Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/254

226 Near Eugene, three and one-half miles southeast, at Coryell Point, the confluence of the Coast Fork and Middle Fork of Willamette River, the Old Oregon Trail is marked by a monument erected by Lewis and Clark Chapter, of Eugene, Mrs. Edna Prescott Datson, regent, and dedicated March 10, 1917. The tablet reads: "Coryell Pass, Oregon Trail, 1846." In that year the Southern Oregon trail, from Old Fort Boise, in Snake River, to Rogue River and Polk County, was opened by Levi Scott, Jesse and Lindsay Applegate. . The fotmder of the city of Eugene, Eugene Skinner, took his land claim there in 1846. That year is especially significant of the ox-team pioneers, because they then drove their first wagons into Southern Oregon and Willamette Valley.

Twelve monuments have been placed in Western Washington by the Daughters and the Sons of the American Revolution, as follows: Tumwater, near Olympia; Olympia in the public square; Tenino, Bush Prairie, Grand Mound, Centralia, Jackson Prairie, Toledo, Kelso, Kalama, and Woodland, all these designating Cowlitz Trail; and at Vancouver. The latter, at the approach of the Interstate bridge, was erected in January, 1917. Pioneers placed a stone marker on the Naches Trail, September 20, 1917, near the town of Selah, Washington. This trail was opened in 1853, as a direct route across Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound.

The work in Oregon and Washington has been under way for two years, and has received national attention. The Oregon Trail monument at Caldwell, Idaho, was unveiled April 28, 1916. The Oregon committee on old trails, for the current year, appointed by Mrs. Isaac Lee Patterson, state regent, is composed of the following: Mrs. J. M. Knight, Mrs. C. S. Jackson, Mrs. F. M. Wilkins, Mrs. Willard L. Marks, Mrs. Norris H. Looney, Mrs. D. O. Bronson, Miss Anna M. Lang.

The writer is indebted for most of the material of this article to the state historian of the Oregon Daughters of the American Revolution, Mrs. J. Thorbum Ross, but any omissions should