Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 22.djvu/11



XXII

A SKETCH OF THE ROGUE RIVER VALLEYAND SOUTHERN OREGON HISTORY

PART I.

Lying between the Cascade mountains on the east, and the Coast range on the west, and tempered by the warm oceanic current from Japan, the Rogue River Valley has a climate unsurpassed except perhaps by the coast valleys of Greece.

About the year 1834 we find the Rogue River Valley a wilderness inhabited by a tribe of Indians. These Indians were a branch of the tribe living in northern California whom we now know as the Shastas. But the original name was not Shasta but Chesta. They were the Chesta Scotons and the Indians living in the Rogue River valley were Chesta Scotons.

The first white men to set foot in the valley of whom we have any authentic record, were some French Canadian trappers who were trapping for furs for that great British monopoly the Hudson's Bay Company. These men made their way into the valley and set their traps along the river, but the Indians