6 The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 46, No. 4 Featured Article Our company began doing the surveying work for Sunriver Properties in the early 1970s. My family moved to Bend at that time. Since living here, I have learned a lot about the history of the area. This includes prehistory about the Indigenous people that occupied the land prior to the arrival of non natives. Fur trappers were probably the first white men here after the Hudson’s Bay Company set up their operation in Fort Vancouver in 1825. John C. Fremont came through Central Oregon on his second exploration in 1843–44. In 1845, Stephen Meek led his ill-fated wagon train across the high desert in order to find a shorter route to the upper Willamette Valley and to avoid the perilous trip down the Columbia River which started at The Dalles. The Cascade Mountains ended that attempt and the train had to turn north, and still ended up in The Dalles. There is some question as to whether it was Meek’s intent to cross the mountains or simply to find a shorter route to The Dalles. In 1853, roughly 200 wagons and 1,000 people followed the old Meek trail to the Deschutes. The leader, Elijah Elliot, thought they would find a newly constructed wagon road over the Cascades to the upper Valley. The route had been scouted and blazed earlier and would take them just north of Diamond Peak, then down the Middle Fork of the Willamette River to Eugene. When they got to the intended Cascade route in the fall, they found blazes but no road. They were forced to clear their own way through heavy timber. The emigrants nearly encountered the same fate as the Donner party trying to cross into California in 1846–47. As people began to drift into the high desert, they could see the potential of Eastern Oregon becoming a major cattle and sheep grazing area. Settlers started moving in and occupying the land. Gold was found in the John Day country in the early 1860s which brought more people in and through Central Oregon. Prineville became a hub, and was incorporated in 1870. Public land surveyors came through here in the 1870s to subdivide the land for future homesteading. Because of the influx of people, it became necessary to develop transportation routes in order to move livestock, people, and to bring in supplies. THE MCKENZIE PASS WAGON ROAD 1862 TO THE PRESENT By Dick Bryant, PLS An early wagon train. Photo courtesy of the Deschutes County Historical Museum. The John Craig memorial. Approach to toll road at east end.
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