Klamath County
Southern Route to Oregon
In 1846, Jesse Applegate and fourteen others from near Dallas, Oregon, established a trail south from the Willamette Valley and east to Fort Hall. This route offered emigrants an alternative to the perilous "last leg" over the Oregon Trail down the treacherous Colombia River. The trail also offered a potential escape route, free from Hudson's Bay Company control, should Britain and the United States begin warning over control of Oregon.
The first emigrants to trek the new "Southern Route" left with trailblazers from Fort Hall in early August 1846. With Levi Scott acting as guide, while Jesse Applegate traveled ahead to mark the route, the hardy emigrants blazed a wagon trail through nearly 500 miles of wilderness arriving in the upper Willamette Valley in November. Emigrants travel continued along the Applegate Trail in later years and contributed greatly to the settlement of southern Oregon and the Willamette Valley.
Welcome to Oregon
Applegate Trail emigrants passed this site after a difficult trek across the northern Great Basin. Traveling from the southeast shore of Goose Lake and skirting the shoreline of Tule Lake, they crossed Lost River on a unique geological formation called the Natural Bridge. Good water and grazing for livestock was available on this portion of the trail, and according to Rachel Taylor in 1851, the road was
"rock enough to break every wagon to pieces." Indians, friendly at first, became hostile as the number of settlers flowing through their lands increased over the years. Conflicts between emigrants and Indians in this region resulted in enormous losses of life on both sides.
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