Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 22.djvu/13

 making a road over which the wagons could pass. This train was taken through to the Willamette valley. Now that we have our splendid Pacific Highway, built at enormous cost, with all the modern implements, rock crushers, steam rollers, and plows, and by the labor of hundreds of men, it is well for us to remember that the first road in southern Oregon and through the Rogue River valley was built by the labor of fifteen men with nothing but axes in their bare hands, and amidst perils and hardships that would strike terror to any but the stoutest hearts. It was free to all, a work of humanity, the only recompense to the builders was a consciousness of duty nobly done.

In 1848 a party of pioneers from the Willamette valley came into the Rogue River valley on their way to the gold mines in California. They prospected for gold on Rogue River and on the stream we now know as the Applegate and then pushed on to California. My father was with this party also and the stream and valley were named for him.

In 1850 two men, Cluggage and Pool by name, equipped a pack train at the mining town of Yreka, California, and carried supplies between Yreka and towns in the Willamette valley. They followed a narrow trail across the Siskiyou mountains and along the bank of Bear creek. It was their custom when they reached this valley, to stop to rest and recuperate their animals. The wild grass grew so high in the valley that the man who herded the mules had to stand on the back of his horse in order to locate the rest of the herd.

Cluggage had worked at mining and one day, while they were in camp in the valley, went up into the hills where Jacksonville now is. Following up a gulch or ravine, he came to a place where the heavy rains had washed the soil entirely away, leaving a ledge of rock exposed. Taking his bowie knife from