MEDFORD PEOPLE PROMINENT IN PORTLAND NEWS

Medford Mail Tribune, January 19, 1922, page 3


    Tourists in Oregon are being deprived of the wonderful scenery afforded by the beautiful mountains because of the forest fires that have been raging there for the past two weeks.
    A. A. Piddington, city editor of the Press, who, with Mrs. Piddington, is touring through the Northwest, writes interestingly of his trip as follows:
    "Reached Portland last night (Saturday, August 5) or rather pushed our way into town through the smoke. Sometimes you cannot see clearly over a half mile. We have not caught a glimpse of the high mountain peaks at any time, and the sun has a hard time even to get through. This makes traveling by motor car very unsatisfactory.
    "Your vision is restricted to a short distance on each side of the highway; the beautiful vistas of mountains and forests which you know could be yours, if the air was clear, are cut off by a thick pall of smoke which is everywhere.
    "Besides this, Oregon is dry, very dry. Fruit and berry crops are suffering; in fact the small fruit crop is lost. Peaches, apples and pears have been hard hit, according to those with whom I have talked. They have been praying for rain the past two months or more, but so far their prayers have not been answered and there is little indication of rain at present writing.
    "The smoky and dry conditions have in a way spoiled our trip. We had planned to go to Seattle and then to Vancouver, but can hardly see the use of driving across Washington if you cannot see anything but the road and the towns and cities.
    "We are planning a trip to The Dalles, and perhaps make the trip to Astoria. Unless we feel differently we will start south about the middle of next week.
    "The roads have been very good. There are detours here and there but most of the way is good and smooth. We met one Riverside and one Redlands car on the road Friday, but did not know either party.
    "A great many cars from other states are traveling on the highways. Last year there seemed to be more with California nameplates, and while there are many from the Golden State, they are almost equaled by those of the middle west and eastern states.
    "These cars are of all makes and showing all degrees of service, but they are all loaded to the guards with camping equipment.
    "Every town in Oregon seems to be trying to outdo the neighbor in caring for the band of rovers. Auto camps are on every hand, some of them free, but the best of them are conducted by the municipalities with a charge of 50 cents a day per car. This charge pays for the use of water, wood, shower baths and other accommodations, and everything about them is clean and sanitary. At Ashland, Ore., the auto camp is in beautiful Lithia Park, with flowers and trees all about and besides the aforementioned perquisites, a stereopticon lecture was included in what you got for 50 cents.
    "The talk was in the nature of a boost for Ashland and Jackson County, and the illustrations were splendid. The chamber of commerce of this thriving town of 5000 people certainly is to be congratulated upon its plan to set forth the advantages of the section to the many visitors from every part of the United States.
    "The road program in Oregon is being pushed vigorously. While there is a considerable portion of highway across the state to be surfaced, the grading has been practically completed. Occasionally motorists are held up where the road crews are at work, but usually a detour is provided. I think the worst road we encountered on the trip was at Shasta Springs, California, where the trucks were hauling materials for road construction. This was no detour, but it certainly 'got my goat.'!
    "Since we began to climb the Siskiyous the weather has been fine. It was even cold at Sacramento, and not bad at Redding and Red Bluff. Here in Oregon it is delightful. The natives call it warm, but after traveling through Kern, Tulare and Fresno counties, we are of the opinion they don't know what they are talking about.
    "Found copies of the Press at Sacramento, Grants Pass and Portland."
Riverside Daily Press, Riverside, California, August 12, 1922, page 5


    This title was evolved on the last leg of our homeward journey, for at the start, we had no knowledge of the trials and troubles of the long-distance tourist. If we had, we probably would have postponed our trip until all the roads in the world were hard-surfaced.
    On July first, with flags flying, we left our more or less peaceful home at six a.m. to follow the Open Road. We had planned our itinerary for weeks and had it all plotted on a map. We made the uneventful run to Sacramento, thence to Napa, thence north to St. Helena, near which town Robert Louis Stevenson passed his honeymoon, thence via Calistoga, where the mud springs and geysers flourish, to Healdsburg, where we first hit the Redwood Highway. This is a wonderful scenic route through Marin, Napa, Lake, Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte counties, mostly unpaved as yet, but this is being done in installments, here and there. We should have arrived at the idea that our title implies in passing Cloverdale, over numerous detours, rough and uneven, but it took much more jolting to settle it firmly in our minds that we were detourists.
    We camped in the auto park at Ukiah the first night out, arriving at 5 p.m. hot, tired and dusty after a 180-mile run.' After a shower bath, a good supper and a smoke we all felt better and ''hit the hay" with alacrity at nightfall. Through the Napa Valley we passed many fine vineyards and numerous stone buildings, relics of the lost art of good wine making. We left Ukiah at 8 a.m., north through Willits and encountered our first redwoods about 75 miles north. We made camp in Redwood Flat on the east bank of Eel River, a most wonderful place, at the end of a 90-mile drive in northern Mendocino County. After a plunge in the river and a fried-potato supper the second day, our [omission] was over. We left this camp at 8 a.m., which seems to be as early as we can get under way. We passed through a number of beautiful redwood groves, alternating with forests of other trees, nearly all conifers in kind, but of course the redwoods are the most impressive. We stopped for lunch in one such grove, in which as yet no one had opened a camp ground, so it was still in a natural condition. We parked the car and spread our lunch at the foot of a tree nearly 20 feet in diameter, that probably took root about the time Mr. Cheops was consulting his engineers as to the proper dimension's of the proposed pyramid. The absolute silence of the place was most impressive (after shutting off the engine)--no hum of insect, no twitter of bird, no rustle of leaf or branch, just silence. One involuntarily takes off one's hat and waits expectantly for a burst of chimes or an organ peal to break the spell.
    Many redwood groves along the way through Southern Humboldt County, wonderful scenic drive through to Eureka. Here we camped in a beautiful auto park overlooking Humboldt Bay. We laid over here for the Fourth, drove out to Sequoia Park for the celebration, a most beautiful natural park, with natural lake and sunken gardens surrounded by gigantic ferns and redwoods. We viewed the fireworks over the bay that night from the auto park; a fine pyrotechnic display. This park is a portion of the private grounds of an elderly couple that have beautified it and scrupulously cared for it for over fifty years. It was thrown open to the public for the first time this year. The Eureka Chamber of Commerce pays a hundred dollars a month for it and have installed modern plumbing, showers, hot and cold water, a community kitchen, a commodious clubhouse with a huge fireplace, all for the nominal charge of fifty cents the night, each machine.
    We encountered our first cold weather here. Fog was rolling in from the ocean as we skirted the arm of the bay and we were glad to don our woolen shirt at the first opportunity.
    We left Eureka at 8:30 a.m. July 5 over a fine road crossing the northern arm of Humboldt Bay. North to Trinidad and beyond to the Three Lagoons, the country is low and flat, mostly tidelands with the road skirting the beach. In Stone's Lagoon, the largest of the three, we were told there is fine fishing, the landlocked sea trout and salmon rising to the spoon and spinner. When we talked of stopping over to fish, our stenog demurred and spoke sarcastically about buying fish for our trip in cans. In passing I might say that our amanuensis uses no shorthand and very little longhand, but always the upper hand. We did no fishing in Stone's Lagoon.
    We lunched at Orich Hotel at one-thirty, ferried the Klamath River about three p.m., and after much climbing and detouring, we made Crescent City and camped in the park almost on the beach. Cold, foggy ,with a biting sea breeze chilling our good intentions, we made a hurried supper, a short smoke and retired to our twin bed to freeze. Arose early next morning; the fog was literally dripping from the trees. After a hot breakfast, we packed our damp lodgings, drove through the main street of Crescent City, waved it a fond adieu and headed east over the Coast Range. In less than three miles we started to climb; up, up over the worst rough roads we had yet encountered, outside of the detours, up, up, on, on, over the old stage road to Grants Pass. This is one of the oldest roads on the coast. Voyagers from the Pacific landed at Crescent City years ago and broke the trail to Southern Oregon mines. There is much of it that is scenic, much that is grand and beautiful, but it is all rough. We were thankful that we found sunshine just over the first ridge and from there on we had California weather again. We passed the Oregon line at 3:10 at an elevation of 3250 feet above sea level. My stenog being a native of this state, we stopped, made medicine and had a little war dance. Thence down, down, down, and round curves and down, down, to Patrick's Inn.
    This must have been quite an oasis in the early days of freighting; excellent water and good food now. We crossed a bridge in this ravine, a fork of Smith River, then up, up and over another divide. Right here a little spike buck crossed the road ahead of the car, bounded nimbly up a bank, stopped within twenty feet of the car and looked us over. The kids were both asleep, the camera was loaded beneath a lot of luggage in the bottom, so all we could do was to look him over and talk to him. He made a picture never to be forgotten, with big, round, curious eyes, ears erect, his feet planted firmly, ready to spring to safety instantly. He was all of two minutes satisfying his curiosity, then he sprang into the brush and was gone. We left the stage road at Waldo for the Oregon Caves via Holland. The new road had just been opened and is an excellent piece of engineering, wide on the turns with good safe grades.
    We did not make the Caves that night, however; we camped at the junction of the little Greyback Creek with Sucker Creek. These are rather suggestive names, but they are both beautiful streams. It is a long hard drive from Crescent City to the Caves, for a nervous driver to make in one day. A very late start the next morning put us at the Caves, a ten-mile run, about noon. We ate lunch and took the one o'clock trip through. We were fortunate in having Dick Rowley for our guide, a typical mountaineer and a quaint remarkable character. He has been over twelve years on the job and knows his Caves by heart. He has a continuous string of patter explaining the wonders he is showing, and he takes special interest in showing the youngsters the Catawampus, the Jawbone and the Devil's Cradle. He delights in having a fat man in the party when passing Fat Man's Grief, and the Wiggle Holes. He is locally known as the original Cave Man, but he has a sense of humor and a kindly gray eye.
Folsom Telegraph, Folsom, California, September 15, 1922, page 4


    Some of the points of interest shown us by the cave man were the River Styx, the Heavenly Boudoir, Royal Gorge, the Music Room; here Mr. Rowley struck several of the pendant stalactites with his heavy pocket knife. The resulting resonance rivaled the Swiss bellringers. One particular, favorite stalactite held its perfect tone, vibrating for ten seconds, and Dick had his stop watch with him to prove it. Jacob's Well, Cape Horn, Lion's Jaw, American Falls, King's Palace, all wonderful or beautiful or both, but requiring a degree of credulity or imagination to be appreciated.
    The Grand Column, where stalactite and stalagmite join, is about seven feet from floor to roof and is about eleven inches in diameter at the waist line, slightly larger at capital and base. Eminent geologists have estimated that this column has been 80,000 years in growing to its present proportions. It takes time and patience to build the Oregon Caves, as well as to visit them. The Graveyard, Washington's Statue, Joaquin Miller's Chapel (dedicated to the great poet during his last visit to the Caves); one room containing Twin Sisters, Mount Shasta, Lake Michigan and the Garden of the Gods.
    In the Ghost Room Dick had all the lights extinguished--we are each equipped with a miner's carbide lamp--to give us a chance to experience the stygian darkness of the place. I'll say it's dark. After a time one seems to see vague lights, very dim, flitting hither and yon, like the fireflies in the velvet blackness of a tropic night. This is pure imagination, however, for the same vague light appears with the eyes open or closed, or with the hands clasped over the eyes.
    Kincaid's Dance Hall, Glacier Rock, Yosemite Falls, the Bridal Chamber containing, appropriately, Navajo Blankets, a small Crystal Lake and the Frozen River of Alaska. This completes the short tour of the Caves; longer ones require an eight-hour day with lunch.
    We emerged from the Caves into the warm sunshine at a point three hundred feet above the entrance. Dick immediately filled and lighted a well-seasoned brier, smoking being strictly forbidden inside, then showed us his pet fawn with its neatly splinted and bandaged leg. He reviled the dog's carelessness for thus damaging the fawn at its capture. The dog and fawn are playmates now and under Dick's guidance may forget ancient animosities. As we departed Dick cordially invited us to return next year, as Uncle Sam is planning to light the Caves electrically this winter, which can be readily done as there are hundreds of horsepower in "white coal" running down the mountainside. We left the Caves at 5:30 p.m., eased down the eight-mile grade to the store on Sucker Creek, where we camped in a beautiful natural campground, as yet undefiled by the careless camper.
    Excellent fishing within a pole's length from our door, so we had fish for supper. Our cook thoughtfully opened a tin of sardines. We broke camp early on the morning of July eighth for Grants Pass, arriving at 2:30 p.m., drove to the park, a beautiful camp with playgrounds for the kids, bathed in the Rogue River, rested for an hour, then south on the highway to visit relatives living on the bank of the Rogue River, near the town of the same name. Here we had real fish for supper, as the Expert of the family had just taken a wonderful six-pound steelhead from the riffle in front of his door. We spent three days enjoyably on the farm, and under the tutelage of the Expert we spent three dollars for an Oregon fishing license and caught one six-inch trout.
    Wednesday a.m., July 12th, we left for Crater Lake. South on the highway to Gold Hill, thence up Sams Valley, through beautiful farms and orchards to Trail, where we joined with the Medford-Crater Lake Highway. Between Trail and Prospect we encountered much construction work with all the detours, stoppages and rough going that entails.
    There is much of scenic interest on this route, the Natural Bridge spanning Rogue River, Mill Creek Falls tumbling sheer four hundred feet, and at Prospect, some enterprising engineer has confined the waters of a sizable creek in a forty-eight-inch pipeline, dropping it into Rogue River Gorge some four hundred feet through a Pelton-Doble wheel. An incline railway supplies the power house with repairs and supplies. This is operated with a winch and cables, and our "youngest" wanted Daddy to start the mechanism and give him a ride down and up. We postponed it until "next time." We crossed Union Creek, a fine stream emptying into the Rogue, where the U.S. government has set aside a reserve for summer homes. We arrived at Anna Springs Camp at 3 p.m. and made our camp in a grove back of the park superintendent's office. In spite of the impetuous onslaughts of the pestiferous deer fly, we carried water from the spring, got supper and waited patiently for nightfall and the passing of the deer fly. But at nightfall the deer fly was relieved, supplanted by the most agile, voracious, vindictive, insatiable, insistent mosquitoes nature has ever produced.
    Anna Spring is probably fed from Crater Lake. It comes out from under the roadway leading up the mountain to the Rim and runs more water than the Natoma ditch, crystal clear and ice cold. We broke camp and several of the Commandments about shift change next morning, when the mosquitoes went off shift and the deer flies resumed their labors. We made the five-mile run past Government Camp, up the mountain in record time and second speed, the last half-mile in low. There is a fine campground at the Rim and we chose our residence site between two patches of snow, which really looked good to us in the clear, warm, genial sunlight. Thereby hangs another tale.
    Crater Lake Park was established by an act of Congress May 22, 1902. It is in the heart of the Cascade Range in Southern Oregon, and has an area of 159,360 acres. Crater Lake, a body of extraordinarily blue water, is confined in the almost circular, nearly vertical wall of an extinct volcano, some six miles in diameter. The water level is over 6,000 feet above sea level and the crest of the Rim is over a thousand feet above the water, with Garfield Peak towering to a height of 8,060 feet. We photographed the Phantom Ship from the vantage point of Eagle Crags. We also shot Wizard Island from Victor Rock. The morning was unusually calm and still and the reflections were wonderful; we are justifiably sore that a bum photographer jinxed our film of this portion of the trip and we may have to make it over again.
    The Rim Road, 35 miles in length, entirely encircling the Lake, was not open for traffic during our stay. There is a good trail leading down to the boat landing. From this point trips may be made by motor boat or skiff to Wizard Island, Phantom Ship or other points of interest. Trout fishing in the lake is excellent; the limit for the day's catch is five fish. Our commissary sergeant bought a can of salmon at the store.
    Geologists inform us that Crater Lake now partially fills the gigantic cauldron left when the lost Mt. Mazama was either blown to bug dust and scattered over the surrounding terrain, or when its top caved in. At any rate the hole is 4,000 feet deep and has a content of some dozen cubic miles. It is estimated that the lost Mount Mazama was of about the same general size and contour as Mt. Shasta. As interested as we are in Nature in its various phases, we are extremely thankful that we were not a close eyewitness to this cataclysm.
Folsom Telegraph, Folsom, California, September 22, 1922, page 4


    Persons of artistic temperament feast their souls on the ever-changing beauties of the lake surface. Even the layman gets a kick out of it. The color shades from the deepest of deep ultramarine blue to varying shades of green in the few shallows near Wizard Island or shore. Breezes may ruffle the surface, spoiling the wonderful reflections and changing the colors to a dull steel gray. At nightfall the colors slowly merge to gray, then grow gradually darker, darker, until night's curtain shuts out the scene.
    We spent the first day viewing these wonders from the rim, intending to spend the whole of the next day on the surface. The Rim Camp is some two thousand feet higher than Anna Spring Camp, and we found the mosquitoes at least 2000 times more voracious. We fought them with smudges and every available means all through the night and after a hasty breakfast we left for Bend, one hundred and eight miles distant. From Government Camp we followed a portion of the Rim Route to the shelter cabin on Lost Creek; here we took the Sand Creek road. Sand Creek is small, carrying only a portion of the melting snow from the Rim. It has cut a deep gorge in the loose volcanic sand and cinder slope, leaving sharp pinnacles standing at erratic intervals along its winding course. We took a view of the most interesting group of these, then passed on down to the east entrance of the Park, where the attendant unsealed our artillery and we were once more on the Open Road.
    Much can be said of this stretch of road; it is strictly single-track with sandy ruts, only portions of it being very dusty. In the main it runs through timber varying in size and height. We crossed two creeks of notable size and several irrigation ditches leading to extensive plains to the east. We passed five machines in the day's drive, only one of which was in trouble. The most striking thing about this road, however, is the entire absence of "best temporary road" and "detour" signs. For this we were truly thankful.
    We lunched at Crescent, the half-way point, bought some forty-cent gas, which proved to be the peak of gas prices. Throughout Oregon, gas prices are from three to five cents higher than California or Washington prices; this is probably due to a state tax. The highway from Crescent on to Bend parallels the Deschutes River, though at some distance. The old military road from Eugene across the Cascades passes Crescent Lake and connects with the Dalles to California Highway at Crescent. Several lakes lie along the east slope of the Cascade Range, not far from the highway; good fishing reported in all of them; we kept on our way to Bend.
    At La Pine, where we stopped for refreshments, we met an interesting old party who used to freight over all the roads in Eastern Oregon in the early days. We asked as to the condition of the McKenzie Highway. After much circumlocution, the old muleskinner informed us, "The first fifteen miles out of Bend is bad, the next fifteen is worse, and then you hit the lava beds, where the going is pretty tough," but he added, as a conciliatory condolence, "you'll chuckle right along, chuckle right along!" We later found his dope to be fairly correct. Approaching Bend, fresh, unweathered lava formation is encountered, interspersed with cinder cones of varying sizes and heights. The live wires of the Bend Chamber of Commerce are using this material for a copious top dressing for the neighboring highways. It is excellent road material, especially from the the builder's standpoint. We camped at the city auto park on the bank of the Deschutes--excellent fishing--where we had wood and water privileges at fifty cents the night.
Folsom Telegraph, Folsom, California, September 29, 1922, page 4