Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 15.djvu/10



2 JUDGE WILLIAM C. BROWN

plished fact. In short all the Americans that had been in the region before 1811, were only temporarily in the country, either as explorers, adventurers or transient Indian traders, or all three combined.

The organization of the Pacific Fur Company through the efforts and influence of John Jacob Astor of New York and the sending out of the expeditions which gave the Pacific Northwest its first American occupancy is a theme that looms large in the annals of Oregon. At two points in Old Oregon establishments were founded the first year, the one being "Astoria," the head post of the company at the mouth of the Columbia, the other its first inland post, which was located at the mouth of the Okanogan river and called Fort Okanogan. The former place is where the city of the same name now stands, but the latter has been deserted and abandoned for fifty years and is today, a lonely, unfrequented spot on an Indian reservation.

Except a few depressions that indicate the old cellars, and some remnants of masonry scattered here and there, every vestige of the structures of old Fort Okanogan have disap- peared. Except a small Indian ranch house and a cluster of log stables and corrals that stand near by, no buildings of any description exist in that vicinity. The ground has reverted to a virgin waste and the immediate locality is as tenantless, if not more so, than it was when the whites first set eyes upon it.

It is the purpose of this address to piece together into a connected narrative, a condensed history of Fort Okanogan from the beginning to the end, and make the same as complete as the necessary brevity of this paper will permit.

The name of John Jacob Astor of New York must iieces- sarily be written large when recounting any of the earlier beginnings of American occupancy in old Oregon. He was the creator and prime mover in the great enterprise of the Pacific Fur Company. The plan was his and the backing of his great wealth and the prestige of his name alone made it possible. The articles of agreement organizing the concern were signed in New York, June 23rd, 1810. The avowed