Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/70

 58 BINGER HERMANN were known to have been in entire Southern Oregon. That well remembered man in Oregon history Jesse Applegate settled in 1849 in the Yoncalla Valley and lived there to his death long years after. It remained, however, for California gold discoveries in 1848 to give a new life to Southern Oregon in the passing hosts of gold seekers from the Willamette settlements. The trails were crowded with horses and mules carrying the excited travelers with their packs to the new Eldorado. To these, however, the fertile lands passed over had no attractions. The quest was only for gold. But it was in 1850 the real promise and active influence came toward the most effective future and permanent awakening of Southern Oregon. It came in the exploring party in the ship Samuel Roberts in the early part of that year into the Umpqua River. They came to explore, to invest and to settle. Their primary purpose was to seek a river or bay with a safe and navigable outlet to the high seas, and with a deep tide- water channel into the interior. This they found in the Umpqua. Their further purpose united with this was the opening of a practicable land communication from their sea port to the nearest point in the gold mining regions of North- ern California, over which supplies and miners could be trans- ported more easily, quickly and cheaply than by the long trav- eled route from Portland or San Francisco. For this public convenience, but more for their own investment, sites for towns were to be located at eligible points, and were regularly sur- veyed and laid out as at Umpqua City, at the mouth of the river, Scottsburg at the head of tidewater, Elkton on Elk Creek opposite the old Fort Umpqua, and Winchester on the North Umpqua, where travelers and pack trains were crossing over on their way to the mines. From Scottsburg trails were opened and improved ferries established, and soon a lively traffic ensued from that place to the south. It was to the magnetic attraction of gold in California that these evolutions were due. A still greater attraction was now to have origin within