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" of the Oregon Trail down the treacherous Columbia River. The trail also offered a potential escape route, free from Hudson's Bay Company control, should Britain and the United States begin warring over control of Oregon.

The first emigrants to trek the new "South Road" left with the 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. Emigrant travel continued along the Applegate Trail in later years and contributed greatly to the settlement of southern Oregon and the Willamette Valley.

Rocky and Deep

Applegate Trail emigrants crossed the Klamath River after months of weary travel. With Siskiyou Mountains looming ahead, emigrants forded the Klamath River near this site at what Tolbert Carter, an emigrant of 1846, call "one of the worst crossings that wagons ever made."

The ford was rocky and deep, with swift current, and I, by the advice of someone, crawled



on the back of Bill, my big near ox, and rode across the river. I did that for the reason that the current might catch the light wagon and turn it over.

George Riddle, Recollection of 1851

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Show me all markers in:  Keno, OR  |  Klamath County  |  97627  |  Oregon  |  United States of America

Klamath River Crossing
Applegate Trail
Second Klamath River Ford
Spencer Creek Crossing / Camp Day
Cooper Stage - Station Site
Bear Valley Historical
Walters Cabin Tree Planting
Weyerhaeuser Camp 3
Whittle's Ferry Site Historical
Freight and Stage Road Historical

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