Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/20

 MILES CANNON

12 the identical spot.

tonwood logs

cotOriginally the fort was constructed of ground but latterly, when in the pos-

set in the

session of the Hudson's

Bay Company,

it

was enlarged and

enclosed with adobe brick.

The outlines of these walls are plainly discernable, even to the two bastions at opposite corners, and the well inside the The adjoining grove where Jason Lee preached enclosure. the first sermon ever heard west of the Rocky Mountains, July 26, 1834, is still a grand cathedral for the song birds of the desert as the country is untouched by man, it being within the Fort Hall Indian reservation. Three miles below is the crossing of Spring Creek where the stage station was located in 1864, it having been constructed with adobe bricks brought here from the then abandoned Fort Hall. Some three miles farther brings us to the Portneuf crossing from which place the road to American Falls is very near the old trail. This

now

the second wheat shipping station in the United States, still has the marks of the trail within the city limits. It is safe to conclude, however, that few of its citizens have

city,

the slightest conception as to the historic connection of those old deep-worn furrows.

have never been able to determine just how American What American party could have its name. at the falls is not clear, as they seem to have acquired perished that name before the advent of the Americans, unless these falls have been confused with those at Caldron Linn. In that case it is very likely that the accident heretofore mentioned in connection with the Hunt party is responsible for the name. Some 23 miles down the river from American Falls, in the immediate vicinity of Rock Creek, is one of the tragical points I

Falls received

of the

trail.

The

general conditions of this particular section

have not changed since the days when the Oregon Trail was in the heyday of its glory. How many pioneers sleep at the foot of that great perpendicular rock, so long retained in the memory of those who traveled the historic trail, the world will never It was here that, in 1851, the wagons of Mr. Miller, of Virginia, were attacked, a daughter of Mr. Miller seriously

know.