Oregon Sentinel, Jacksonville, July 18, 1868, page 3


    The so-called Dead Indian route from Ashland to Fort Klamath is between 30 to 35 miles shorter than that by way of the Soda Springs and Linkville, and is a much better road. Last fall a number of the reservation Indians, who took this route to come into the valley to do their trading, cleared it of the fallen timbers etc. that had obstructed it the past few years. Since that time the road has been traveled extensively by people going from here to the upper Klamath Basin. George Nutley, whose ranch is located at the eastern end of the route--about six miles west of the Fort--travels this road altogether, and says it is a plain wagon road, most of it leading over a beautiful level country, with plenty of grass, plenty of water and entirely free from dust. The road leads through Lost Prairie (cutting that body of land right in two), leaving Lake of the Woods at the foot of snowy Mount Pitt to the left and striking Pelican Bay at the head of Lake Klamath. It is the nearest route to the Fort and Crater Lake.
Oregon Sentinel, Jacksonville, August 6, 1881, page 2


    Robt. Neil is intending to erect a handsome farm residence this summer.
    Haying has commenced in earnest and everybody is busy. There will be a large crop.
    The soda spring at the mouth of Grizzly is a nice place to camp, as there is plenty of fish and game.
    Austin W. Bish has moved his family out to the Walker place and will run a dairy. It got too dry for the cows in the valley.
    A school house is being built which will be finished shortly, when school will commence, Miss Nerva Naylor being already engaged to teach the same.
    Campers are beginning to pour in and the woods will soon be full of people. They should be very careful with fire, as everything is dry and a fire once started would sweep the country.
    Several people are in the Dead Indian country on a visit, among them Misses Daisy Tucker and Ida Wells, Mr. Harvey Howard and others whose names I did not learn.
    The people of Dead Indian assembled at the grove near C. F. Blake's and had a regular old-fashioned picnic on the 4th, a number of the old residents of the valley being present, and all had a good time. Arthur Hunt and Bert Tozer run the stands, which were well patronized. The prizes were won by the following: For the best-looking lady on the ground the judges decided that they were all so good-looking that it was impossible to make a choice. Best shot at target with "pea gun," Johnny Murphy. The homeliest man (J. P. Walker and Jap, the sheepman, barred) was given to John Griffin. The worst disappointed man in the crowd, Milo Walker. The dinner was excellent; everybody had all they could eat and plenty left. The ball, given in the evening at Wm. Neil's place, was well attended--20 numbers being sold. The supper was fine and everybody had a jolly good time.
    July 6.        REX.
Valley Record, Ashland, July 11, 1889, page 3


    Edmond Redpath, nephew of John B. Griffin, is visiting the latter this week.
    Henry Inlow is building a neat residence on his place in the Dead Indian country.
    Arthur Hunt had about half a mile of fence burned by forest fire last Monday.
    F. Barneburg, of Eden precinct, is in this section looking after his stock interests.
    Harvey Howard of the Greensprings, was visiting friends in Dead Indian last week.
    Riley Crabtree, of the Willamette Valley, is visiting with his sister, Mrs. Backus, this week.
    Rev. James Hummer, of Ashland, was visiting at the residence of Wm. L. Neil last week.
    Mrs. Bradley, of the Umpqua Valley, is visiting her daughter, Mrs. H. Deardorf, in this section.
    R. P. Neil and family returned from a visit Monday with his brother, J. R. Neil, at Jacksonville.
    Messrs. Templeton, Grover, Pond and Bish have returned from the huckleberry patch at the Lake of the Woods and report plenty of berries there yet.
    "Brick" Wells' old farm house caught on fire Thursday morning last and burned to the ground, also an old milk house nearby. He thinks mice and matches was the cause. Furniture, etc., saved.
    The fine new residence of J. R. Tozer is nearing completion. It is understood that Mr. and Mrs. Tozer have now spent their last summer on the ranch, and that Bert will take full charge. If he calculated to live alone there would be no necessity for such a fine large house. The fact that the building is going up has aroused suspicions that something is going to happen. Well, we don't know who the lady may be, but she would hunt many a day before she found a better fellow than Bertie.
Valley Record, Ashland, September 19, 1889, page 3


    Cool weather and plenty of smoke.
    The fire burned about a mile of fence for John F. Howard last Thursday.
    John S. Swenning's team took a start last Tuesday, injuring the cart somewhat, but no serious damage was done.
    E. T. Howard has been out to his father's ranch this week after some milch cows.
    Philip Hought has returned from Medford after a month's visit there with friends.
    J. C. Neil and Dave Spencer were in this section last week after beef cattle.
    Geo. W. Pennebaker is out on his homestead claim at the Grizzly Soda Spring.
    W. L. Neil had half a mile of fence burned last week by forest fire.
    Howard Durkie and Johnny Thompson and their families are camping at the residence of James R. Howard.
Valley Record, Ashland, September 26, 1889, page 3, page 3


    W. Powell moved his family to Ashland this week.
    Crit Tolman and O. H. Blount took a trip out to the Dead Indian country during the week.
    About six inches of snow. Everybody has plenty of hay and say "let her come."
    Only two families are wintering in Dead Indian.
    John B. Griffin has just finished a new barn. He is in Ashland this week.
Valley Record, Ashland, December 11, 1890, page 3


    The question of a wagon road from Ashland to intersect the road that taps the Butte Creek section is again before the people. This will be a great aid to the people living in that section to have easy access to this city, and the business interests of Ashland demand that it should be put through. It is the most practicable and best route and is entirely satisfactory to all the residents and property holders, who will donate the fencing thereof to the county. The only opposition comes from Mr. J. C. Durkee, who is out with an opposition road in order to defeat the really meritorious one. The proper place for Mr. Durkee to present his grievances is before an impartial set of viewers, appraisers or the county court, where the matter may be adjusted. The people of Ashland cannot afford to let the grievances of Mr. Durkee, though he be an enterprising and industrious citizen, stand in the way of the public good and the best business interests of Ashland.
Valley Record, Ashland, May 21, 1891, page 3


    A crew of nine men left Ashland today for Dead Indian to work on the Ashland-Dead Indian-Ft. Klamath wagon road and give it a thorough overhauling. It is a natural highway and will be put in good condition for the Mazamas Crater Lake excursionists and summer business between that portion of the Klamath County country and Ashland. The Southern Pacific has listed a lot of indemnity land grant in that section, and the special road fund portion will swell the amount to be expended to $200. Road supervisor Hunt has charge of the work.
Valley Record, Ashland, June 25, 1896, page 3


    After long years of waiting, connection is at last to be made between Ashland and Klamath Falls over the Dead Indian route. Klamath County has taken the important step and has appointed Clayton Burton as supervisor over the extension in Klamath County, and the actual construction of a new road from the Klamath County line to Clover Creek will be made. Klamath County has long been clamoring for a good wagon and auto road from its county seat to Ashland. Time and again she has come forward with a proposition to Jackson County to meet her at the county line with a first-class auto road. Jackson County, however, has failed to do her part, in spite of repeated petitions to the county court from this end of the county, until last fall, when a crew was sent into the Dead Indian country and the road was put in shape from the summit east of Ashland to the county line. This performance on the part of Jackson County gave Klamath County the opportunity to consummate her desire, and the recent order of the county court is the result.
    The route from Ashland to Klamath Falls by this road is about the same length as that by way of the Green Spring Mountain road, 63 miles. From the summit, 13 miles east of Ashland, all grades of any consequence have been eliminated up to Klamath Falls. The new survey, work upon which will be begun as soon as weather permits, will head almost straight for Clover Creek, from which point the road had previously been put in shape and shortened materially. All rocks and trees will be removed so that nothing will be left to interfere in the least with auto travel. A distance of 15 miles will be covered thus under this contract.
    This improvement will give Ashland a splendid road to Crater Lake by way of Klamath Falls. From a scenic standpoint it will be one of the best across the mountains. It will be used extensively for hauling fruit and produce between this city and Klamath Falls, as well as a regular route for auto travel between the two places. With the road completed, an increased amount of travel is expected as well as an increased amount of produce exchange.
Ashland Tidings, June 13, 1912, page 1


    What is said to be the hardest "cow punching" trip ever made in Southern Oregon has just been completed. in which a large band of cattle was driven from Eagle Point to Dead Indian. Caught in the snow, the last three miles of the journey required 15 hours. For three days the vaqueros were practically without food, not daring to leave to secure it. Fred Dutton, Carl Ringer, Ray Harnish, Joe Moomaw and Carl von der Hellen handled the cattle.
    The trip is usually made easily in one day. However, when the higher levels were reached deep snow was encountered which blocked progress. The horses were used to break trail. Finally Dead Indian was reached, where hay had been stored for winter feeding. 
Medford Mail Tribune, January 24, 1913, page 6


    It is approximately fifty miles from Ashland to Pelican Bay over what is known as the Dead Indian route. With the road improved as is now promised and the Klamath end of it opened up for automobile traffic, Ashland will be within a few hours' ride, say four, of Pelican Bay. From the latter point there is now a fine automobile road to Crater Lake, forty miles distant. Thus it is easy to figure out a quick trip from Ashland to Crater Lake by this route, which is full of scenic interest, nearly every rod of it. It will bring the Lake of the Woods region with all its summer lurings within a three hours' auto ride of Ashland.
    Leaving Ashland, we traverse the Pacific Highway southward for three miles to the Owens ranch, where we turn to the left and cross both Neil and Emigrant creeks just above the junction where they form Bear Creek. Soon we are winding up the mountain grade, and a long, steady pull brings us to the summit of the Cascades, fourteen miles distant from Ashland. From the summit there is a splendid bird's-eye view of valley and mountains. Immediately on the left of us are the great white cliffs, the kaolin deposits which have long attracted interest and which it is predicted will some day become a source of wealth to this section. The altitude at the base where our route crosses the summit is about 5,200 feet. The descent is into what is really a part of the great Klamath Basin and is much shorter, for the entire basin lies at an elevation above the sea of 4,000 to 4,500 feet.
    In the Dead Indian region, distant less than twenty miles from Ashland, we are in a country entirely different in climate and environment from the Rogue River Valley. Few nights even in midsummer are entirely free from light frosts. It is a thriving dairy and stock section, and agriculture is developed beyond what was dreamed of as possible a few years ago, when it was counted only a summer dairying and grazing section. It is a beautiful country, particularly in the summer time. The prairies and glades, luxuriant in native grasses, are like lakes in the forests of fir and pine timber. As we emerge from the deep woods into the main Dead Indian Valley at the Neil ranch seventeen and a half miles from Ashland, a glance to the left and we see Mt. Pitt, or McLoughlin, in all its capped glory, its base seeming to be only a stone's throw away and the timberline plainly demarked. All the rest of the way to Pelican Bay our route circles around the base of Mt. Pitt, though it is not always in sight to the traveler through the thick timber, which is one of the attractions of this route. For miles and miles we traverse virgin forests of stately pines and firs through much of which the sun never penetrates.
    Lindsay's ranch is nineteen miles from Ashland, and a few miles farther on we come to Lost Prairie and the Jones ranch. Nine miles from Lindsay's and twenty-eight miles from Ashland we cross the Jackson County line into Klamath County.
    Thirty-eight miles east of Ashland after a course through forest after forest, with an occasional variation in the way of a "big burn" marking the devastations of some forest fire a decade or two ago. Suddenly through the forest ahead we catch a glimpse of water, quite an expanse of it. It is Lake of the Woods. And truly it is a lake of the woods and a most beautiful scene. Approximately three miles long and from one to two miles wide, with a varying depth and with shallow shores, portions of them covered with sand and pebbles, it furnishes the base for an ideal summer resort. It is in the national forest reserve, but with the government giving leases for summer cottages a few years will doubtless see the shores of Lake of the Woods dotted with summer cottages and perhaps summer hotels. Probably most of the cottages will be owned by Ashland people, and summer travelers detouring from Ashland will fill the hotels. Before coming to Lake of the Woods a road off to the right leads to Buck Lake, where there is one of the finest little bodies of water found in the Cascades.
    From Lake of the Woods it is approximately twelve miles over an undulating country through pine and fir woods to Pelican Bay, the last few miles being through a level plateau region covered with giant yellow pine. To the left lies Four Mile Lake. It is off the traveled route but is visited by many hunters particularly, for it is a fine big game region. Indeed, the entire Lake of the Woods region abounds in deer, and bear are quite numerous.
    Pelican Bay, as we know, is an arm of Klamath Lake and sends a flow of ice cold spring water into the north and west sides of the lake. The splendid cold springs of great volume that flow into Pelican Bay are what make the magnificent fish which have made the bay famous among sportsmen. This place attracted the late great railroad magnate, E. H. Harriman, so much that he purchased it for his summer home and improved the property. The west shore of Klamath Lake in this region offers much territory attractive to the summer tourist. Besides the fishing and boating there is the finest duck hunting, perhaps, in the West. The great Klamath marshes, vast in extent, are the natural homes of myriads of waterfowl which breed there.
    When we consider how near to this wonderful playground Ashland is in actual miles we may estimate the possibilities of the future when Ashland gets to be the resort she is now planning to be. The Dead Indian route will be traversed by thousands and it will be one of the attractive trips out from the city.
Ashland Tidings, December 31, 1914, page 7


    H. G. Enders was in Klamath Falls last week as a member of the Commercial Club committee, which is boosting for a new road to Pelican Bay via the Dead Indian country. He says Klamath Falls people feel very kindly toward the proposition--not only merchants who realize that such a road would bring our fruits in and take their grain out but by the sportsmen and autoists and others who look upon the road as contributing to the public pleasure. The Klamath Falls Herald says:
    "With a view to getting assistance here for the road the Ashland Commercial Club proposes to have built over the Dead Indian route from Ashland to the Lake of the Woods and Pelican Bay, thus opening Crater Lake, Upper Klamath Lake and other scenic points in Klamath County to Ashland tourists, H. G. Enders, one of the committee in charge of the project, is here from Ashland.
    "According to Mr. Enders, Ashland people are subscribing from $25 to $100 each toward the construction of the road. Besides this, twenty-five or more men have volunteered to do some work on the highway. What Klamath County people will be willing to do toward this project will be determined shortly. There is a possibility of help from the county court, as there is some money on hand from forest reserve timber sale, which is to be used in road building in forest reserve territory within the county, and a portion of the Ashland-Klamath route is through government timber lands.
    "Besides the tourist advantages to both Ashland and Klamath, Mr. Enders points out possible commercial advantages. He believes that this route, which is less than the Green Springs Mountain road, can be used advantageously in marketing Jackson County fruit in Klamath County, and Klamath County potatoes and grain in Jackson County."
Ashland Tidings, April 15, 1915, page 1 The article quoted was on page 1 of the Herald of April 8.


    The following interesting story of the trip to the Lake of the Woods through the Dead Indian plateau, which everyone who has ever passed through proclaims to be the most beautiful mountain country adjacent to and easily accessible from Ashland, is particularly appropriate at this time when the Commercial Club is taking up the matter of making the lake accessible for autos:
    Recently the writer and a band of Ashland boys hiked to the Lake of the Woods and there camped for six days. He now wishes that he were both a poet and a painter that he might picture for his readers the beauties of the lake, the mountains and the woods.
    We left Ashland at about 5 o'clock in the morning. It was a perfect morning. The mountaintops were ablaze with the altar fires of the new day. As we began the climb of the Dead Indian road Pompadour rose at our immediate left, backed by Old Grizzly. To our right far up to the head of the valley Pilot Rock pointed the way out over the Siskiyous. Behind us over against the foothills nestled waking Ashland. And behind the foothills, ever keeping watch over the City Beautiful stood Mount Wagner and Ashland Butte with its snow chaplet. All through the early morning the broad sides of Grizzly sloped up from our left. These were covered with evergreens and poison oak, the leaves of which were turning crimson as though kissed by autumn's frost. Great waves of green and crimson from every way greeted the eye. For fourteen miles we climbed up and up, passing ranch after ranch. One was a turkey ranch. Here we saw turkeys enough, if they all live, to provide one each for a Thanksgiving dinner for every family in Ashland. At Hooper's we lunched and then made it to the summit by about 12:30. This summit is about 4,000 feet above the sea. We had made fourteen miles and climbed about
3,000 feet. The season at the summit is about six weeks behind that in Ashland. There one would have thought it was about the last of May or the first of June, for wildflowers of every conceivable color and variety were in bloom. How we wished that we could tell them all by name.
    Once over the summit we entered one of Uncle Sam's great reserve forests. Majestic cathedral pines arose to 125 and 150 feet on both sides of the road. For about two miles down a gradual slope we enjoyed these woods. Here we found an opening, a ranch and a flowing stream. Following the road along this stream we saw on both sides fat, sleek cattle grazing, and for many miles we were scarcely ever out of sound of the tinkle, tinkle and the clang, clang of the bells on the grazing range cattle. Two miles beyond this ranch, Spencer's, we came to an open prairie. In the distance we could hear the clatter of the mowing machine, and the breezes brought to our nostrils the scent of new-mown hay. Four miles beyond this open prairie we came to another clearing called Deadwood. Here we bivouacked for the night. Here, too, we had our first view of Mt. McLoughlin (Mt. Pitt). The hills and woods between had shrunk back and we had a fine view far down to its base. The wooded base was topped by a barren rocky pyramid peak. As I looked I wondered that someone had not named this mountain Pyramid Mountain because of its shape. From our fir bough couches well supported by the ground we gazed that evening up into a perfectly clear sky twinkling with the eyes of heaven. But the beauties of nature were soon forgotten in the beauty sleep of tired boys.
    By about 9 o'clock the next morning we had passed the county line between Jackson and Klamath and had come to the last inhabited cabin seven miles this side of the lake. Right near this log cabin in its clearing we came to the highest point in our travels, 5,390 feet above the sea. This morning we had noticed two interesting forms of vegetation among others. On the first day we had seen trees covered with short moss, but this morning we saw hanging from many trees long, hairlike, light olive and pea green-colored moss. The other was the beautiful yew trees with their drooping evergreen branches. Every one was a tent for the passing traveler. After leaving the highest point we came down into a flat stretch covered with jack pines and with many small pitted rocks strewn about. I was told that these stones erupted from Mt. Pitt in its days of activity. To the right of us on this flat was Buck Mountain, where the deer are so plentiful that they have trails up and down the mountain. And everywhere all about us were fresh deer signs. And the lady at the last cabin had told us that a few nights before she had seen two bears following the fence just outside the clearing.
    Beyond this flat stretch we climbed to the top and descended the last summit. About Ashland the hills are covered with manzanita, but this mountain was covered with buckbrush which was just beginning to bloom. How fragrant it was. I could have shut my eyes and imagined I was walking up the path in Highland Park in Rochester with the lilacs in full bloom. Down at the foot of this last summit on the other side we came into view of our friend of the evening before, Mt. Pitt. We had taken the arc of a great circle and he now stood as many miles to the west as he had stood to the north in the morning. Before long the boys saw the "sky" through the trees. But soon the "sky" was rolling its little breakers up on the shore at our feet. It was the beautiful Lake of the Woods. There in a pocket of the mountains 4,960 feet elevation, about three to five miles long and one wide, was a beautiful freshwater lake, clear as the mountain brook, and warm as the white sulfur water in the Natatorium. Now those boys did not stand and look for long. Soon all were gamboling like young porpoises in the water.
    Two or three more descriptions and our paper will cease. Out between the trees overshadowing our camp, across the lake, and beyond a wooded ridge, stood Mt. Pitt. From this side he appeared like a huge pyramid but with a hump in his back, like the hump which Christian had on his back when he started on his journey to the Celestial City. I shall never forget the coloring of that mountain at sunset. First it was a golden dust color. Then light pink turned to deep crimson and purple, which later faded into a bluish gray and then the dark gray of all the night.
    It was Sunday night. The usual colors had appeared on the mountain. At about 8 o'clock the silvery light of the moon had begun to steal its way among the trees. By 10 o'clock what appeared to be a full moon was sending streams of light down through God's great temple firs. Patches of light played hide and seek with the shadows in the forest. Every tree stood silent and still. Not a needle quivered, not a stick cracked, the faraway cry of the coyote was hushed, and every insect and bird of the night was dumb. How great it was to lie beneath the open sky with the smell of fir boughs in the nostrils and the prod of the fir stick in the back, just drinking in the glory of that perfect night in the great woods of God's all out-of-doors. Let men build their stone walls to shut God out, but give me the freedom of the Oregon woods.
    As a sort of a postscript to the above descriptive article let me say a word about the roads between here and the Lake of the Woods. There are only a few places where it is very hard automobiling. Of course there are steep places. There are very sharp turns and there are steep canyons close by the side. All these call for careful driving, and no novice should attempt to take a machine over the Dead Indian. The worst features are the protruding rocks in a few places. Ashland people ought to see to it that these are fixed. It does not seem to me that it would cost so very much in time or money to make the necessary improvements. Several autos passed us on the way, and surely the day will come when hundreds of autos will go every summer over the Dead Indian road to the Lake of the Woods and to points beyond.--A.R.B.
Ashland Tidings, August 12, 1915, page 2


    ASHLAND, Or., Sept. 13.--(Special.)--According to E. V. Carter, Ashland banker, who has spent the summer in the Southern Oregon mountains and has driven over virtually all Southern Oregon roads in his Packard car, the Ashland route to Crater Lake by way of Dead Indian is at present by far the best road to that national park. One of the roughest pieces on that route was recently eliminated by construction of a new road.
    "While the Dead Indian route is far from being a boulevard," says Mr. Carter, "there is more rough road on either the Rogue River route from Medford or the road up Klamath Lake from Klamath Falls. The Dead Indian route, which takes the motorist past Lake of the Woods, near the foot of Mount McLoughlin, and skirts Pelican Bay and Upper Klamath Lake, offers far more scenic attractions, is not dusty and is in the shade of timber practically all the way from a point ten miles out of Ashland to Crater Lake. The distance is 92 miles."
    Mr. Carter made his headquarters this summer at his mountain lodge at Lake of the Woods, a mountain lake 36 miles from Ashland, which has become the mecca for campers from this section. Thirty-two lodges were built on national forest summer home lots on the shore of Lake of the Woods this year and some 50 home sites have been leased from the national forest administration.
    Most of the members of the National Editorial Association were taken over the Dead Indian road on their trip to Crater Lake, and despite the fact that it was in worse condition than at present, preferred it to the other route on account of the absence of chalk dust.
Oregonian, Portland, September 14, 1919, page 83


    The new "Dead Indian" route to Crater Lake will become popular next season, it is predicted, when the grading of a new route with a 6 percent maximum grade up the Dead Indian mountain is completed. This work is about half done and when finished will eliminate several miles of steep grades. This route is extensively used at present, despite the climb, by scores of valley residents who have summer homes at Lake of the Woods and by a few tourists.
Ashland Tidings, August 4, 1920, page 2


    What is probably one of the most extensive and valuable deposits of oil shale in the United States has been uncovered by engineers of the Hartman Syndicate of the Pacific Coast in the Dead Indian country at the head of Antelope Valley, and Southern Oregon has promises of a new industry which will materially increase her payroll in time. The Hartman Syndicate controls the use of Hartman retorts in the territory west of the Mississippi River and will employ this type of retort to extract oil from shale. The company has under lease from the government 3500 acres of land that is practically a solid mass of oil-bearing shale and is now taking steps to begin the actual production in Southern Oregon.
    H. W. Hartman, head of the syndicate, is widely known as former chief of maintenance and construction of the great nitrate plant which was constructed at Muscle Shoals during the war, where at one time he had under his supervision 14,000 men.. He is construction engineer and contractor of the Hartman Syndicate and brother of the inventor of the Hartman retort.
    Associated with him is W. A. Pettigrew, a civil engineer of many years experience. Mr. Hartman and Mr. Pettigrew were the engineers who followed the float and surface indications of shale in the Dead Indian country and determined the extent of the vast deposits. G. S. Pettigrew is also with the company as mechanical engineer. James Barrett, a well-known Ashland cattleman, is one of the principal promoters of the enterprise.
    Public demonstrations for the people of Southern Oregon interested in the plans of the company are held every afternoon at Mack's Garage in Ashland, in which a retort of one-ton capacity is employed. This retort extracts 100 gallons of oil, over two barrels of oil, from one ton of Dead Indian shale. This is a high-grade oil with a paraffin base. Besides gas there are byproducts of gas, lampblack and fireclay.
Medford Mail Tribune, August 16, 1922, page 6