Someone once said that the only nice thing about a certain town was the train that took you away from it. Reverse this pleasantry and apply it to Southern Oregon. The worst thing about the country is the train that fetches you away from it. Not by any chance must this be construed as a reflection on the train.
    As a matter of truth, it's the only line I ever traveled on where the button marked hot water really gave hot water. No, the train is a modern wonder on wheels, but it takes you away from Southern Oregon if you have to live in Portland. That's the only possible objection I can have to it.
    With my ear pounding the Pullman pillow en route from my Medford-Ashland memorable visit last week, I found the words of that Chauncey Olcott-ish song about how Ireland got its name running through my head set to a tune, being banged out, thumpitty thump, on the car wheels:
    I adapted the line, caring not that my Irish forebears (maybe I should say for-Baers) would turn over in their graves for my liberties with the song.
    Chuggitty chug went the wheels, and my sleepy head just left those four lines alone unparodied, for they surely fit Medford-Ashland.
    "And they sprinkled it with stardust," ran the next line. "Stardust--yes, and dotted it with silver and copper and drenched it with goldy sunshine and kissed its hills and its valleys and its snow-capped mountains and set the seal of health and happiness and prosperity on its people." I improvised to the pounding of the wheels.
    "And when they had it finished,
    "Sure they called it." Why, there was only one thing to call it--Medford and Ashland and the road that winds between.
    "When I get back to Portland," sez I to myself, "when I get back, I'm going to write a story about Southern Oregon. It's not a new idea, at all, to write about that locality. It's been done, and by better men than I am, Gunga Din.
    Its glories have been told in rhyme and with reason; its apples have been given greater publicity than the original apple, and it had a whole book founded on it. Tourists write to the papers, at the papers and for the papers about Southern Oregon. Its industries and its beauties are told in the films. Nevertheless I shall add my mite, about a column's worth. Personally there's a selfish reason back of this; it saves me writing individual letters to the six thousand Ashlanders who showered me with hospitality and the dozen thousand who polished up the key of the city of Medford and vacuum-cleaned the welcome on the mat for me. The occasion of my visit was the Lincoln banquet given by the Jackson Republican Club at Medford on Monday, February 12, an account of which was given in The Oregonian at the time.
    They can well call it the "promised land," the land of opportunity, alike for the industrious homeseeker and the enterprising capitalist, a land of plentiful natural resources, of splendid wealth in timber and ores, of fruitful vales, and heaven-planned climate which is a cross between the golden sunshine of California and the Oregon mist. I'm not sure that I rode entirely over Jackson County. Possibly not, for it has a total area of 2836 square miles, or 1,815,040 acres. Mayor C. E. Gates, who is one chap deserving the sobriquet "our popular Mayor," for he is all that, drove me all over the country surrounding Medford on a personally conducted sightseeing tour that fired my admiration and now lives flame-like in my memory.
    To the east of us stretched the rugged and impressive snow-crowned Cascade Mountains. Lower and less rugged along the west of us ran the Coast Range, separating the far-famed Jackson County from the almost-as-well-known Pacific Ocean. To the north of us the Rogue River spur of mountains looms and the Siskiyou forms the southern boundary. Right in the heart of the Rogue River Valley nestles Medford, gateway to Crater Lake, which is one of the seven wonders of the world and visited by thousands every year.
    Fifteen miles to the east of Medford, lying among the foothills of the Siskiyou, in the upper end of the Rogue River Valley lies Ashland, the Carlsbad of America. They are linked by a wonder-road, all of it paved, and an automobile ride over it is a joy ride in the finest and best sense of the term. Steadily and smoothly we climbed along the beautiful scenic road from Medford, with its elevation of 1377 feet to Ashland where the elevation is 2000, feet, and believe me, that's a fine system, too. You can pick out your own altitude and make your plans accordingly.
    Only a Cook's tourist could make out a list of the spots of interest I visited in the metropolitan cities of Medford and Ashland. In Medford, one of the best-paved and most beautifully lighted cities I ever saw, they may well brag on their schools and churches, their splendid water system, the miles and miles and miles of cement sidewalks, the good-looking bungalows, and more pretentious residences, the fine business blocks, and a million other things. Best of all is the civic pride evidenced on every side. Not mere booster spurts, but loyal citizens in whom the flame of civic pride burns steadily. There's a University Club with 125 members, representing 43 colleges; there's a College Woman's Club, Colony Club, Shakespeare Club, Elks Ladies' Club, a big Parent-Teacher Association, a Drama League, and a dozen other clubs, church organizations, an active right-on-the-job Commercial Club, and a Merchants' Association.
    Besides all this Medford boasts the largest Hughes Alliance in the United States and a mighty busy Lincoln Club. Naturally I didn't visit all these, because they weren't in session during my two days' stay, but I met their smiling representatives. Among my souvenirs is a hunk of copper from the Blue Ledge copper mine, 22 miles southwest of Medford. These mines contain one of the largest bodies of ore in the United States. They are being worked on a moderate scale now, but plans are now progressing for their enlargement. A recent test of a car of ore from a smelter showed 16 percent copper to the ton, valued at $96, and silver valued at $7.50 to the ton, or $103.50 per ton by the car.
    S. S. Smith, editor of the Medford Sun, the thriving, newsy paper of Medford, gave me those statistics, and I wrote 'em down so I wouldn't forget. Because the time was short and I couldn't pay visits to all the places of interest, Mayor Gates whirled us a-la-observation-tourists to see the canning factory, catsup factory, flour mill, Rex spray factory, cement, brick and block works, three big creameries, two ice and cold storage plants, all worth a visit. A lumber mill and box factory is in process of building, and next year will see a beet sugar factory and another lumber mill located in Medford.
    No visit would be complete without a call at the Elks' building and the Carnegie library. I made both calls, and found it amply worthwhile, for the buildings and interior furnishings are beautiful. While I was sleeping, and believe me, it wasn't much I slept, so royally do they entertain with receptions at night, and get one up early to view the surrounding country while the pearl is on the dew, I slept at the Medford Hotel, and that excellent hostelry is worth a paragraph of praise if I could spare the paragraph. But I've got to get over to Ashland and tour that city beautiful in the next several paragraphs.
    Jackson County was the pioneer county in building hard-surfaced roads, and soon will have 55 miles of Pacific Highway, besides other roads all over the county.
    That part of the highway over the Siskiyous is second only in scenic beauty to our own Columbia Highway. It is all graded and partly hard-surfaced. The grading on one little stretch of 13 miles over the mountains cost Jackson County $195,000, and that's some money, isn't it, for a measly 13 miles. But that's the way they do things in Jackson County. The best isn't any too good for 'em.
    Lithia Park is a wonderful natural playground, and maintained for the entertainment of tourists, the ones who stop in Ashland for either health or pleasure, or both, and that other great mob, the tourist who is just touring. These have to go through Ashland to complete their trip on the highway, and I think some sort of arrangement should be made so that the Lithia Park scenic road could be hitched right onto the regular Pacific Highway road in some sort of loop effect. The park covers some 600 acres of gorgeous forest-covered hills and dales, and the beautiful creek ripples right through its heart. All the natural beauties have been unmolested. Everything is on a huge scale. Flower beds are half acres of blossoms. Leaping fountains hide amid flowering shrubs. Shady walks, arched over by leafy green vaults, wind in and out miles and miles of just walks.
    There's a place for the band to play, a casino to dance in and a smart up-to-date tearoom. There's a tennis court and a croquet ground for folk who still play it.
    A splendid feature spot we visited is the automobile camp ground, the last cry in convenience and comfort for motor tourists. Can you imagine to what lengths these Ashlandites have gone to look out for the comfort of their visitors when they've provided gas for cooking, private tables, a spring of fine water, electric lights and a colony of cute cottages to house the transient? All the comforts of home, believe me, you can find right in that motor camp.
    Another thing that made a hit with me is the special playground and amusement features for the children. Pools of water for them to wade in, to sail boats on and to splash around in generally, dot the big park. I drank seven gallons of lithia water, and I'm going to write a recommendation of their medicinal properties--with a picture of me before I took 'em and since. Really, the water is quite wonderful. It doesn't cost one penny, either. You just drink it, biting, effervescing, bubbling up out of fountains placed all over the grounds.
    Some day, and not distant, either, Ashland is going to be one of the greatest watering places in America. There are 40--counted 'em--lithia and soda springs in and around the picturesque place. There's hot and warm sulphur water. If I wrote all I learned about mineral springs right here, it would sound like a page out of a chemistry book. This I must tell, however. The lithia springs and the mineral springs in Ashland have the largest lithia contents of any known springs in the world. The lithia and soda waters are heavily charged with carbon dioxide gas, which makes them extremely palatable. They sparkle like champagne used to do.
    There's two splendid natatoriums in Ashland, fed by living springs of sulphur water, and if you don't want to drink the water you can bathe in it. Or you can do both. It's a sure cure for whatever ails you. Miles and miles we rode, climbing almost to the sky on a splendidly graded road. It's just as lovely, too, as our own Columbia Highway, and that is not lese majeste. It's on a smaller scale, but the view is really magnificent.
    Back from the drive on the wonder road, we made a tour over the city, a community of home-loving folk. Ashland has all the advantages of a right-up-to-the-minute municipality, in addition to natural advantages in the line of healthful climate and ideal surroundings. Ashland is beautiful. Its streets are pleasant places, well paved and well lighted. Lovely homes bedeck it. Flower-crowded gardens and a wealth of green things a-growing are on all sides. Splendid schools, a duck of a library--quaint and picturesque--a gorgeous armory, lots of churches, two big hospitals and buildings for a Normal School, but no Normal School; attractive stores, shops and factories are a few of the places I visited, and I mustn't forget the dear little theater, a gem of architecture and artistic throughout. Someday, when my dreams come true, I'm going to have a wee, squatty, fat bungalow, where I can read and write all my days. I had never decided just where I've wanted to put that bungalow. Now I know. It's going to be midway between Ashland and Medford, down in Jackson County.
    There's an automobile for every 18 people in Medford, and the place looks as if they're holding an automobile show all day and an electrical display at night. They even drive out to hunt and fish by automobiles, and the roads are good, no matter which way you go. The road to Ashland is traveled constantly. It's a picturesque, winding ribbon of hard surface, threading its way between highly developed orchards of pears, prunes. apples, peaches, fields of tangled berry vine, great spaces of alfalfa land, fruit-packing plants, dairies and dairy-grazing lands, fine little farm houses, big ranch homes and pretentious country places dot the surrounding hills and valleys. Truly 'tis a place where earth and heaven blend, and heaven has a handicap from the start and is beaten.
    Ashland is only 22 miles away from the California line, and the Pacific road from British Columbia to Mexico through the coast states of Washington, Oregon and California, passes right through the heart of Ashland. But Ashland, not content with being merely on the direct line of automobile travel up and down the Pacific Coast, went to work and spent something like $200,000 in creating a park, a gathering place for their own and their friends and the stranger within the gates. In an automobile filled with Ashland enthusiasts, I was taken for a memorable ride in Lithia Park, a ride that will stick close in my remembrance for many a day to come. Possibly one of the features that most impressed me is that we drove right out of the heart of the busy business district into the cool green recesses of this wonderful park. Every other park I've visited necessitated a ride for an hour or so to get to it. You had to start home before you were half through seeing the park because home was miles away from the park. But visiting Lithia Park is just like closing our eyes for a moment and, presto! you've left the brick and granite buildings and the crowds and their noise, to live a dream hour in a sweet-scented forest, with a roguish, noisy, blessed mountain stream dashing at your feet, and miles upon miles of scenic marvels unfolding before your fascinated gaze.
Sunday Oregonian, Portland, March 4, 1917, page C11


    If you have never been to Jackson County by all means make your plans to go there. While it has much to offer the summer vacationist in the way of hunting, fishing and camping, it also invites the visitor during the rest of the year. It has a winter climate in the valley lands like that of Southern California. On an old abandoned farm a mile or two from Jacksonville I have picked and eaten as fine figs as I have found in the South. Air clear as crystal, with bright, warm sunshiny days, makes winter a season of delight in the valley of the Rogue River.
    There are 2836 square miles in Jackson County, of which about 725 are in the forest reserve.
    If the heavens needed to be propped up Jackson County could take the contract for, look where you will, your gaze rests on mountains in close formation, rank on rank, as though the peaks and their supporting foothills had been mobilized.
The northern boundary of the county is formed by the Umpqua Divide. Standing guard almost at the extreme northeastern tip of the county is Rattlesnake Mountain, 6965 feet high, Fish Mountain, 7000 feet; and Abbott's Butte, over 6000 feet, as well as other less-known peaks ranging from 4500 to 5500 feet.
    On the eastern boundary of the county lies the main range of the Cascades with Mount McLoughlin's symmetrical form dominating the scene from its altitude of 9760 feet.
    To the south one's gaze rests on the lofty peaks of the Siskiyou Range. From beautiful Ashland, nestling at the foot of the mountains, one looks up to Wagon Butte, 7460 feet; Pilot Knob 6104 feet; Sterling Peak, 7277, and to snow-crowned Ashland Butte, monarch of them all, at 7662 feet. Turning from the Siskiyous to the north one can see Grizzly Peak, whose summit is more than a mile above the sea, and other lesser hills in the distance.
    If you want to visit a wild and rugged country go into the unsurveyed Beaver Meadows country, between Fish Mountain and Bald Crater, where the merging snow formed waters of Llao, Castle, Bybee and Union creeks, and a score of other mountain streams form the Rogue River.
    From Beaver Meadows work south into the Huckleberry Mountains. Every visitor to Crater Lake has looked up to the evergreen-clad slopes of Huckleberry Mountain. With its altitude of 6000 feet it makes a prominent landmark to southward of the Crater Lake road. Aside from Crater Lake and the other wonders of Crater Lake National Park, the road from Medford to Crater Lake takes one through a wonderfully picturesque and interesting region. For miles the road follows the graceful curves of the Rogue River, which here and there has cut its way through the solid rock and seems in its deep channel like a knife blade set on edge. Near Prospect I turned aside to see [Mill Creek] Falls, one of the worthwhile sights of the trip. For miles the road leads through a virgin forest of sugar pine, which, with its absence of underbrush, looks like a well-kept park.
    Making Butte Falls your headquarters you can spend several weeks exploring the country roundabout and fishing in Ginger, Big Butte, Lick, Four Bit, Rancheria, Jackass, Mule, Horseshoe and Willow creeks, and a host of smaller streams.
    East of Central Point and Medford on the northern slopes of Grizzly Peak and in the tributaries of the north and south forks of Little Butte Creek you will find excellent fishing and hunting.
    West and south of Jacksonville, in the Applegate River country, there are dozens and scores of good trout streams, and in the country about Squaw Peak, Little Grayback, Baldy, Buck Peak, Little Humpy and Steamboat mountains you will find no lack of deer, bears, cougars and bobcats.
    With steelhead fishing in the Rogue River, with trout fishing in a hundred turbulent mountain streams, with deer hunting, with motoring over the splendid roads that radiate from Gold Hill, Central Point, Medford, Jacksonville and Ashland, with beauty everywhere at hand, one should certainly be able to spend a few weeks or months with pleasure and profit in Jackson County.
Oregon Journal, Portland, September 7, 1917, page 10


    There is a charm about Southern Oregon that is hard to analyze and harder to describe. Recently I was in Jacksonville, the county seat of Jackson County and the one-time metropolis of Southern Oregon. Walking along the quiet stone-flagged streets, with their Sabbath-like calm, I stopped to admire a fig tree. The owner invited me in and told me to help myself. I climbed up into the tree and ate my fill of delicious ripe figs, and then together we sat under the wide-spreading branches of a venerable old black walnut tree and cracked and ate walnuts.
    But that is a slow job. A person could starve to death cracking and picking out the meat of black walnuts. My fingers were brown with the stain of the walnuts. It was mid-afternoon. The air of the late autumn day was fragrant and spicy with the odor of grapes, quinces, pears and other fruit.
    I started out of town to the northward. Almost it seemed as if I had been transported to some other country. Large-leaved fig trees, heavy with their luscious purple fruit, hung over the fences. I stopped to pick and eat a few caraway seeds, and in a moment I was carried back to the caraway seed cakes of my boyhood. Here a clump of pampas grass had grown to huge proportions. From the broad green leaves at its base high stalks bearing princely plumes were waving in the lazy sea breeze of the Indian summer afternoon. Woodpiles of laurel and dark red manzanita were stacked up for winter use. I walked along a little-traveled footpath and heard the oak leaves rustling underfoot. In the fields on each side of the road were cornfields and orchards. Here among the corn shocks yellow pumpkins gleamed in the sunshine, while on the hillside the peach trees were clad in autumn's brilliant lining of scarlet and gold.
    Surely the valley of the Rogue is a valley of serene delight. A blue haze lay over the valley. The wide-spreading oaks were heavily laden with great clusters of olive-green mistletoe. Here on a brushy hillside a group of Angora goats lifted their dainty heads to survey me with mild curiosity. Walking with unhurried tread, a band of bronze-colored turkeys were taking their way across a stubble field, filled to repletion and too indifferent to pursue the evasive grasshopper. The road wound northward like a dusty gray ribbon. The dust was fine enough to make, if not bread, at least high-grade mud pies.
    The road was a history of those who had gone before me. Here an auto had left its dimple trail; here a snake had made its sinuous way across; here, dainty as a deer's track, an Angora goat had left its telltale hoof mark; here a group of small prints of bare feet showed where some children had come from school. My eye lingered with satisfaction on a pretty girl of 18 years or so under the trees in a farm yard, and then wandered to a sign on the gate: "Pure honey 10 cents a pound."
    As I lingered along enjoying the beauty of the country a locked farm gate tempted my curiosity. I solved its mystery and an old wagon road beckoned me up the hillside. On both sides of the old road was a heavy growth of pine and manzanita, the tinted red limbs of the latter making, in places, a veritable jungle. Here and there a stately oak rose above the lower growth or a green-leaved, red-limbed madrone. Finally I came to the wreck of an old barn in a clearing, and just beyond it an old cabin in a ruinous state. I went through its broken doorway. The fireplace had fallen in. On the wall were newspapers in lieu of wall paper. Most of them were dated 1873. Just outside, coming almost up to the doorway, was a long-neglected vineyard and a hundred feet or so to southward was the largest fig tree I have ever seen. It was literally loaded with ripe, bluish purple figs. The tree was probably 40 feet high and had a spread of between 75 and a hundred feet. On all sides the limbs came down to the ground, but I scrambled through and found that my fig tree was in reality a group of six fig trees, whose limbs had become so interwoven and intertwined that it seemed to be but one tree. So heavy was the foliage that it was almost dusk under the fig tree.
    Finally, as twilight fell, I took my way southward to the quaint, though somnolent and peaceful village of Jacksonville. In a cool back room, where I drank a pint of freshly made cider, Emil Britt told me about the old place I had visited.
    "My father, Peter Britt, who came to Jacksonville in 1852, planted those fig trees there in about 1872 or '73," he said. "The house has not been occupied for 25 or 30 years. Mr. Carson of Grants Pass, the fruit inspector, says those are the largest fig trees in the state."
    Mr. Luy, who sat with us at the table, said: "Last year I picked a five [illegible] limb. The ground all around the trees was ankle deep with ripe figs, and there were at least 2000 pounds of figs still on the six trees. Wild persimmons have now grown up into a regular jungle on one side of the fig grove. You get a wonderful view of the whole valley from up there. Someday people will discover the beauty and charm of our country and once more we will awaken to life and growth."
Oregon Journal, Portland, September 18, 1917, page 6


    Josephine County, like Baker County, is one of Oregon's treasure chests and safe deposit vaults. No county in Oregon has a greater variety of minerals than Josephine County. Gold, silver, copper, quicksilver, platinum, coal, marble, granite and limestone are all to be found within the 1751 square miles of rugged, upthrust country included within Josephine County's area. The names of such towns as Galice, Golden, Kerby, Placer, Althouse and Three Pines, and of such districts as Rich Gulch, Old Channel, Lost Flat, Eureka, Rough and Ready, Gold Basin, Gold Leaf, China Bar, Gold Ridge, Fiddlers Gulch, Sailor Diggings, Deep Gulch, Sucker Creek, Oro Fino, Come Easy, Go Easy Bar, and a score of similar places clearly indicate the character of the country and tell to the old-timer of the days when the hills were full of prospectors and the streams ran yellow with the muddy wash from rockers, long toms, and sluice boxes as the red-shirted and gum-booted miners worked the pay dirt.
    Of the 1,120,640 acres in Josephine County more than half are still in public ownership, 491,730 acres being within the Siskiyou National Forest. The man who feels crowded if he has neighbors within 10 miles need but to go into western Josephine County to find all the elbow room he wants. To the westward of the Galice mining district, around Hobson's Horn, or Fishhook Mountain, it is so unsettled that even a hermit or a recluse would feel lonesome.
    Rich as is Josephine County in minerals, it is also rich in timber, having more than 10,000,000,000 feet of standing merchantable timber, of which the larger part is sugar pine or yellow pine. On the eastern slope of the Coast Range, which forms the boundary line between Josephine and Curry counties, the forest growth is particularly heavy, and in addition to the sugar pine and yellow pine there is considerable spruce, larch and fir. The smooth-skinned laurel, with its glossy green leaves and its pinkish-yellow bark, with the dark red of the mountain mahogany or manzanita, forms a pleasing contrast to the jade-green of the cedar and the blue-green of the firs.
    In the Middle West, say in Kansas or Iowa, a county is frequently noted for some one product--corn, for example. But here in Josephine County the products have a wide range, including mineral wealth of many varieties, timber, wheat, oats, corn, alfalfa, dairy products, sheep and wool, hogs, peaches, pears, apples, grapes of wide variety and superior quality, and salmon. When a county's resources range from alfalfa to wheat and between that range include: gold, coal, timber, copper, sugar beets, sorghum, salmon, hops, grapes, berries and a score of other things, it is not strange that it should be referred to as a storehouse and treasure chest.
    Josephine County's northern boundary line is about 265 miles by rail from Portland. Its southern boundary line is formed by the Siskiyou Mountains and the state of California. Grants Pass is its county seat and principal trading center. So rugged and mountainous is the county that less than two percent of its area is in cultivation.
    Rich as is Josephine County in natural resources, it is also wonderfully rich in scenic and recreational assets. The Rogue River has cut its way through deep and rocky gorges, whose beauty and rugged grandeur, while seldom seen on account of inaccessibility, will in days to come prove a magnet to draw sportsmen and anglers, tourists and summer vacationists. The Illinois River is also singularly picturesque.
    In the extreme southeastern part of the county is a section that will someday be nationally known for its beauty. In the center of this district are located the Marble Halls of Oregon, no less wonderful, though very much less known, than the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. Within a short radius of the caves are Buck Mountain, Sugarloaf, Grayback, Craggy, Little Craggy, Lake Mountain, Whiskey Peak and other lesser mountain peaks, while Cave Creek Lake, Whiskey, Limestone, Tanner, Sucker, Elk, Fall, Brush and Steamboat creeks, with their numerous tributaries, are all close at hand. The streams are full of fish and in the seldom-visited fastnesses of the mountains deer, bear, cougars and wildcats are abundant, making the district a veritable happy hunting grounds.
Oregon Journal, Portland, September 27, 1917, page 10