Siskiyou Trail

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Course of the Siskiyou Trail from Portland, Oregon to San Francisco, California.

The Siskiyou Trail leads from California's Central Valley to the Willamette Valley of Oregon ; today's Interstate 5 follows this pioneer path. The route is based on older Indian connection paths that ran along the valleys and was the shortest possible route between the first settlements in California and Oregon.

history

The earliest European travelers on the Siskiyou Trail were likely hunters and trappers working for the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in the 1820s.

The HBC had its branch on the Columbia River and established Fort Vancouver in 1824. The HBC sent exploration teams south from 1825. Alexander Roderick McLeod led exploration and trapper groups from 1826 and reached the Klamath River in 1827 and the Sacramento River in 1828 . In 1829 he led the first expedition to the Sacramento Valley , which enabled later expeditions to penetrate south to French Camp near Stockton .

McLeod's expeditions laid the foundation for the Siskiyou Trail by connecting Fort Vancouver to the Sacramento Valley. Early names were California Brigade Trail and Southern Party Trail . Peter Skene Ogden and Michel Laframboise were other trappers who explored parts of the trail,

McLeod and others reported that the natives south of the Umpqua River , along the Klamath and Siuslaw Rivers , had never seen white men before. Although the 42nd parallel , today's border between California and Oregon, then marked the northern border of the Mexican Alta California , the Mexicans had little idea of ​​the hinterland, and the HBC trappers moved southwards at will.

In 1834, Ewing Young brought a herd of horses and mules on the Siskiyou Trail from the Spanish Missions in California for sale in British and American settlements in Oregon. This pioneering achievement was viewed with suspicion by the Hudson's Bay Company in Oregon, but Young returned to California in 1837, where he acquired 700 cattle, which he drove to Oregon on the Siskiyou Trail. That brave act, which took nearly three months to complete, established the trail and helped strengthen the new American settlements in Oregon.

In 1841 a group of the United States Exploring Expedition started the trail with the first scientists and cartographers.

The California gold rush from 1848 resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of travelers on the Siskiyou Trail. The discovery of gold in Siskiyou County ( Yreka ) led thousands of forty-niners (Californians) north in search of wealth. The terrain was so difficult that the journey was restricted to mule caravans and horsemen. Early travelers only managed about 20 mi (32 km) a day and relied on hostels along the way, such as Portuguese Flat , Upper Soda Springs and Sisson in Northern California. It was not until the 1860s that the toll roads were expanded and carved into the rocks so that carriages could drive through the mountains.

The first telegraph line connected the towns along the trail in 1864. The development accelerated with the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad , the first lane of which was completed in 1887. This route also followed the course of the Siskiyou Trail.

course

The historic course of the Siskiyou Trail stretched from the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company in the Columbia District near Fort Vancouver in southern Washington to the San Francisco Bay Area . In California, the trail passed through or near what is now Redding , Dunsmuir and Yreka. In Oregon, the route passed through or near Ashland , Grants Pass , Eugene , Salem, and Portland .

The trail follows the Willamette , Umpqua , Rogue , Klamath , Shasta, and Sacramento Rivers valleys , traversing the rugged mountain ranges of Northern California and Southern Oregon ( Siskiyou Mountains ). The highest point of the trail is at Siskiyou Summit ( location , 4,310 ft = 1,314  m ) about 4 mi (7 km) north of the California border and south of Ashland , Oregon. Other landmarks along the way are Mount Shasta , Upper Soda Springs , Castle Crags ( Lage ) and Sutter Buttes .

Expansion nowadays

Between 1869 and 1887 the Oregon & California Railroad Company built a line along the route and reached the Siskiyou Summit in 1887. In the 1910s, the pioneering Pacific Highway (later US Highway 99 ) formed the first drivable road for automobile traffic along the route. The Interstate 5 was built in the 1960s.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Richard Somerset Mackie: Trading Beyond the Mountains: The British Fur Trade on the Pacific 1793-1843. University of British Columbia (UBC) Press, Vancouver 1997: 66. ISBN 0-7748-0613-3 .
  2. ↑ Peter Skene Ogden. In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . Toronto 1979 ff., [1] ISBN 0-8020-3142-0
  3. ^ RM Utley: A life wild and perilous: Mountain men and the paths to the Pacific. Henry Holt and Co., New York 1997: Chap. 8th.

literature

  • Richard Dillon: Siskiyou Trail. McGraw-Hill, New York 1975.
  • AJ Smith: Men against the mountains: Jedediah Smith and the South West Expedition of 1826-1829. John Day Co., New York: 220-239.

Web links

Coordinates: 45 ° 37 ′ 31 ″  N , 122 ° 39 ′ 29 ″  W.