JOSEPH – I have always been interested in history, especially the

history about the settlement of the West. But I am disturbed by what is

known as revisionist history and the omission of some of the events

that occurred in the early settlement of Wallowa County.

Since the Wallowa Valley was a long way from the Oregon Trail,

settlement by white men didn’t begin until the 1870s, almost 140 years

ago. Most of the tourists who come to Wallowa County have read about

the sad expulsion of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War, which I’m not

going to get into in this article. Even though that was a travesty of

justice, most of what has been written about it has been overly

romanticized.

I first started hiking in the Eagle Cap Wilderness in 1954 when I spent eight days backpacking and fishing. I also climbed Eagle Cap, the centerpiece of the high Wallowas. I was extremely impressed by the numerous good trails which one could use to get to all the lakes and other destinations.

Then when we moved here in 1969, I was even more impressed by the network of blazed trails that hunters could use to access good elk hunting habitat in the Eagle Cap. Almost every elk I ever shot, I was able to get horses in to pack out the meat. It was then that I began to wonder who built and maintained all these trails and why? Was it the U.S. Forest Service or the CCC boys of the 1930s?

None of the above. Nearly all of the original trails in the Eagle Cap Wilderness were built by two groups of early settlers: the miners and the sheepmen. The miners and prospectors who staked claims all over the Wallowa Mountains preceded the sheepmen in trail-building because they had to get the heavy ore out to be processed by using pack horses and mules.

Many of their trails were very steep as opposed to the switchback style of today’s Forest Service trails. However, the sheepmen probably built more miles of trails than the miners and had a better network of interconnection so the camp tenders could follow the herders and their flocks from one basin to the next.

In this article I am going to deal primarily with the miners and leave the sheepmen for my next history lesson. Nor will I be citing any statistics on the many mining activities which have long ago been filed away in the clerk’s vault at the Wallowa County Courthouse. I will limit my story to my observations based on the many hiking and horseback trips to dozens of old mines, and interviews I’ve had with a few oldtimers who were a great source of oral history.

MINES I HAVE VISITED IN THE EAGLE CAP

Some of the “diggings” where there are remnants of mining activity I have been to are Transvaal Mine, Chief Joseph Mountain Mines, McCulley Basin, Tenderfoot Basin, Legore Mine and B.C. Basin. Many of these were copper mines where you can still find turquoise-colored rocks in the tailing piles. Most of the tunnels and shafts where they excavated the best ore have collapsed, but some are just as they left them.

When I first began going to these mines in the early 1970s there were many remnants of old machinery such as a small tram cart and trolley tracks at the Transvaal Mine southeast of Mount Howard. Since then, souvenir hunters have packed out all of these items and most of the cabins have been reclaimed by the elements.

One of the most interesting mines involving a presumed lucrative gold strike was in Tenderfoot Basin at the headwaters of the North Fork of the Imnaha River. This mine was supposed to be such a bonanza that a wagon road was built all the way into it over some of the most rugged terrain imaginable, and a smelter was hauled in to extract the gold.

There may have been some traces of gold found in the beginning, but as the story goes, the mine had been “salted” in order to sell shares in places as far away as London. In other words, it turned into a scam and any prospect for wealth faded away.

That isn’t all that faded away. It would take a keen eye to find any traces of the old road. Nonetheless, this is part of our history that has also been lost.

Another mine which was accessible by a well-marked trail was in B.C. Basin. There was a very livable, two-story cabin there complete with glass windows back in the 1970s.

Today the trail into B.C. Basin is totally wiped out by erosion and blowdowns, and almost nobody knows anything about B.C. Basin except when a massive mudslide occurred on B.C. Creek that destroyed the Boy Scout Camp at Wallowa Lake a few years ago.

One of the exceptions to the lost history is the Legore copper mine, which still has a maintained trail into it. This mine is situated on the way to Legore Lake, elevation 8,957 feet, the highest lake in Oregon. This lake is in the shadow of Twin Peaks, elevation 9,693 feet.

Back in the 1970s the old mining cabin built by Joe Legore was still standing and the shakes on the roof were enough to keep out the rain. I know that because I spent a night sleeping on the dirt floor when I got caught in a rainstorm, and never got my sleeping bag wet. Today there are only a few logs left of the old cabin.

There is a notebook in a WW2 ammunition case inside one of the main tunnels at Legore mine where hikers can write a few lines to tell where they are from, etc. Some of the most notable entries were made by a girl from La Grande, whom I believe was a granddaughter or grandniece of Joe Legore.

She wrote that hiking up to the mine was a “right of passage” for all the descendants of Joe Legore. In another ledger up at Legore Lake she wrote a romantic love story about the trip where her boyfriend proposed to her there.

So each mine has its own story and most of the oldtimers who knew the history of these mines have passed on.

At this point in my article, I am going to editorialize my thoughts on why this story of the miners has not been properly told and the reasons why. In order to make my point, I have to go back to 1940 when Congress designated the Eagle Cap Wilderness.

WHAT QUALIFIES AS A WILDERNESS

Here is the government’s definition of a region to be declared a true wilderness: It must be affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the “imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable.”

Say what?

For almost 60 years, miners and sheepmen were making imprints on the Wallowa Mountains and none of these were “noticeable?” These mountains were not virgin territory untrammeled by man.

To be blunt, the Eagle Cap Wilderness, which has been added to over the past several years and is now the largest wilderness in the state of Oregon, was designated under false premises. By their own definition it did not qualify as a wilderness. No wonder the federal bureaucracies and the environmental lobby have swept the story of the miners under the rug.

It has been a long-held suspicion that the U.S. Forest Service bureaucracy has a strong prejudice toward “inholdings,” which are any private claims or property within their boundaries. Apparently they consider these inholdings as trespassing on their domain. But who was there first?

Of course this is my opinion and I’m sure the good people in these agencies will deny what I have written here. But here are some facts that cannot be disputed: There is only a small fraction of the trails in the Eagle Cap today than there was before the wilderness designation, which means that the ones that are still maintained are overcrowded with hikers and horse riders. That doesn’t lend itself for a true wilderness experience.

How much better it would have been if the trails to these old mines had been kept open and perhaps posted with information, or a pamphlet, telling the history of each mining claim so hikers could go to them for photographs and experience a little history. That would have allowed the backpackers to be scattered out over the mountains instead of gathering in crowded tent camps at the Lake Basin, or taking the overused trail to Ice Lake.

Please understand that I am not advocating abolishing the Eagle Cap Wilderness, but I do have strong regrets about the loss of an important part of our history.

E.H. Van Blaricom is a Joseph resident who writes a monthly bird column for The Observer and occasionally contributes columns on other topics.