wanted Store" for five years until 1920, when it the Yainax church and parsonage buill on was sold 10 Mr. and Mrs. (Annie E.) O.T. Whiskey Creek, three miles from present Anderson. He went 1o Bonanza for a Beatty, and another wanted both built year, then returned to Beatty. At that at or near present Beauy. so they comp­ time. history tells us. he built. in partner- romised by putting the two buildings hip with J.L. Sparretorn, "The Sycan three miles apart - the church on Whis­ Store" on northeast corner of the inter­ key Creek [north of present Highway section of Godowa Road and Highway 140- Editor) and the parsonage on the 140. or the Harrison corner. During his low hill just west of the' pre ent church many years at Beatty Simmons operated in Beatty. [Before or at about this time under an Indian traders' license. there was a very small building on the In 1923, John Simmons was married banks of Sprague River. northeast of to Mrs. Lois Eichhorn of Indianapolis present Beatty, that was used as a church­ and Mr. and Mrs. Simmons operated - Editor). It was inconvenient for the "The Sycan Store" until it burned to rbe missionaries, who often had 10 ride horse­ ground on April II, 1929. Mrs. Simmons back to and from the church in cold and and Helen Scott barely escaped with muddy weather. but the lndians were their lives. "The Beatty Store", across satisfied and began to build their life the street 10 the south. operated at the around the church. The Reverend J.L. time by F.J. Schmitz did not burn. The Beatty was the second pastor of the post office. situated in "The S yean Store" Yainax church and by securing a post also burned. The total loss was estimated office caiJed Beatty on November I 0. to be $35-$40,000. 191 3. was honored by having the town Down through 1he years. fires have (of one building) named for him. almost destroyed Beatty from time to The firs t store was started in the wood­ time. The first recorded fire we have shed of the parsonage by John Simmons. found was reported in the Klamath News who became postmaster December 31. of August 8, 1928 when the J.S. Taylor 1914 when Reverend Beatty was placed hotel and garage wa~ destroyed. Many elsewhere by his conference. more followed and some will be men­ In the spring of 1915, J.L. Sparretom tioned. of Bonanza built the first store in Beatty In the meantime, Frank John Schmitz and called it "The Beatty Store." Thi came to the Klamath Country in 1910. was the fir t building in Beatty be ides while working for the Southern Pacific the parsonage. [n light of following events Railroad. In 1911 he became associated of history related, this building was lo­ with Big Basin Lumber Company. of cated on the south side of the present which be later became superintendent of highway and west of the post office. the plant. John Simmons worked at clearing the The History of Klamath County. 1941 land for the building. grubbing sagebrush (page 526) tells us that Frank J. Schmitz from land yet untOuched and where now and Carrie Anderson were married on a busy little village is located. November 29, 1915. She was the daugh­ John Simmons first came to Klamath ter of Quinton and Clara (Collins) Ander­ County on February 2. L908. going to son. and the sister of O.T. "Buck" Ander­ Bonanza where he took up a homestead. son. Quinton Ander on came to the Klam­ He stayed on the homestead. doing orne ath Country in 1887 where be settled outside work. working on the Clear Lake northeast of Bly and "engaged in ranch-

-68- ing. * * • for several years he has been a After the "Sycan Store" fire of April. deputy heriff and looks after the Inter­ 1929 the Sparre10rn and Simmons part­ ests of that office in his section of the nership was dissolved. and Mr. and Mrs. county. Simmons erected the "John Simmons The same history also informs U'> that Store" (the store still standing) and the ··in 1920 Mr. Schmitz quit the lumber ''Beatty Hotel" in 1938. The store was business and bought a general merchan­ sold to Mr. and Mrs. William Phillipson dise business in Beauy [Undoubtedly of Los Angeles who operated it under ''The Scally Store·· from his brother-in­ the name of "Phillips Store." law, O.T. Anderson]. In the passing of The Klamath News of August 3, 1929 the years he bas made many improve­ wrote: ''Beatty Business Houses. One of ments, modernized the store and buill the pleasant places to stop while en route up a very sati sfactory trade in the sur­ over the Klamath Falls-Lakeview road is rounding country: also be has added a at the town of Beauy. filling station. which when installed was "The Florence rooms and boarding the only one between Lakeview and house, one of the cleanest and best places Klamath Falls. His store was the only of its kind in the county. is at the dispos­ one of any size between those two points al of travelers and the general public. also. Mr. Schmitz was the prime mover ··It is a new location with Mr. and in locating the highway where it now is Mrs. D.G. Florence functioning as pro­ and he donated the land for th e present prietors. The clean beds with cheerful site of the Highway Garage. also the plot rooms. supplemented by palatable food, where the jail stands. He was instrumental makes a pleasant break in a long trip. in gelling the school erected here. raised "John Simmons has recently complet­ the money for the building, al o took the ed a fine new store building at Beatry. lead in building the community hall, and and the building is large enough to pro­ he and the minister put up the local vide living quarters as well. He is the church. During the early 1920's he got pioneer business man of thiS community. out the material for the dam on Link "Everything about the place 1s tamshed River at the outlet of Upper Klamath attractively. When the Golden Rule store Lake:· in Klamath Falls moved into a new loca-

The present Beatty Store, built by Simmons about 1929, which has changed hands several times down through the years. The post office once occupied the room at the left of this building. It was in this location when robbed.

-69- The present Beatty post office.

tion, Mr. Simmons purchased the gla~s By January 8. 1930 lumber was being ca es, and now he is able to display hi~ delivered by the Willi tum Lumber Com­ stock in a splendid manner. Mr. Simmon:. pany of Bly for the new community hall. also has the post office. And. Mrs. Brymer was leasing the Beatt y "Ames Slack also has a store in Beatty hotel. with the building owned by J.L. Spar­ By March 6, 1930 it was reported that retorn. of Bonanza. Mr. Slack keeps a Ida Howard was working in the Beatty well selected stock of general merchan­ [should be Sycan- Editor I store. That dise and is enjoying a good patronage. Dan Driscoll and Jack Harri~on each [This would have been the "Sycan Store". owned one third intcre~t in this tore. rebuilt.] On July 3 and -l. 1932the first Beatty "The Beatty Store. another general Round-up was held. Bronc riding was merchandise concern is also a popular won by J. Duffy. $50.00. with Irvin trading center. Frank Schmitz is the pro­ Chocktoot second. winning S20.00. prietor and John A. White runs the pool Next. the Klamath County History hall here in a building owned by John wrote: " The little town now (194 1) has Hutchinson, who also has recently moved three general merchandi~e stores, a hotel. into a fine new home (still standing-­ a garage. a blacksmith shop, the parson­ Editor). age. and t he church (a new structure hav­ "Mr. Simmons was the first man to ing been built about 1922 during the in­ locate in Beatty and he says that the ex­ cumbancy of the Reverend F.L. Belknap) tensi,·e farm and stock country round as weU as 'many nice homes of the ln­ about provides a generous patronage for disoa.' Most of the busine~s of the town himself as weU as the others who ha,·e depends on the Indian trade. For the past recently located here." II years the Reverend and Mrs. B. V.

-70- Bill Duffy riding Specs at the July 3, 1955 Beatty Rodeo. Photo by Devere

Benny Moore down on Pretty Boy at the July 3, 1955 Beatty Rodeo. Photo by Devere

-71- Bradshaw have had charge of the Indian was located in the west end of the new missionary work. which means that they "Simmons Store" which is still standing. are at the center of the community life." Where the office was situated during the Following 1941 fires continued to period between April II and August 3 is ravage Beauy. The Beatty Store was des­ unknown. troyed on the south side of the highway, On November 22, 1932 the Beauy the Harrison Store on the north side. and post office was robbed. government a building just east of The Simmons checks between $10 and $50 for the store. This latter building belonged to Indians was all that was taken. The office. O.T. Anderson. Some sixty feet in length in tile southeastern corner of the Sim­ it bad a garage and workshop downstairs mons store. was reached through a small and rooms upstairs. The hotel and other Lobby kept open all the time. From there. buildings were destroyed at various times. access into the office was made by break­ In L961 it was reported that $146,000 ing open the bars to the back room. worth of new buildings had recently been On February 1, 1942 Veston H. Casey constructed in Beatty; the six. unit. became the post master with the office $35,000 Beatty Motel which was ready located on the south side of the highway by July 4th for rodeo patrons; a new gas immediately west of the present office storage tank at the Red Top garage: Ja­ where a present gray house now stands. Mikes S10re owned by B.J. Crawford. re­ Mr. Casey's sister. Mrs. Mary L. Heid­ painted and remodeled; Cookie's Rest ­ enreich. became postmaster on May l. aurant and Tavern renovated: and the 1950. located in the Casey house for Beatty Methodist Church. a new roof. about one year. Then in 1951 tbe post foundation and enlarged dining room. office was moved to its present location 1962 witnessed the opening of a mach­ where Mrs. Heidenreich still presides. ine shop and service station by H.C. li seems that when VestOn Casey took "Hap" Hughes at Ja-Mikes Store. recently over as postmaster, a dispute arose about reopened by Sylvester Hunt. the post office which caused it to be moved from the Simmons Store to the south side of the highway to a small gar­ Beatty Post Office age size shed where it was for a few years before Casey moved it to his house to the The Beany post office was established east of the shed. Both of tbese·buildings November 10, 1913 at the parsonage atop were burned a few years ago and the the hill west of Beatty, with Joseph L. present building erected on their site. Beauy as postmaster. John Simmons became the next post­ Beatty School master, with the office in his store which seems to have been on the south side of Day School No. 2 was located two the highway west of the present office. miles due west of Beatly on the old Ike Annie E. Anderson, the first wife of and Eva Mose ranch. When it was com­ O.T. "Buck" Anderson became postmas­ menced is unknown at this time. but it ter on March 5. 1914 with the office was later moved to a site exactly one probably remainingin the "Beatty Store". fourth mile due north of Beatty on the Herbert R. Bowman became acting east side of Godowa Road. This school postmaster on September l , 1925. was in operation at least as early as 1913- Nexl. John Simmons became post­ 14 if not before. It was probably replaced master October 14. 1925 according to around the 1925 period. It cost the coun­ General Services records, December 2, ty, accordjng to Frank Schmitz. about according to Post Office Department $1,500 to move it. Schmitz purchased records. The office was probably then the building when tbe new school re­ moved to the Sycan Store building and placed it. Ground for this latter building was burned along with the store on April and the community building which ad­ ll, 1929. By August 3rd, the post office joined it were donated by Mrs. Louella

-72- Anderson. O.T.'s last wife. These two Miss Johnson LOld officers when they combination buildings. ~chool and rec­ arrived that she had been molested by reation hall burned during the summer of catcalls and prowlers outside the building 1959. for about two weeks. Suspecting trouble. During 1930 the county 1i t shows she had been given two automatic 32 two teachers and 57 pupils. caliber guns by officers at Beauy with A.C. Olson wa!. the fir~t teacher. and the instructions "shoot at the leg~ to pre­ usually there was a man and wife team. vem escape." During World War ll. when there was Sheriff Low said Miss Johnson wa~ a such a shortage of teachers. Beauy was bit uncertain whether she had done the consolidated with Bly. Then in J 962. right thing. He refilled her gun and in­ Beatty school children were given a choice formed her she had a perfect right 1 o of attending Bly or Bonanza. At the time. protect her home .. the Bly school bu~ line extended to Paiute George was brought 1 o the hospital by Road (three miles north of Beauy). friends near Beauy who had bandaged his leg to prevent bleeding. Officer~ had Day School #3 not located Godowa Monday evening. From the Klamath News. November Three other Indians were lodged in 22, 1932: Pretty Bea11 y teacher puts In­ the county jail for drunkenness. Later in vading Reds to quick Fli ght. McKinley the day Miss Johnson noticed a group of George. Piutc Indian. is in a local hospital drunken Indians approaching th e school recovering from gu n wounds in his leg in­ building on horseback. She phoned offi­ flicted Monday (2 1~t) morning by "two­ cers at Beatty. Two state policemen on gun" Miss Lenora Johnson, 23-year-old regular patrol duty drove ou t toward the teacher of Piute camp ~chool No. 3. eight school. When the Indians noticed the miles from Beatty. officers approach, Royce Chocktoot. At 8:30 Monday morning George and Horace Chocktoot and Joseph Godowa Leonard Godowa, drunk. invaded the straddled one horse and with a gallon jug school building. Miss John!.on and Mrs. of liquor swinging in the air turned and Edna Sweetman. her housekeeper. live in raced down the road. a compartment in the rear of the school­ The officers easily overtook the stum­ house. The drunken Indian<; were ordered bling mount and opened their s1rcn. The out by .Miss John on when they entered excited and overtaxed horse fell. thro\\­ the living quarter , according to reports ing itself. two Indians and gallon jug of Sheriff Lloyd LO\~ and Sergeant Da,is against the car. The other Indian fell of the state police. who in,estigated the under the horse. The Indians and jug case. were loaded in and brought to the count} Intent on "tearing up" the place. the jail. Indians continued their attack and were The "two gun" teacher came to Klam­ unstopped by three shots Mt ss Johnson ath Falls a year ago and applied for an fired into the t1oor at their feet from a Indian chool. She was not particular gun in each hand. about living conditions. She had auended Raising her sights. Miss Joh nson fired Bellingham normnl school in Washington three times at George's legs. Two of the and had nurses training in a Centralia. bullets imbedded in the bone of the right Washington hospital. leg and were removed at the local hospi­ She taught at the same school last tal. The third shot inflicted a flesh wound. year and had taught in Indian schools be­ The Indians then became frightened fore coming here. and left the premises on a run and a bit Sheriff Low said the two bullets taken sobered, officers said. from the Indian's leg were from different Puuing her guns down. Miss Johnson guns as one shot a copper jacketed shell and the other a lead jacket. A small bone rang her 9 o'clock ~chool bell and prompt­ ly opened school as though nothing had in George's leg was fractured in 1 wo happened. places. x-ray picture~ revealed.

-73- Charge will be brought against the drunk and come around." Miss Johnson. Indians. Sheriff Low stated. who is 23 and an average-sized blonde Klamath News Editorial. by Malcolm \\ith large steel-blue eyes, declared. Epley, November 23. I 932: Our Two­ The "two-gun school ma'am". during Gun School Ma'am. When a Klamath the interview. related that in addition to county school ma'am draws her trusty teaching. she is also called upon to give guns and starts shooting at the legs of medical as istancc 1 o not only her pupils. threatening Indian bucks. that is a news but many of the older Indians who reside story. lL is th e sort of a yarn that the nearby. But. she likes her work and being press services carry on their wires all over of service and helping those who need the country. and we can imagine how it help is her life's ambition. is received by some of the readers of the Incidentally, she Mated that last Mon­ east. day was the first time she e\er shot a re­ E'·en years of tourist travel that have volver. and in true WeMern fashion. she brought hundreds of thousands of east­ used two. and a bullet from each of the er ner ~ into the \\eSt t o visit, bas not en­ guns struck George's leg. tirely removed the belief among many She plans to visit George at the Klam­ easterners that the we t is stiJI infested ath Valley hospital before she returns to wtth wild Indians. gun-toting whites and her school Monday. wild animals. Miss Johnson. who is visiting her It was only a few days ago that the brother Phillip J o hn ~o n and uncle and wires carried a story abou 1 a Florida aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Christy, over woman who wanted to know if it would the week-end. ~ tat e d at the Christy home be safe to drive through Oklahoma and Friday that it was last Monday'morning if there were any white men between about 8:30 o'clock when George, Brown villages. When that woman reads the and Leonard and Joe Godowa. the latter story of Klamath's two-gun school ma'am two Piute Indians. ''ent to the school e'en the rea~suring letter sent her by the house and George asked for a book from Oklahoma chamber of commerce may the branch county libr;;ry which Miss not be sufficient to induce her t o venture Johnson runs. west of TaJiahassee. To the Atlantic sea­ Brown became involved in an argu­ board resident. Oklahoma and Oregon arc ment with Frank Thompson. Indian farm­ in the same category. er, and Thompson finally hid in Miss Meanwhile, we in the peaceful west Johnson's li ving quarters. The 25 Indian have learned to look to the east for most children of the school had already been of our stories of gunplay. Such episodes frightened away by the intoxicated in­ as that at the Piute camp Monday morn­ dian~. Mi J o hn ~on aid. ing are ~o infrequent they make new~. George and Brown tall..cd and then Gun battles in our western cities have be­ went in to find Thompson and George come ~o common they are hardly put on threatened him. she stated. She went into the wires any more. her Jiving quarter~ through another door. Klamath News November 27th. 1932: got the two gun!. from the bedroom and Two-gun School Ma'am Still Likes Work intended to give one to her house-keeper. in Indian Area. Miss Lenora Johnson suJI Mrs. Edna Sweetman, who resigned Tues­ likes the Indians. despite the fact that day. but could not find her. she was caJied upon to take up arms t o Armed with til e two revolvers, held at defend herself and her pupils last Monday her hips as she had seen Western men do morning, when McKinley George. Modoc in moving picture~. Miss Johnson told the indian. whose leg was the target for two men to leave. revolver bullets. and Ossie Brown, a Calif­ "lt was just a bluff. because l didn't ornia Indian, both drunk. mvaded her think fd have to shoot. " she said. Jiving quarters. George replied. " o. I will not leave." "Lf J had not driven them out the according to Miss John,on. She then others might thi nk that they could get "peppered" the floor but he didn't move

-74- or show any fear. she said. It was then "I didn't think anything about this that she shot him in the legs. Bullets being in the newspapers." she comment­ from each of the guns lodged in one of ed. " although they warned me about re­ his legs. One went through and struck the porters after it happened." floor, he said. George. Miss Johnson stated. grabbed Mrs.Loue lla 0. T .Anderson at his leg and then walked out, turning hi~ head to grin at her as he left. Mrs. Louella Anderson was born Brown also left, but Thompson stayed. in December. 1894 less than one half Then came a report that the men were mile east of where she now lives. and has returning armed and the children and ljved for many years. Her present home Thompson were locked in the school is approximately one half mile due north house. Later she let the children and of Beany on the Godowa Road. Thompson out the back door to go and At the age of six years she was taken hide in the willows nearby. Miss Johnson from her home along the ~outh bank of and Mn.. Sweetman. each armed with one Sprague River and placed in the old of the revolvers. hid for a time. Yaioax Agency boarding school. Of this Then the telephone rang. She had school she has only the most unpleasant previously telephoned officers that she of memories, al l the children being in­ had shot George in the leg. The call was fected with lice, the buildings lacking from Mrs. Frank Schmitz of Beatty who heat and very cold. and the food very was inquiring whether or not Miss John­ poor. T o this kind of environment the son was safe. children were arbitrarily taken from fairly Miss Johnson and Mrs. Sweetman clean homes. Thus they were initiated looked out through a hole in the wall. into the "white man's ways. " One Indian was patrolling in front of the Later she was sent to school at Klam­ building like a sentry. Two others were ath Agency where they ate beller but the coming up the road. Others were hammer­ lice and other condition were about the ing on the door. same. At that place she was given a The constable. David Chocktoot, an choice. which she took of staying there Indian. and Frank Young. a special offi­ or attending Sherman Institute in River­ cer, arrived. Chocktoot stayed. side. California. She remembers she was Miss Johnson rang the school bell and attending Sherman Institute when the opened school on time at 9 o'clock. Titanic was sunk. April 15, 1912. She Chocktoot stayed throughout the day to was almost eighteen at the time. protect the teacher and the children After finishing school. she married a should any Indian return. William Beal and moved away from the "I wasn't scared any time during the Sprague River country for a time. to live morning." Miss Johnson said. in the Modoc Point for a number of years. Misl. Johnson bad studied nursing be­ The Beals had two children. a boy and a fore coming here to teach a year ago this girl, both now deceased. last September. Previously she had taught Her second marriage was to O.T. at the Flathead reservation in Montana. "Buck" Anderson. Six children. two girls She often gives medical treatment to the and four boys were born to this union, chi ldren and the older Indians. she says. Anna. Jim. George. Miller. Junior and She likes the [ndians and believes if Toots. she can help them she should do so. After returning from Sherman Insti­ The Indians still like her. she says. and tute the name Elva was added to her res­ do not blame her for her ac1. ervation title, but she never knew when Miss Johnson. although only 23, ap­ or by whom. pear capable and ha a triking personal­ She remember\ a little church that ity. She is a blonde with sharp blue eyes. once was located at Junior Anderson's regular features and of average si.:e for a present home near where she was born. woman. Also how the Indians used to spear sal- -7 S- mon in Sprague River, just under the along tbe Linkville (Klamath Falls) and little ridge where she lived. The location Chiloquin wagon road to Lakeview in was called We/o:ci, and referred to a near­ earlier days. Mabekesket is remembered by white formation of earth. Further. at further by having a nearby cemetery this location. she remembers an old ford named for him. This cemetery lies about across Sprague River immediately above two miles northeast of Beany and in it the salmon spearing hole. One wonders if are buried Mrs. Anderson's husband and this is the early emigrant crossing of son George. The latter was killed in a miners and others from California en­ plane accident three years ago while route to the John Day mines, via Sycan rounding up wild horses for the All Indian Marsh, Silver Lake and Crooked River Rodeo in Klamath Falls. near the latter's headwaters. All these act­ ivities centered at this almost forgouen Mrs. Anderson lives alone and at nearly spot, tended to make this site a son of 80 years of age, still drives her own car. community center of the area, the pred­ The Anderson family own considerable ecessor of later Beatty. property along Sprague River in the Mahekesket, meaning "Big Belly" was Beatty vicinity. Mrs. Anderson can read­ one of the influential Indians of the ily tell you about all the older Indians, neighborhood and will be remembered as where they lived and who their children one of the signers of the 1864 Council were, even who they married, etc. Grove Treaty. He was the father of Harri­ Mrs. Anderson is very active in the son Brown, who kept a stopping place Beatty Methodist Church.

The Saddle Mountain Lumber Company sawmill near Sprague River. It was never finished beyond this point.

-76· Teamsters at the Campbeii·Towle Lumber Company (later Lorenze} sawmill near Sprague River. SPRAGUE RIVER

The youngest town in the Sprague seen immediately north of the stock­ River Valley is Sprague River. begun as a yards. direct result of the construction of the The other sawmill was incorporated 0. C. & E. Railroad. At approximately the under the name of Sprague River White same time, anticipating the arrival of the Pine Lumber Company by Sharp and railroad, several logging camp operations Schmidt, backed by Cullers and Bowles were also set in motion. And at least two of the Northwest Bridge and Iron Com­ sawmills were planned and construction pany of Portland, who seem to have been commenced. the real owners. The Klamath News of One, the Saddle Mountain sawmill, an June 26th, 1923 reported that "this mill H.H. Edmonds-J.W. Siemens' corporation will soon be completed." project, was first mentioned in local In the meantime, on May L 1, 1923 newspapers on March 20, 1920. The cor­ the Klamath News announced that Frank poration encountered financial troubles Mullo, Superintendent of Yainax Sub­ when the First Trust and Savings Bank of Agency and B.E. Wolford, store-keeper at Klamath Falls closed on January 12 , Yainax, had laid out a townsite of 300 1921. Although reopened a few months acres (the future town of Sprague River­ later, the bank became defunct within Editor). two years. The litigation connected with Then on August 21 , 1923 the News the bank: closure resulted in the Saddle announced that B.E. Wolford had moved Mountain sawmill not being able to in­ from Yainax to Sprague River. It seems stall the necessary machinery, so tbe un ­ that he moved his store and post office finished plant was eventually sold to building overland from Yainax, with that Campbeli-Towle Lumber Company. The building becoming the first set up in the mill stood upstream and east of the pres­ new town, and known as the Wolford ent bridge across Sprague River. where and Wann Store. Dibbon Cook helped the concrete foundations can still be move this building.

-77- U.S. Pos1al records show the office Herrera became the postmaster in a small as officially opening in Sprague River on building, still standing wi!h a porch on September 14, 1923. the front. jus! south of the old Carnini The pos1al his10ry of !he Sprague Restaurant. River office will be finished a1 this Lime, We are next informed by postal records before continuing with other events of that the Sprague River posL office was the little mushrooming cily. discontinued April 23, 1965 with the Four years later, on April 20, 1927 mail Lransferred to Chiloquin and deliv­ Patrick L. Gogerty became the postmaster ered to Lhe patrons by a mail route. wi!h the office moved to the ground This route, according to Kl amaLh Falls floor of his rooming house adjoining the postal records, appears to be Contract Wolford and Wann Store on the north. Route No. 97630 out of Klama!h Fal ls Then on November 27, 1938 Anna G. with the office in Sprague River a con­ Wolford became the postmaster, with the tract rural post office. post office probably moved back to the Three postmasters have served Sprague original site. These buildings, the Wolford River under this system. Claudette Bar­ and Warm Store. and the Gogerty build­ clay. Joanne E. Sutherland and Pauline ing burned at some unknown date, prob­ Allen. the last and present holder of the ably in the mid-1940's. office. Dibbon Cook lhi nks 1he location Bonnie B. Brotherton became the of the office under Claudetle Barclay was postmaster on November 1, 1946,with in the building south of Allen's Store the post office located in a building, where Florence M. Shadley was post­ probably on !he sile of the Gogerty prop­ master. erty. Joanna E. Sutherland ran the office in On February 19, 1947 the post office the present Allen's Store when she oper­ was moved into a building west across the ated that establishment. For the pas! street to a location where the Ray Pickett several years Pauline Allen has operated Motel had stood. Freida B. Varnum be­ the office in its present location, to the came the postmaster. right of the Allen's Store enLrance. Florence M. Shadley became the next Returning now to the lumber industry postmaster on July 6, 1960 with the of­ we find that on AugusL 28, 1924 the fice moved east across the street into a Sprague River White Pine Lumber Com­ building, still standing and painted white, pany sawmill was sold by Joseph Bowles that is just south of the present Allen's to Edgerton and Adams. The sale includ­ Store. ed the sawmill. completed but never op­ Some 14 months later, Teresa M. erated, and one and a half million feel of New Sprague River· Mill Under Constructi(

Sharp & Schmidt sawmill at Sprague River, under construction during September 1923.

-78- Jogs in the river. The mill was situated road was constructed to the southeast 200 yards from the terminus of the O.C. with a logging camp established on pres­ & E. Railioad and 1h mile west of the ent Highway 140 where the first pine new townsite of Sprague River. timber is entered, 112 mile west of the On March 9, 1925 the Campbell­ Sprague River-Chiloquin road. Logs were Towle Lumber Company purchased the obtained fro m Whiskey Creek, Bly-Brown sawmill from Edgerton and Adams. It Creek, Trout Creek, and Squaw Flat units was at that time only a small circular mill, of the Reservation and also from private but by May l 0. 1928 was a band mill holdings. On January 1, 1943 the Crater with a capacity of 7 5,000 feet per day, Lake Lumber Company again started with a planing mill added. operations and continued until the fall of W.E. Lamm in Lumbering in Klamath. 1943 when the sawmlll was shut down 1944, states: " In 1928 the company sold and dismantled; the box factory was to G.C. Lorenz, who rebuilt the mill com­ then sold to the American Box Corpora­ pletely and operated it under the name of tion, which is still (October, 1944) oper­ Lorenz Lumber Company, cutting timber ating it. Crater Lake Lumber Company from Cherry Creek, Rock Creek. and has been selling logs since the middle of Whiskey Creek units. In the middle of 1943 up to and including the present 1930 the plant was sold to the Crater time. part of its logging operations being Lake Lumber Company, for whom Hunt­ carried on under contract by the Beatty ington. Taylor was manager. In 1912 a Logging Company." box factory was added, and in 1937 the School history of Sprague Ri ver will Crater Lake Box and Lumber Company next be reviewed. As we have seen under was organized and operated the plant Bly school history the name Sprague under lease from Crater Lake Lumber River was first applied to a school in that Company until December 28, 1942. It VJCJntty, the name being changed to Bly was during this time that a logging rail- in 1883 when the new county of KJam------

The second and last Sprague River school still standing but unused.

-79- Main Street In Sprague River sometime around 1930. Right Side: Wolford and WBIYI store, the first building In town, with Wolford s1andlng in front; two story building with the post office downstairs and Gogerty rooms ups1airs; taller white building, the Ed Gowan store. Left Side: pool hall, restaurant, Pickett Hotel, confectionery and Klamath Apartments; service station and an unidentified residence.

Water tank in front of the Hub Billiard Parlor in Sprague River. Courtesy Dibbon Cook

-80- ath was formed.

Then after a lapse of many years. Klamath County school directory lists for 1920 show a "Sprague River" as District No. 54. The 1921 directory al o records " Sprague River" as District o. 54. Following that. directories arc mis­ sing for several years. but the 1925-26 list shows No. 54 as Beally. with o. 59 assigned to Sprague River.

What seems to have happened. was that the old Day School o. 2. some 1 wo miles west of present Be ally. may have been known as "Sprague River" on county records until such time as that school was moved to Beatty, and the town of Sprague River was inaugur:ucd by Mutto and Wolford in 1923.

Sprague River Fire Department, 1962: The Klamath News of August 17. 1923 Back row, left to right: Bud Gengee, wrote that the O.C. & E. Railroad had Sylvan Crume, Jim Rogers, Irwin Crume. reached Sprague River and that the Front: Jim Coburn, Robert Haskins, Sprague River Lumber Company was Howard Roff and Dibbon Cook, Pres. building a small school house, probably

Out for a drive to "the Falls". Note the right hand drive and smooth tires. Charlie Robbins, Sam Riddle and HI Robbins. Courtesy Oibbon Cook

-81- the one later to be known as the "red tions in the present white building. school." This "red school" was located 7. Allen's Store. originally built by Ed about I 00 yards ea t of the last school Gowan, thought to be the oldest buildings which are stiU standing. building in town, later owned by Later. a school to replace the "red Sparretorn, Heidrich, Geinger, with school" was built about 100 feet north Dwight Kerscher. operator, Jim Rogers. of the present building and finall y re­ Joanna E. Sutherland and fina!Jy Rod placed by those used during Sprague and Pauline Allen. River's greatest population growth and as From south to no rth o n the west side stated before, still·s tands. At one time a of the main street: "teacherage" was built just south of the l. Dibbon Cook's Motel main building, and o n completion it was 2. Present fire house. discovered that no rear door had been 3. The sites of several businesses. includ· built. ing a bakery. a drug tore, and a barber By 1930 there were 2 teachers and 5 I shop with a lady barber. pupils; and in 1938 some 58 pupils. -l. Site of the Hub Pool Hall. operated by At some unknown date. but probably Hodges and Lodge. after 1947 the older pupils may have 5. Site of a restaurant. been bused to Chiloquin. However, Kl am­ 6. Site of the Ray Pickell Motel building ath County school directories show that in which were situated three business­ the primary grades were taught at Sprague es: a confectionery store, the Hotel Ri ver to as late as June, 1964. entrance and the Kl amath Cafe. The town of Sprague River. although 7. Jack Perch & Fred Zerbe! Pool Hall a booming place during the hey-day of (deserted but still standing). the lumbering industry. is now mostly 8. Site of Charlie and Hi Robbins Service deserted except for the garage-service Station. ~tation. the store-post office. and a con- Sprague River has its own water sys- tderable number of residences. tem. installed about 1929. with water On Tuesday June 4th. 1974 we made being pumped from a well about 114 mile a ·urvey of the town of Sprague Ri ver southeast of the main part of town. There accompanied by Dibbon Cook. Ruth are a few other wells besides, one at the Heidrich. and Blanche Gowan. The fol­ school, one at Dibbon Cook's home, one lowing is a recapitulation of the town t o near the old Depot, northwest of the the best of these old timers' memories: present school buildings. and probably From south t o north on the east side drilled by the O.C. & E. Railroad, and of the main street: finally one that Wolford had in the middle of the street in front of hi s store. l. Garage and Service station built by There is a Friends' Church built by Willis Pankey. the Indians. a volunteer fire department, 2. Site of the original Wolford & Wann with three trucks and a 1 wo way fire Store, the first building in Sprague radio. Sprague Ri,er also has a 1962 Ri ver, burned at an unknown date. re­ Cadillac coach used as an ambulance. built by Dibbon Cook, and the loca­ A Reservation telephone line passed tion at one time of Cook's shoe repair through the vicinity as early as 1907 or shop and Book's General Store. 1908, with another line arriving with the 3. Adjoining Wolford & Wann's Store, railroad in the fall of 1923. Electricity the site of Gogerty's two story build­ probably arrived in 1929. No jail was ing, with the Sprague Ri ver Rooms ever built in Sprague Ri ver, customers upstairs and post office down. being taken t o Beatty. 4 . Site of a restaurant at one time, now The Sprague Ri ver Valley towns of two . mall buildings on approximate Bly. Beally and Sprague River are the ~ite. nearest shopping centers 1 o a rapidly S. T he Mitchell store and later Carnim increasing rural acreage ub-division pop­ restaurant. ulation explosion. What its outcome will 6. Shadley and Barclay post office loca- be. no one at present can tell. -82· O.C. & E. Railroad

T he Oregon, California and Eastern grounds, water tanks, switches, ware­ Railroad (O.C. & E., also sometimes houses or turnouts for a railroad, should known as the Strahorn Railroad), has one be constTucted over said route." been perhaps the largest single factor in Then, on January 12. 1870 the Gover­ developing the timber and agricultural nor of Oregon certified the Oregon Cen­ industries in the Sprague River Valley. tral Military Road had been completed. The railroad itself owes its immediate be­ Accordingly on April 21, 1871 the Unit­ ginning to the initiative of Robert E. ed States Government deeded thousands Strahorn, who arrived in Klamath Falls of acres of open land (every odd section Saturday. November 20, 1915, to meet for three miles on either side of the road) with railroad interested citizens of the to the Oregon CentTal Military Wagon Klamath Country. Road Company for a road that had not Prior to that time. railroading in the been and never was completed. Only Klamath Country can be traced back ro built (and that very poorly) to the summit 1855 when the Pacific Railroad survey of the Cascade Mountains, with a few party under Williamson and Abbott made wagon tracks, made by others, to the the first preliminary scouting trip. from eastern border of the state, it was con­ south to north. along the eastern base of sidered " completed. " Thus it will be seen the Cascade Mountains through Oregon that nearly one half the land in the Bly and extreme Northern California. area came from these odd section O.C.M. Railroad surveys. projections on paper, lands, clearing up the point that many and proposed construction became the old time ranches do not show on Govern­ subject uppermost in everyone's minds, ment homestead records. especially wildcat promotors, in the early On July 2, 1874, a railroad, the 1860's and continued for many years. Corvallis and Eastern, was formed with Completion of the first transcontinental the intention of building across Oregon railroad with its final joining of the Cen­ from Yaquina Bay on the Pacific Ocean. tral Pacific and Union Pacific systems on through the central part of the state to the deserts of Northern Utah on May 10, Ontario, on Snake Ri ver, there connect­ I 869 fanned the flames of imagination ing with a railroad still in the planning anew. stage, that would later cross Southern Later. with the completion of the Idaho and follow down the Columbia California and Oregon Railroad, with the River. After years of failure and frustra­ Golden Spike ceremony at Ashland on tions, this road was actually completed December 17, 1877 everyone wanted to from the ocean to as far as 57 miles east build a railroad and get some sort of land of Albany, Oregon. Some construction grant whereby to receive thousands of was done east of the Cascades along what acres of free land. is now the North Santiam Highway. Orig­ As early as July 2, 1864 Congress had inally, a branch line was envisioned, to granted the State of Oregon certain lands run south from some point near presenr "to aid in the construction of a Military Burns. to Winnemucca, Nevada, on the Road from Eugene City to the eastern Central Pacific Railroad. By 1893-94 boundary of said state." This road fol­ this road was bankrupt. lowed up Sprague River from a point six Thereafter for many years, South­ or eight miles west of the present town of eastern Oregon remained untouched, and Sprague River, lo a point some four or still is, from any attempt to actuaLly con­ tive mi les east of Bly. struct railroads across it. However. num­ Next, on March 3, l869 Congress ex­ erous surveys and paper projections criss­ tended the time for completion of this crossed it from time to time. Actually road with the added provision for select­ numerous branch lines have approached ion of suitable lands for ·· * * * depot its borders but none succeeded in follow- -83- 0. C. & E. Railroad engine No. 1 at the terminal in Klamath Falls. Robert E. Strahorn, promoter, Is the man In the straw hat and light "duster."

Thought to be the excursion trip of business men from Klamath Falls to the end of the line on the 0 . C. & E. Railroad, when that concern was accepted by the city, In September, 1923.

-84- r------~--~~------~------· --

Ewauna Box Company moving their road building equipment from McCready Camp (Lone Pine) to end of the 0 . C. & E. Railroad at Sprague River in 1928. They made their track as they went.

Great Northern engine, a Mallet, No. 1968 on the O.C. & E. Railway at Sprague River, between Klamath Falls and Bly. 1939-1940 period. Courtesy A.S. Clawson, J r.

-85- ing out their original plans to connect Nevada. Commenced in the Rogue River with some other railroad across the state. Valley, the preliminary survey was made To the north in 1899, the Columbia in 1869 by Jesse Applegate and apparent­ Southern branched from the Oregon, ly brought to a standstill by Captain Jack Washington Railway & Navigation line when it reached the California line south down th e Columbia River to arrive at of present Malin, Oregon. Shaniko on May 13. l900.1tsprelimin­ Thus it will be seen: that by the time ary surveys reached Prineville and its Robert E. Straborn arrived on the cene. officials hopefully predicted it might be undeveloped Southeastern Oregon was extended. This line was replaced in 1911, reached but not entered by four railroads. when the combined Hill and Harriman I. The combined Oregon Trunk and lines built up the Deschutes River Canyon the lines of James J. Hill and E.H. Har­ to reach Bend for a Golden Spike Cele­ riman respectively. ended at Bend. bration on October 5th of tl)at yea.rr A late as 1904, there was sull talk 01 2. The Ma1beur branch of the Oregon which railroad. the Corvallis & Eastern, Short Line, still short of its destination or the Columbia Southern would first Crane, Oregon. reach Central Oregon. Neither did. 3. The Nevada, California & Oregon Also from the west, but farther south ended at Lakeview. came what started out as the Oregon Mid­ 4. The Southern Pacific's Weed-Klam­ land Railroad, but ended up as the Klam­ ath Falls line ended at Kirk. ath Lake Railroad. As constructed. it Prior to arriving at Klamath Falls. branched from the Southern Pacific Rail­ Strahorn and other interested railroad road at Thrall. California and by means personages had just completed a junket of switchbacks reached Pokegama. in '' hich visited the dead-ends of the above extreme southwestern Klamath County mentioned railroads in the order given above. on May I. 1903. Its avowed destination had been Klamath Falls but it was part­ Before proceeding with the history of ially abandoned by 1911. the Oregon, California & Eastern Rail­ The Kl amath Lake Railroad owed its road. it may be well to understand to a demise to a new railroad that came from small degree the background of Strahorn, further south. at Weed, California. where the man who was to promote the pro­ the Southern Pacific commenced building posed new connecting railroad to an a line that reached Klamath Falls on May uncertain joining with one or more of the 20, 1909and Chiloquin and Kirk in 1911. other dead-ends. Also from the south. but farther east Strahorn was born in Center County, came the Nevada, California & Oregon Pennsylvania. May 15 , 1852, thus making Railroad. starting at Reno, December 22. him 63 years of age when be first arrived 1880. \\ hich floundered around for years at Klamath Falls. He had moved to lllio­ with many changes in route and destina­ OI at the age of four and took up the tion. finally reaching Lakeview as a nar­ printer's trade at 13. He followed journ­ row gauge tine on January 10. 1~12. alism for eleven years. From the east, up the Malheur Rtver. Then during 1875-76 he served under came yet another branch line. Thi time, General Crook in the Sioux War, and was Harriman's Oregon Short Line Railroad commended for gallantry by the Secretary which began in Ontario and reached Vale of War. He later wrote several books on in 1906, but was yet seven mo~rh s short Colorado, Utah, Montana, Oregon and of reaching Crane, near Burns tn Harney Washington. After a short time spent in County. railroad construction and operations, he One other line. a proposed one. re­ entered the advertising and publicity mains to be mentioned. It was to connect department of the Union Pacific Railroad the Rogue River Valley with the Klamath in 1878. While thus employed he made Country. with a possible extension to his first visit to Spokane. Washington. intercept the Central Pacific at. so~e scouting the situation for Eastern railroad vague point on the Humboldt River In capitalists. Shortly thereafter be went to

-86- Boston in I 890 where be seems to have System." In the meantime, he bad de­ remained some seven or eight years. en­ cided to expand his "System" to include gaged in the bond business. It was during branch lines to Merrill, Bonanza and Bly. this period that he became one of the However, before arriving in Klamath original promowrs of the Granby mine in Falls, Strahoro, to expedite his plans, had British Columbia. incorporated the Surprise VaHey Railroad Strahorn returned to Spokane in 1898 Company on October 28, 1915 as a part where he entered the business of estab­ of his master plan. Originally the route lishing electric lighting and power plants, extended from Flanigan, Nevada, on the constructing plants at Centralia, Washing­ Westwood Branch of the Southern Paci­ ton: Wallace, ldaho; Sumpter, Oregon; fic. to Cedarville. (located in Surprise and North Yakima, Washington. He held Valley in Modoc County), but by supple­ a large interest in the Bellingham, Kene­ mentary articles of incorporation filed wick and Pasco light and power plants as almost a year later (October 26, 1916), well as the irrigation plant at Pasco. He is the route was extended-northwesterly to further credited with founding the cities Lakeview. Oregon. of Haley, Shoshone. Payeue, Caldwell It may be of interest to know that by and Mountain Home, Idaho; and Ontario, this time the railroad following up the Oregon. Malheur Ri ver reached Crane on July 11 , He became quite active in 1905 in pro­ 1916. thus completing the last dead-end moting railroad building projects. About in the planned "Strahorn System." 1909 be formed the North Coast Railway Returning to the Surprise Valley Rail­ Company to build an independent line road, considerable right of way was ac­ from Spokane to Walla Walla to eventually quired, and in August, 1916 the news­ be extended through Yakima Valley to papers reported that J.E. Sexton of the Seattle and Portland, which was later Eureka and Palisades would undertake taken over by Harriman. Usually his the job of building the tine. The projected promotions were sold to larger companies route extended southward from Lake­ for a satisfactory profit. view, parallel and east of the Nevada, To close out Strahorn's later career, it California and Oregon to Wil low Ranch, seems he was married twice, his first wife then up Willow Creek and through the passing away in 1925. He was again mar­ Warner Mountains at Fandango Pass by ried by October 7 , 1927 at the age of 85 means of a 4820 foot tunnel at 5364 to Ruby Garlund in San Francisco. He feet elevation, almost 800 feet under the and his wife settled there, where she summit. It would then go down a 2.2% passed away in 1936. Straborn died grade into Surprise VaHey. through Cedar­ March 30, 1944 at the age of 92 years. ville, west of the lakes, and entering When Strahorn, "the man that changed Nevada near the Modoc-Lassen county Spokane from a village to a city," first line. It would continue through Duck arrived in Klamath Falls a mass meeting Lake Valley, over the second summit and was held and there he presented his 400 down inm Buffalo Meadows with a 2.35% mile "Strahorn System." grade. After skirting the west side of the He announced that be wished to build Smoke Creek Desert, it would go over railroads, in other words, connect the Sand Pass, cross the Western Pacific near dead-ends by building a line from Klam­ Astor and join the Southern Pacific near ath Falls to Silver Lake. and from there Flanigan. Distance over the projected connecting links to Bend, Lakeview and route would be I 54 miles. After acquiring Burns, the latter slightly north of the a substantial portion of the right of way. first projected route through the Harney the project Jay idle for a number of years Valley. During August, 1916 and the and was finally abandoned in J927. following months, Strahorn approached Strahorn hoped to connect with the Great the Mayor and City Council of Klamath Northern or Union Pacific near Bend, and Falls, and other prominent men of the the Nevada, California and Oregon at area, with his plan for the "Strahorn Lakeview. With his base at Klamath Falls

-87- ?n the Southern Pacific. he hoped to McDonald of Langell Valley turned the Interest one or more of the four large first shovel-full of dirt near Third Street companies in purchasing his "Strahorn and Klamath Avenue. Actual construc­ System." tion began three days later. and on May Strahorn' proposed railroad would 12th. the contract between the city and reach Olene in three months, Dairy in Strahorn was signed. six, and Sprague River in twelve. All that was necessary was for the communities The Klamath Falls Municipal Railroad's affected to hand him terminal sites and (as it was sometimes called) first loco­ rights of way "on a platter," and raise a motive arrived August 18th. and helped reasonable bonus - in the case of Klam­ in laying the track toward Olene that ath Falls. $300,000. He was confident fall. The fust trip in a railway coach was that enough capital would come in as made November 6th. It was not until the soon as we were on a through line that we following year on July 3rd, 1918 that the would not miss that trifling sum. Klam­ fir t freight was shipped from Olene on ath Fall rose to the challenge, voted the new line. bonds for the required bonus and took By August 22nd, a side track was com­ sub criptions for terminal sites, etc. Cap­ pleted at Olene and i 1 was reported that tain J.W. Siemens staned the subscription lumber was piled high on all available list with $5.000 and others gave as gen­ space. awaiting shipment to various mar­ erously, according to their ability. A "one kets, some 530 wagon-loads of lumber thousand club" was organized among the having been unloaded there. With the women, seeking to enlist a thousand first intimation that a railroad would women who would pledge to give a soon tap the area, there was a rush of certain amount regularly each month for sawmill building in the Swan Lake. Pine five months. Charles W. Eberlein of the Flats and Hildebrand area . These mills Enterprise Land and Investment Com­ started production before the arrival of pany, who acted as trustee of the railroad the railroad, so to market their product. terminal fund. was the largest single con­ manufacturers commenced hauling their tributor, giving a mile and a half of right lumber by horse and wagon. of way 100 feet wide, 3,000 feet for Construction work was slowed by freight yard , and all the terminal lands legal entanglements, time extensions. necessary except the site for the passenger which Strahorn always presented to the terminal, which the Business Mens' As­ City Council in due form. and which sociation and others were buying. In 1912 were always granted. and the failure at Mr. Eberlein had interviewed James J. times to secure 1he needed supplies and Hill at St. Paul in an effort to interest equipment to keep moving. Sometimes him in extending his lines to the city and work stopped completely when the gen­ at that time bad offered to him the e eral nationwide slump threatened to side­ lands east of the city. HilJ having declined track the project in its \\ave of wartime for the time, Mr. Eberlein had kept the (World War I) commercial and industrial land intact, hoping for an acceptance of failures. However, Strahorn always man­ hb offer. but now, feeling that Strahorn's aged to get the project moving again. project offered the best chance of con­ By April 20. 1921 the roadbed was necting with the Hill lines, turned hi s finished nine miles north of Dairy and property over to him. some seven and one half miles short of The first preliminary surveys seem to Sprague River. The ties and part of the have been run as early as January, 1916. steel was at Dairy. At about the same Included in these was a line which exited time the first load of logs was shipped in from the main Klamath Valley, up the for the Shaw-Bertram Lumber Company. west side of Link River. On August 25, 1922 the O.C. & E. Commencement of construction was reached Hildebrand and it was reported delayed until Strahorn had the money service from that point would begin "in hand." Then on May 3. 1917 the first September 5th. In the meantime con- ground was broken when Mrs. George truction had been held up for months

- 88- by railroad strikes on the main lines, railway coach, and accepted the railroad which also had its effect on O.C. & E. as satisfactory the following day, Septem­ With the strikes sei!Jed. four miles of ber 17th. The Golden Spike ceremony. track beyond Hildebrand were soon add­ however. did not take place until Friday. ed. A contract was Jet on November 21st October 12th, at Sprague River. for the final twelve miles over Bly Moun­ As reported in a special railroad edition tain and down to Sprague River. of the Klamath Evening Herald of Octo­ On January 23. 1923 a 60 day exten­ ber lith, there were 16loadingstations sion was asked for and received by along the new railroad: Altamont, Merrill Strahorn, it being necessary to follow a Road (Hager), 5 miles; Pine Grove 7: new route to the Saddle Mountain Saw­ Olene 10; Swan Lake Junction 14: Swan mill, then under construction some four Lake on the branch line 16; Pine Flat 17 ; miles west of the original railroad survey. Dairy 20; Bonanza. on the 'Bonanza The contractors on the section leading branch 27; Hildebrand 24; Honan 28; over the summit were Burce and Nettle­ Egbem 30; Squaw Valley 32; Cherry ton, who were then constructing two Creek 37 and Sprague River 40. switch-backs, one on either side of the Log or lumber shippers were: Ewauna summit, which would temporarily replace Box. Big Lakes. Ackley, Wheeler-Olm­ the 1300 foot tunnel originally planned stead, Lakeside Lumber & Box (Klamath through Bly Mountain. Strahorn said the Falls), W.H. Kitts (Bonanza), Nine, Mead­ switch-backs would be replaced by 1he ow Lake, White Pine Lumber Company, tunnel later. At the time there were two Swan Lake, Langell Valley Lumber Com­ railroad construction camps in action, pany (Bonanza). and Southern Oregon one at Squaw Flat and one on the north Lumber Company. side where 65 men were employed, with Two short branch lines were built, one 50 more coming. Back at the end of from Swan Lake Junction to Swan Lake, track, 60 lb. rail was being laid. a distance of 1.84 miles. It was abandoned City officials visited the construction September 22. 1929. The other branch sites on May lith. at which time there planned but only partially built was to were four camps in operation: 1 - seven reach Bonanza. 6.7 miles southeast of a miles north of Hildebrand; 2 - squaw point approximately one mile northeast Flat, which was reached by rails on July of Dairy. Only 1.57 miles of track were I st, and freight delivered there by August ever completed. long since reduced to 2nd; 3 - The Summit; and 4 - Head­ .54 but still in existance. leading to a waters of Cherry Creek. potato cellar. The Evening Herald announced on 1923 was indeed a red letter year in June 26, 1923 that the O.C. & E. trains railroading for the Klamath country. It to the fairgrounds on July 2, 3 and 4, wiu1essed the arrival of the O.C. & E. during the Fourth of July celebration, at Sprague River and the renewal of would leave Second Street and Klamath Southern Pacific construction toward Avenue every fifteen minutes between Portland via the Natron Cut-off. 11:30 and 1:30. Round trip 25¢. Even as early as February 21, 1924 The new town of Sprague River was it was reported that some of the O.C. f!' established August 21. when Frank Ratto E. rolling stock was worn out. The1r and B.E. Wolford of Yainax Agency No. I engine, a wood burner. was being moved their store to the new location, scrapped, which left them with only one where they had purchased 300 acres of other, an oil burner. land and laid out a townsite called Later in 1924 Shaw-Bertram Lumber Sprague River. Company secured timber at Squaw Flats On September 16, 1923 the O.C. & E., and commenced a logging road into it Klamath Municipal Railroad, or Strahorn from the south switch-back on Bly Moun­ Line. whichever, was finished into the tain. By September lOth, fro m 60 to _75 new town of Sprague River and a Klam­ carloads of logs per day were bemg ath Falls delegation was taken there by shipped to Klamath Falls from the Shaw-

- 89- Bertram camp. Big Lakes at Horton and on their way into the Sao Francisco Bay Wheeler-Olmstead near Sprague River. area. while the former tried to keep them Between the date that the O.C. & E. out. not wanting to share the rich returns reached Sprague River, September 16, with other . 1923 and June 3. 1927 when they began At one time the Great orthero sought extension of rails toward Bly, and even entrance into the Klamath Country from for a few more years, many events trans­ Bend, via the Silver Lake and O.C. & E. pired concerning railroads in the Klamath lines known as the "D" route as com­ and nearby country which are given pared to that which they eventually brieny below: followed. I. The Southern Pacific commenced At another time, in 1925. Strahorn extension of its Natron Cutoff on applied for the exclusive right to cross May 23. 1923 when contracts for Sixth Street in Klamath Falls and when construction were let. The line was it became known that he was expecting completed August 7. 1927. money from the Southern Pacific to 2. The Oregon Short Line which had finance his further extensions. public reached Crane July II. 1916 was confidence was shaken in him locally. extended into Burns on May I. "Many has espoused hi s cause in the 1924.JL may be interesting to know hope that he would 'break the monopoly' this line was ordered to be extend­ of that railroad company, and now he ed to Crescent Lake on the Natron was apparently acting as its tool to keep Cutoff as late as December 14, out the Northern lines. which were be­ 1929 by the lntersrate Commerce ginning to evince an interest in Klamath Commission. Nothing developed County. Had 'Uncle Bob' ~old us out?" from this order. asked the History of Klamath County. 3. The Nevada. California & Oregon 1941. was bought by the Southern Pacific At the same time the Southern Pacific on October 19, 1926 and work was seeking approval of it~ contract dated commenced at Wendel, near Honey 'February 3, 1925 to acquire all stock of Lake, on July 16, 1927. changing the O.C. & E. from Strahorn. I.C.C. ap­ from narrow gauge to standard. proval was granted in May. 1926 for the O.C. & E. to build its proposed exten­ 4. The Great Northern remained at sions, and for the Southern Pacific to Bend until May 20, 1927 when acquire its stock. subject to certain con­ they began extending southward. ditions, the most important being that it reaching Klamath Falls on May I I. should allow the Great Northern to buy 1928. Later. on August 23, 1930 one half interest in the O.C. & E. T he they began to extend farther south­ SoUihern Pacific acquired full control on ward to join up with the Western July 22. 1927 and the Great Northern Pacific at Bieber on September 10- acquired one half interest on March 23. 12. 1931. thus paving the way in to 1928 or even an earlier date. The pur­ the San Francisco Bay region. chase price of the O.C. & E. seems to have 5. The Southern Pacific began its Mo­ been $830,000. doc Northern extension from Klam­ During this same period of time, other ath Falls on October 14, 1928 when events were also transpiring. "On May 22. the first contract was let and con­ 1925 City Attorney Carnahan asked the nected to the line extending from Interstate Commerce Commission to help Alturas on the N.C. &0. at Hacka­ us (the city of Klamath Falls and others) moreonJuly 13.1929. save our $300,000 investment: on Sept­ In the meantime the O.C. & E. found ember I, 1926 Mayor Goddard requested it elf in the middle of the struggle be­ a receiver for the Oregon. California & tween the two giants of railroading. the Eastern; and in June, 1928 the Southern Southern Pacific and Great Northern. The Pacific and Northern Pacific. having be­ latter wished to tap the Klamath Country come joint owners of said Oregon, Calif-

-90- ornia and Eastern, paid the city $150,000 abandoned. for the bonds." Then on May 18. 1928 a new contract Concerning these transactions, the was given Johnson Brothers for the final Evening Herald of April 30, 1929 wrote: 19 miles or construction to Bly. with "Electorate go to poles to decide what actual work starting immediately. Grading should be done with the city's $300.000 was completed to Bly by October 24th, worth of O.C. & E. stock. If the vote is while the rails were yet four miles away. yes. should they accept the $150.000 At last, on Monday, November 24. 1928 offer by the Southern Pacific? Or. the the railroad was finished into Bly. $50,000 and the 7th street property of­ During the summer of 1928 the O.C. fered by the same firm? The City Council & E. railroad was reblasted, telephone adopted ordinance for bids by banks. lines and fences were built. During the Strictly a legal procedure." The $150.000 following winter, 1928-29. new and heav­ was eventually accepted. ier rails were laid. and construction of During the mid-1920's when the O.C. stock yards at Bly finished. & E. was at its peak under Strahorn it On April 13, 1929 the O.C. & E. boasted fol1owing motive power and roll­ establi shed a six day per week service to ing stock: Two, 2-6-0 Prairie type steam and from Bly, and on the TSth , the first locomotives, built by Baldwin in 1888, shipment of logs was made from that and bought used in 1920. Three, 2-8-0 place. By June 21st. the O.C. & E. was Consolidation type steam locomotives, rebuilding their bridges betweeu Sprague buill by Piusburg in 1888. bought used River and Bly, and constructing a $2,500 in 1924, one four wheeled caboose, depot at Bly, to be in charge of Charles bought used in 1925, four 80.000 pound Williams. capacity log flats. wooden underframe, Several large logging railroads were eight, 60.000 pound capacity log flats. constructed. leading in to the timber along These cars were all bought used in 1924- the O.C. & E. at various locations. As 1925. Had one passenger coach. built by stated previously. Shaw-Bertram com­ Harlan & Hollingsworth in 1883. It was menced a Jogging road from the south 48 feet long. wood body and underframe, switch-back on Bly Mountain as early as with four wheel trucks, bought used in 1924. which by 1926 extended some six 1917. The O.C. & E. also had some outfit miles westward. By 1929 this line was cars and a 1911 Pierce Arrow with a extended another seven miles to the Ya limosi ne body. bought in 1917. and a Whee Plateau. It climbed to the top or 1920 Ford. bought in I 926. The latter the plateau through the aid of a switch­ two were used as inspection cars for back. Big Lakes also had trackage leading officials. from this spur, which they built during After remaining stationery at Sprague 1926, with a new Shay locomotive for River for approximately four years. the locomotion. Their line also extended to l.C.C. ordered the O.C. & E. to resume the west. Over this line by July 14, 1929 extension of their line by June J 7th, came 25-28 carloads of logs from Squaw 1928. Purchase of rights of way began at Valley per day. once and by June 2nd, the first ground was broken for the extension to Bly. Pelican Bay Lumber Company started N.H. Bogue was the chief engineer and construction of a logging railroad south John Morgan the contractor. A line from Bly even before the O.C. & E. change was probably made at this time reached that place. It extended southward when the old line around by the river at some 12 miles to their camp at Robinson Sprague River (2.2 15 miles) was relegated Springs and much farther on its branch to a side track. a portion later being lines.

-91- Ewauna Box Company bad two rail­ The operation of the O.C. & E. has roads connecting with the O.C. & E. The for years been traded between the two first line extended over fifteen miles parent companies, the Southern Pacific northwesterly from Sprague River. join­ and Great Nonhero. Every five years the ing up with lines previously used to log entire railroad transfers operators and into Chiloquin and the main Southern equipment with the train and track crews Pacific. A second line was built from Bly remaining the same. Therefore, if past to Quartz Mountain in I 929. Eighteen changes hold true, Southern Pacific ,took miles were in operation in the fall of that over in 1973 and is the present operator. year. and the grading was continuing past Duiing the early 1960's "two trains a their camp. It was reported to be an ex­ day departed from Kl amath Falls during ceptionally well built logging road. the peak summer and fall season. One Lorenz Lumber Company built a rail­ went to Sycan. which is the junction with road about four or five miles long. con­ the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company rail­ struction on which was commenced a­ road. The other train departed later in the round May or June of 1929. This line led afternoon. and made the trip to Bly and from a point two miles east of the town returned to Sycan and picked up the logs of Sprague River o n the O.C. & E. to and which the first train cannot' handle. up the west watershed of Whiskey Creek. Weyerhaeuser shipped approximately 90 One of their camps was one half mile cars of logs per day from its Camp 11 to west of the present Sprague River-High­ Sycan, and was the largest single shipper on the O.C. & E. Train lengths were re­ way 140 Junction and on the south side of the highway. stricted because of the 'Tails' on the Weyerhaeuser built a line in 1940 switch-backs, which will hold only 50 cars and two diesel units. Heavy grades from the O.C. & E. branching from the are also a determining factor for the main line at a point now known as Sycan length of these trains. The ruling grade Siding, about three miles northeast of from Sprague Ri ver over Bly Mountain Beatty. At first it ended at Camp Six and is 2.9%. later Camp Nine. some fifty mile to the As late as 1939 it was rumored that northeast. Other branches extended to 1he tunnel through Bly Mountain would Camp Eleven and beyond. The Weyer­ be excavated, eliminating the grade and haeuser togging road is the only one that switchbacks, but theadventofthe second remains in use today, the others have all world war halted this operation before it been abandoned and torn up. had fairly begun. It is claimed the O.C. & E. "has never Within the past year. rumor further made any money. in fact. it has lost over has it that Weyerhaeuser will take over $3,000,000 since being acquired by the ownership and operation of lhe entire Southern Pacific and Great Northern. Its O.C. & E. system from Southern Pacific real value is as a 'feeder' line. hauling and Great orthern. In furtherance of mostly logs. although in the fall. potatoe_s. this plan they have rebuilt much of their grain and Livestock have been hauled •n Sycan Spur and have put into operation carload lots." their new sawmill at Bly during late 1973.

-92- Toby Riddle (Winema) Indian heroine of the Modoc War. Beatty vicinity residents Frank Lynch and Jeff Riddle, the son of Toby Riddle (Winema) of Modoc War fame.

D.A.R. marker at Toby Riddle's (Winema) grave in the Schonchin Cemetery between Beatty and Sprague River.

-93- Old Schonchin's grave In the Schonchln Cemetery. A signer of the Council Grove Treaty of 1864, remained faithful to Everett Bell he Courtesy Doris Bell his word and ne11er left the Klamath Indian Reservation while the Modoc Wat was In progress.

Jesse A. and Mary Parker at the old horne Bly Cleaners building. L to R Gerald place of Bly, now the home of V.L west Kettler Madeline Keffler and Joe Mason. Rentles. Courtesy Doris Bell ' Courtesy Madeline Keffler -94- Bly Cleaners. L. toR. • . • Daniels, Joe Kettler. Standing, Mrs. Daniels. Courtesy Madeline Kettler

Sprague River as it appeared June 4, 1974 . L. toR. Allen's Store and post office, white house to right of poplar tree former site of the post office, Carninl's restaurant, Dibbon Cook building which housed his shoe repair shop and Book's Store, the old Pankey garage and service station.

-95- Theo Clawson oiling up No. 1 on the Ewauna Box Company logging railroad to Quartz Mountain. Courtesy Zane Clawson

Unloading a log at an unidentified sawmill In the Bly vicinity. Probably near Royston or Keno Springs on the old stage road to Bonanza, around 1920. Courtesy Doris Bell -96- All that remains of the Ivory Pine Sawmill that onoe operated on the Camp Nine road northwest of Bly.

The JohnS. Shook horne, two miles south of Dairy, where J. 0 . Hamaker arrived March 1st, 1880 when he first carne to Klamath County.

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