A Path to the Past

A Path to the Past. 10,000 Years of Homesteading. , The history of the west is linked with the idea of finding a new home in a challenging land. We call it homesteading. , During the Pleistocene epoch, homesteaders in the Fort Rock Basin were mammoths, camels, horses, flamingos, and ocean-going fish. They settled in a land of lush forest with a huge lake that covered hundreds of square miles. , Approximately 10,000 years ago at the end of the Pleistocene, the lake began drying up and the forests receded. Animal homesteaders dependent upon that disappearing environment moved on or died, leaving behind their fossil remains. , Around this time, a new species appeared on the landscape, Homo sapiens, the first "native" Americans. , These earliest people left behind petroglyphs, weapon points, sagebrush sandals, and the mystery of where they came from and why they left. , During a long climatic transition period, many other peoples came and departed. It was only around 500 years ago that the Northern Paiute came to the Fort Rock Basin. , Modern European homesteaders came to the high desert in 1905. People arrived in substantial numbers to cultivate and dry farm the desert. But there was a harsh lesson to be learned about depending on the vagary of nature. Drought and failed crops drove most of these "new" homesteaders away by 1920. , They left behind the bleached remains of shattered homes and shattered dreams. These homesteaders all learned the lesson of millennia… to challenge nature is an ever-changing and never-ending struggle.