Siskiyou Trail
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The Siskiyou Trail stretched from California's Central Valley to Oregon's Willamette Valley; modern-day Interstate 5 follows this pioneer path. Originally based on existing Native American foot trails winding their way through river valleys, the Siskiyou Trail provided the shortest practical travel path between early settlements in California and Oregon.
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[edit] Route of the Siskiyou Trail
The historic route of the Siskiyou Trail extended from the Columbia District headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, at Ft. Vancouver in southern Washington, to the San Francisco Bay Area. In California, the Trail went through or near modern-day Redding, Dunsmuir and Yreka, California. In Oregon, the route went through or near modern-day Ashland, Grants Pass, Eugene, Salem and Portland. The Trail used the valleys of the Willamette, Umpqua, Rogue, Klamath, Shasta and Sacramento Rivers to make the connection between Oregon and California, and to traverse the rugged mountains of Northern California and Southern Oregon. The Trail crested at the Siskiyou Summit (elevation 4037 feet) just north of the Oregon-California border, and went past or near landmarks such as Mount Shasta, Upper Soda Springs, Castle Crags, and Sutter Buttes.
[edit] Development of the Siskiyou Trail
The earliest European or American visitors were likely independent hunters and trappers who, in the 1820s, began to travel the rivers of Southern Oregon and Northern California in search of fur and pelts. Led originally by Peter Skene Ogden, Alexander Roderick McLeod, and Michel Laframboise, organized parties sent by the Hudson's Bay Company used the Siskiyou Trail to travel from Oregon to Mexican-controlled California, beginning in 1827.
In 1834, visionary Ewing Young led a herd of horses and mules over the Siskiyou Trail from missions in California to British and American settlements in Oregon. Although this initial effort was met with suspicion by Hudson's Bay Company officials in Oregon, Young returned to California in 1837, where he purchased 700 head of cattle which he drove over the Siskiyou Trail to Oregon. This monumental task, requiring nearly three months, helped widen and establish the Trail, and solidify the new American settlements in Oregon.
In 1841, an overland party of the renowned United States Exploring Expedition came down the Siskiyou Trail with the first scientists and cartographers in the region.
The California Gold Rush, beginning in 1848, ushered in dramatically increased use of the Siskiyou Trail. The discovery of gold in Siskiyou County and especially at Yreka, California, brought thousands of Forty-Niners along the Trail in search of riches. However, the terrain was so rugged over the mountains of the Trail, that travel was restricted to mule trains and horses. Early travelers were able to travel perhaps 20 miles in a day, stopping at wayside inns and hostels, such as at Portuguese Flat, Upper Soda Springs and Sisson, in Northern California. It was not until the 1860s that toll roads usable by stagecoaches were finally carved through the mountains of Northern California, permitting uninterrupted stagecoach travel for the length of the Siskiyou Trail.
The first telegraph line connected early towns along the Trail in 1864. Development accelerated with the arrival of the Central Pacific Railroad track, completed in 1887, which followed the path of the Siskiyou Trail.
[edit] Modern roads
In the mid-1910s, the pioneering Pacific Highway, later numbered as U.S. Highway 99, provided the first easy automobile access along the path of the Trail. In the 1960s, modern freeway Interstate 5 was built in the 1960s along the route of the original 1820s Siskiyou Trail.
[edit] References
Siskiyou Trail, Richard Dillon (Second Printing Published by McGraw-Hill, New York; 1975).
