OTE - Oregon Travel Experience

Subject:Tells of the forced relocation of inland valley Indians to the Grand Ronde Reservation, their fight for U.S. Government recognition, and their efforts toward economic stability.
Indians inhabited Oregon’s inland valleys for thousands of years before Euro-Americans began to arrive in the late 18th Century. In the early 1780s, and again in the 1830s, diseases spread by seafarers and fur trappers swept through Oregon’s valleys killing most of the native population. …

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Subject:  A memorial to the 1843-44 John Fremont expedition to Oregon and California.
A MEMORIAL TO THE PERSONNEL OF THE SECOND FREMONT EXPLORING EXPEDITION TO OREGON AND NORTH CALIFORNIA.
The reports of this expedition directed the migration of the Western Settlement toward the Oregon Country which hitherto had been merely a rendezvous for trappers. On December 16th, 1843 the expedition while enroute from The Dalles of the Columbia to Sutters Fort on …

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Clatsop people controlled trade on this side of the lower Columbia River for generations. Visitors described the Clatsop’s bustling communities. The Hudson’s Bay Company attacked a village here in 1829, believing untrue rumors of Clatsop hostility. Settlers soon began claiming nearby lands. Clatsop chiefs signed a treaty with the U.S. in 1851, reserving land, but the U.S. Senate never ratified the treaty. The 1855 Oregon Coast Treaty was also unratified, …

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Fort Rock is the remnant of a maar volcano or tuff ring, formed when rising basaltic magma encountered water and exploded violently. The exploded debris—called tuff—fell back to earth around the volcanic vent to form this steep-walled, fort-like ring. Over time, the basin filled with a shallow lake, which breached the south rim of the tuff ring and cut a terrace about 60 feet above the floor of the valley. A State Monument and a National Natural Landmark, Fort Rock is one …

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Subject:  History of the U.S. military post, 1867-1889.
Fort Harney-on the former Malheur Indian Reservation, was named for Gen. Wm. S. Harney. who took command of the Military Department of Oregon, Sept. 13, 1858. The fort was established Aug. 10, 1867, and became a permanent Military Post by order of the President. The Fort Harney Military Reserve of 640 acres was created on Jan. 28, 1876. On Sept. 13, 1882 the President …

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Subject: First overland treks in 1826-27 led by Alexander McLeod of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Included French Canadians, such as Michel Laframboise who served as an interpreter, as well as Hawaiians, and Iroquois Indians. These explorations opened this portion of Oregon’s coast to commercial trapping and further exploration.
McLeod’s first expedition camped on the banks of nearby Beaver Creek from June 29 to July 10, 1826. Calling this stream the ‘Nackito River,’ McLeod …

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Subject:  Famous camping spot and the last sight of the Snake River for the westbound emigrants.
HISTORIC OREGON TRAIL
The last camp on the weary journey across the Snake River plains. Here the Oregon Trail left the Snake River and wound overland to the Columbia. Here, camped Wilson Price Hunt, December 23, 1811; Capt. Bonneville, January 10, 1834; Nathaniel J. Wyeth, August 25, 1834; John C. Fremont, October 13, 1843.

Subject:  Describes the history of the controversial ditch built from 1863 to 1878 to carry water for gold mining.
HISTORIC ELDORADO DITCH 1863-1925
A remarkable construction enterprise of its time, the ‘Eldorado Ditch’ carried water for placed mining from the Burnt River above Unity, over Eldorado Pass to Malheur City and the Willow Creek Drainage. Conceived and designed by William H. Packwood and constructed by Chinese labor, the ditch was started in …

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Subject:William Clark’s visit to this area in 1806 and his purchase of whale oil and blubber from the local Indians.
ECOLA
On January 8, 1806 William Clark and perhaps fourteen of the famous expedition reached a Tillamook village of five cabins on a creek which Captain Clark named Ecola or Whale Creek. Three days earlier, two men sent out from Fort Clatsop to locate a salt making site had brought back whale …

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