The Francis S. Landrum Historic Wayside is located on U.S. Hwy. 97, on the north side of the Oregon-California border. The wayside has a number of signs dealing with the Applegate Trail and the Oregon-California border. This waymark is for low fiberglass sign dealing with the Applegate Trail
Marker Name: The Applegate Trail -- Southern Route to Oregon
Marker Text: In 1846, Jesse Applegate and fourteen others from near Dallas Oregon, established a trail south from the Willamette Valley and east to Fort Hall. This route offered emigrants an alternative to the perilous, “last leg” of the Oregon Trail down the treacherous Columbia River. The trail also offered a potential escape route, free from Hudson’s Bay Company control, should Britain and the United States begin warring over control of Oregon.
The first emigrants to trek the new “South Road” left with the trailblazers from Fort Hall in early August 1846. WIth Levi Scott acting as guide, while Jesse Applegate traveled ahead to mark the route, the hardy emigrants blazed a wagon trail through nearly 500 miles of wilderness arriving in the upper Willamette Valley in November. Emigrant travel continued along the Applegate Trail in later years and contributed greatly to the settlement of southern Oregon and the Willamette Valley.
Klamath County
Welcome to Oregon
Applegate Trail emigrants passed this site after a difficult trek across the northern Great Basin. Traveling from the southeast shore of Goose Lake and skirting the shoreline of Tule Lake, they crossed Lost River on a unique geological formation called the Natural Bridge. Good water and grazing for livestock was available on this portion of the trail, and according to Rachel Taylor in 1854, that road was “rocky enough to break every wagon to pieces.” Indians, friendly at first, became hostile as the number of settlers flowing through their lands increased over the years. Conflicts between emigrants and Indians in this region resulted in enormous losses of life on both sides.
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