The Applegate Trail

The Applegate Trail. Southern Route to Oregon. , Marker on Left: , 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 first emigrants to trek the new “Southern 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 handy 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., Oregon at Last!. Emigrants using the Applegate Trail first viewed Oregon from Fandango Pass in the Warner Mountains. After months of weary travel, Thomas Fletcher Royal in 1853 was one of many travelers who found “a charming landscape.” , That beautiful lake, with its fishes and birds, the sloping landscapes with their rippling brooks meandering down to the lake, and the dense forest on the mountain sides adjacent, all combined to invite and welcome us to these fertile lands in their virgin beauty. . .For nearly five months we had been trudging along over the sunburnt desert, among the prickly pears and sage brush, enveloped in sand and dust and poisoned with alkali. No wonder this seemed a real paradise. , Thomas Fletcher Royal, October 13, 1853, Marker on right: , A Truly Horrid Sensation. Camp sites along the Applegate Trail were determined by the presence of water, firewood, grazing for livestock, or simply the end of a long day's journey. This portion of the Great Basin tested an emigrant's ability to find these primary essentials. An arid environment at best, this region yielded good water sparingly. Even the lakes were deceptive, in some years, like in 1853, they filled and expanded with bountiful waters. In other years, like 1849, they nearly vanished, leaving expansive alkali flats and quaking mud to taunt the weary traveler., ...Mr. Carlton and myself volunteered to go to the lake for water, and with buckets we started.... The distance was about one-half mile to the base, or shore of the lake, where we anticipated finding an abundant supply of water. But to our great disappointment, we found nothing but a field of dry sand. ...We traveled about two miles farther over the dry sand, indulging in the fond hope of soon reaching the waters of the lake, when we would have the privilege and pleasure of quenching our thirst, which was almost unbearable. But we were doomed to disappointment, as we found nothing but the lake of sand--dry and difficult to travel over; and we returned--climbed the mountain and lay down to rest as best we could. To be really thirsty, with no means of getting water, is truly a horrid sensation. , Kimball Webster , September 25, 1849