We welcome your ;xSTx;a href="http://srrc.org/history/history-contribute.php" target="_blank";xETx;contribution of historical photos, documents, and stories;xSTx;/a;xETx;. Also, please consider supporting SRRC's History Project work with an ;xSTx;a href="http://srrc.org/getinvolved/donate-history.php" target="_blank";xETx;online tax-deductible donation;xSTx;/a;xETx;. ;xNLx;;xNLx;We recognize that the vast majority of Salmon River history predates 1849 with the various peoples indigenous to this area. The timeline begins in 1849 for the simple reason that the written history of the area begins at that time. The rich history of the Native Americans is worthy of a much larger timeline.;xNLx;;xNLx;Timeline content © 2023 by respective owners. Site design & timeline by Scott Harding. Special thanks to the Siskiyou County Historical Society (SCHS) for the many old photos.
Although written history of the Salmon River begins in 1849, Native Americans populated much of the watershed as well as the Klamath River corridor and had their own rich history before that time, and still do today.
Some of the first prospectors to arrive on the Salmon River left without a major gold discovery but soon returned.
Within a short span of time in early summer 1850, prospectors found gold in the South Fork, North Fork, and mainstem Salmon River, starting the Salmon River Gold Rush. Mining dominated the economy of the watershed for the next 90 years in boom and bust cycles and made profound and permanent changes to the land and native people of the area.
As soon as gold was discovered on the Salmon River, miners needed supplies and, lacking any roads in the area, pack trains were used extensively from 1850 to the early 1900's.
California becomes the 31st state.
The first winter for white miners on the Salmon River was a tough one, with many near starvation and without supplies.
At least as early as the summer of 1851, white miners and settlers burned multiple Native American villages along the Klamath and Salmon Rivers.
U.S. Colonel Redick McKee and Indians sign treaties to create Indian reservations on the Klamath River and Scott Valley. The U.S. failed to ratify these treaties and no reservations are created.
After burning the Karuk village Panamnik, whites founded the town of New Orleans Bar on that site.
Four floods this winter destroyed nearly all mining improvements, wing dams, ditches, and bridges on the Salmon River.
Annual grasses such as dogtail, Kentucky bluegrass, rattlesnake grass, European hairgrass, ripgut brome and soft chess are introduced to the Klamath area in the 1850s.
J.J. Arrington of Crescent City, California was elected as the state assemblyman representing Klamath County (including the Salmon River) in 1854.
Made from whip-sawn lumber in 1855, the church is the only original structure remaining in Sawyers Bar today and one of the oldest structures on the Salmon River.
Tensions between Indians and whites were high in the mid-1850s following the destruction of Indian villages, murders on both sides, and an ongoing influx of more miners looking for land to occupy.
William Porter Bennett was a central figure in the development of Forks of Salmon and of Salmon River mining and provisioning in general.
Born in Indiana in 1832, Jonathon Lyons arrived in Forks of Salmon sometime around 1852. Like others, he sought gold. But he soon realized his calling was in farming. He put in the first successful pioneer garden in Forks of Salmon in 1856. Shortly after, he became known for traveling the river corridor with produce and meat to supply the miners.
Still open today, the Forks of Salmon Post Office was founded in 1858. Early mail service reached Forks of Salmon by mail riders who rode in on varied routes from the coast, over the mountains, and down to the Salmon River and, later, also by coming from Etna. John A. Hartcorn served as the first Postmaster.
Millions in gold was packed out over Salmon Mountain over the years but according to John Daggett, there was only one robbery on the mountain in all that time.
"My grandmother, Katherine Ferris said when she was sixteen in the 1860’s, they used to camp out at Salmon Summit and one fall she saw 30 plus bear and a grizzly bear, all moving to winter ground." -- From an interview with Ora Smith, published in the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources 1999 paper, “Karuk Forest Management Perspectives: Interview with Tribal Members.”
The richest gold mine on the Salmon River was started in 1860, however, it took many years before it became a profitable, long-term business.
The first U.S. Census since the Gold Rush began and California obtained statehood, counted 1,179 people living on the Salmon River.
Nearly all of California was devastated by a series of floods in late 1861 and early 1862. The bridge over the Klamath River near the confluence with the Salmon River was washed away. Every dam, bridge, mill, and flume on the Salmon River was washed away. The damage in the Salmon watershed from Sawyers Bar to Somes Bar was estimated at $90,000.
Mail was delivered by horseback to the Salmon River once a week in summer and biweekly the rest of the year.
President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, offering up 160 acre parcels of federal land to settlers, eventually including land on the Salmon River.
White miners and settlers continued to fight with Native Americans who were attempting to defend what little was left of their ancestral homeland and way of life.
The 1864 Presidential Election was held in the high country of the Trinities at a place that came to be known as Election Gap.
The 39th U.S. Congress formally allowed hardrock mining on public lands and the patenting of mining claims.
Nothing changed the Salmon River more than hydraulic mining. In about 50 years, nearly every bit of river bar and hillside throughout the watershed was blasted with giant water cannons in search of gold.
According to the U.S. Census, the Salmon River's population dropped by 35% between 1860 and 1870.
Expanding the scope of earlier mining laws, the U.S. Congress passed a far-reaching bill permitting and regulating mining on public land. With few modifications, the law is still in effect today.
The only county in California to ever be dissolved, Klamath County's jurisdiction was divided between Humboldt and Siskiyou Counties after much public debate.
George Richardson and Martin V. Jones, two early settlers of Crescent City, started the first commercial fishery on the Klamath in 1876.
The roads and trails on the Salmon River have always been dangerous.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was the legislative expression of widespread disdain and animosity toward Chinese immigrants in the U.S.
Perhaps there is no more famous Salmon River figure than John Daggett.
Hydraulic mining in Forks of Salmon was perfected by W.P. Bennett in the late 1800s and early 1900s, forever altering the river bars and riparian land while producing large quantities of gold.
Likely not the first, and definitely not the last accidental or intentional fire to burn in Sawyers Bar, this one on March 19, 1886 destroyed Chinatown.
Miner Martin Olsen and his horse were killed in an evening horseback riding accident on the trail downriver from Sawyers Bar to his hydraulic mine.
After nearly 40 years of being connected only by a pack trail, several years of construction concluded in 1891, linking Etna and Sawyers Bar with a wagon road.
A state report estimates a total of 1,000 miners working in Siskiyou County with 400 of these being Chinese miners.
A road from Sawyers Bar to Black Bear Mine was completed as part of John Daggett's investment in the mine.
John C. Windler had enough of this life and committed suicide near Sawyers Bar using a stick of dynamite.
The Siskiyou Telephone Company brought telephone service to the Salmon River in October 1897, providing a rapid means of communication in a time when mail was still carried by horseback over mountain trails.
Miner Morris Cronin shot and killed his brother Patrick over a mining claim dispute.
The 1900 U.S. Census counted 1,092 people living on the Salmon River. This was about 6% of Siskiyou County's total population.
The Konomihu were the original inhabitants of the Forks of Salmon area but were forced out so quickly upon arrival of the miners that very little is known about them.
Congress transferred the Bureau of Forestry from the Interior Department to the Agriculture Department and renamed the agency United States Forest Service.
In the first of three documented arson incidents in Sawyers Bar's history, an angry student burned down the school in the spring of 1905. It was soon rebuilt on the same site.
President Theodore Roosevelt established the 1.9 million acre Klamath Forest Reserve by use of a presidential proclamation authorized by the Forest Reserve Act of 1891. (Ten days earlier, he similarly created the Trinity Forest Reserve, and one month afterwards, he created the Lassen Peak Forest Reserve). The name was changed to Klamath National Forest in 1907 and subsequent boundary adjustments, additions, and deletions have resulted in today's 1.7 million acre size.
A wealth of ceremonial items and other "specimens" of Karuk culture were purchased and removed from the area by Grace Nicholson, an amateur photographer, self-taught anthropologist, and collector.
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