Articles from the Historical Society in Josephine County Oregon

Pioneer Days for Southern Oregon
By Dennis H Stoval
Edited by Michael Oaks of the JCHS
From an article in the mining trade magazine called Mineral Wealth dated August 1, 1904

THE DISCOVERY
1/3

The history of the discovery of gold in Oregon is nearly parallel to the story of the mad rush to California in '49. Both teem with interest, and are wild narratives of excited men, nerved with but one ambition--- that of finding the royal metal.

In 1849 the vast country lying between the Siskiyou and the Calapooia hills was comparatively unknown to white man. Along the solitary trail that led into the interior of Oregon from California a lonely traveling train now and then made its weary way, or a solitary hunter or trapper journeyed either to or from Vancouver in search of furs.

Bands of Indians, with their main camps were scattered here and there along the banks of the Rogue, the Illinois and the Applegate. Great herds of deer and elk browsed and fed in the tall grass of the hills and valleys.

At night the gray wolf prowled and the ever-hungry coyote awoke the echoes of the sleeping mountains with his doleful yapping cries.

The panorama suddenly changed. One day it became noised about the California mining camps that "rich digging's" had been found over the divide in the Oregon country. A rumor in those days was equivalent to an alarm, a command.

Within twenty-four hours 600 men were on their way to the new Eldorado. They swarmed over the crags of the Siskiyous in one long and unbroken file. Coming down the North Slope the living stream broke and scattered into all parts of the Rogue River Valley.

The wild news, distorted, exaggerated, carried on the swift-flying wings of the "wireless telegraph" of those days, reached the Willamette Valley settlements to the north, and the immigrants there dropped their newly acquired farms and rushed southward, eager to share in the riches of the Oregon Bonanza. Continued - Part 2

See the pictures:

Early Placer Gold Mining In Josephine Co.
A very Popular Rocker

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