Page:A History of the Pacific Northwest.djvu/251

 Northwest.

opportunities for farming and stock raising, began to think of locating claims in these valleys.

The Umpqua valley. Jesse Applegate, who was the most noted explorer of southern Oregon, was himself led to settle in Umpqua valley.^ In the spring of 1850, he with a number of others organized a company to take up lands and establish town sites. It happened that while these pioneers were making their way down toward the sea, they met a party of Californians who had entered the Umpqua by ship for the same purpose. The two companies thus accidentally brought together formed a new association which undertook to colonize the Umpqua valley. Settlers and miners quickly overran the region. The county of Umpqua, embracing the whole of southern Oregon, was created by the territorial legislature in 1851.

Rogue River and the southern coast. The valley of Rogue River received settlers about the same time, and here the influence of gold discoveries was strongly felt. California miners had already prospected the Sierras to the borders of the Oregon country; and just at the close of the year 1851 rich placer mines were discovered on Jackson Creek, a branch of Rogue River. A new rush began, Californians and Oregonians both taking part in it, so that in a very short time the village of Jacksonville had a population of several hundred, and a number of other mining centres were established

1 He founded and named the town Yoncalla, which became his home. General Lane also took a claim in this valley, near the town of Roseburg, and spent his declining years in retirement.