Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 22.djvu/20



10 ALICE APPLEGATE SARGENT

long the weary oxen would have to travel back and forth over the long mountain grade. The forests were swarming with wild animals, panther, wild cats, black, cinnamon and grizzly bear, and great gray timber wolves which would howl in a blood curdling way in the forest at dusk.

Immigrants were pouring into Oregon over the old road laid out by the fifteen pioneers in 1846. The Modoc and Piute Indians made travel unsafe even at that late date. A report came to my father that a train of immigrants coming over that route was in great peril. Father called for volunteers and in a very short time forty-one men were equipped and ready to go to the help of the immigrants. They rode rapidly for several days before they met the train. I have no recollection of my father's or brother's return, but I distinctly recall the story that father told of the rescue. When the party finally discovered the immigrants they had corralled their wagons and prepared to defend themselves as best they could against the Indians. The rescuing party prepared a flag of truce by fastening a white cloth to a long pole, to show that they were friends, -and then rode slowly forward. They had ridden almost up to the wagons before they saw any signs of life, then a wagon cover was thrown up and an aged woman with snow white hair called out to them "Glory be to God, we are saved." They brought this train in safety to the Rogue River valley and we, no doubt, have some of these same people living in Medford today.

COMING OF RAILROAD

The next great event in the history of the valley was the coming of the railroad which was built into Ashland from the north. The first train of cars ran into Ashland on May 4th 1884, an event celebrated in an imposing way. Ashland was the terminus until 1887 when the railroad was completed and the Rogue River Valley was linked by bands of steel with the outside world.

Medford, the little city of which we all feel proud, was