[or-roots] Oregon Trail, or not...

[Robert L. Casebeer]

Leslie, I concur exactly, however there is one other possible kind of blaze
in that area--
the markings for stock driveways.  The USFS marked the routes that they
wanted to cattle and sheep being driven up from the Umpqua Valley to
follow...and although there eventually were signs erected, "center stock
driveway," and I suppose "edge stock driveway" although I have only seen the
center ones, in fact I have one, blazes might have been used to clarify
where the stock were to be contained as they moved from
the valley to the high prairies and on to the Klamath basin.  Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: Leslie Chapman <khanjehgil at presys.com>
To: or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us <or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us>
Date: Monday, May 31, 2004 8:00 PM
Subject: RE: [or-roots] Oregon Trail, or not...


>Bob;
>
>Glad you brought that up, in my earlier reply I didn't think to mention
that
>there are reasons to find blazes on trees besides trails and immigrant
>roads.
>
>Unfortunately this was a while back so she is unclear exactly of the nature
>of the blazes or why the anthropologist thought they were a historical
>trail. I would point out that if you see a blaze line in the forest and it
>goes in a straight line without regard to terrain, it is a survey line, not
>a set of trail blazes. If you have a number of line marking blazes it will
>become obvious as you go along the line single blazed trees will face the
>line, a tree falling on the line will have a blaze on both sides of the
tree
>where the line runs through it. Fore example if you find a 4 foot dia tree
>and the blazes as you imagine a line of sight through the two blazes is one
>foot from the left edge of the tree, that is where the line is. Typically
>though the blazes will be centered on the tree if the line goes through it,
>because when you are blazing line you do not have a specific enough fix on
>the actual line to be that picky.
>
>Les C
>
>----Original Message-----
>From: or-roots-admin at sosinet.sos.state.or.us
>[mailto:or-roots-admin at sosinet.sos.state.or.us]On Behalf Of Robert L.
>Casebeer
>Sent: Monday, May 31, 2004 7:42 PM
>To: or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us; shade at nu-world.com
>Subject: Re: [or-roots] Oregon Trail, or not...
>
>
>Heather, neither the Oregon Trail or the Applegate Trail came anywhere
close
>to Diamond Lake. The closest route emigrants used, and very few of them,
was
>over the Willamette Pass.  There were folk who came up the North Umpqua in
>the 1860s trying to see if they could get a wagon road up the river to the
>California Trail that is now Highway 97...but to no avail.
>    Any blazes in that area that were not on an old abandoned trail, were
>probably from a way trail which only sported blazes.  My father was the
>district guard of the North Umpqua Ranger District in the 1930s and built
>the USFS warehouse in the 1950s, so I am fairly familiar with USFS practice
>at about the same time those blazes would have been created.  Bob Casebeer
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Heather and Pat <shade at nu-world.com>
>To: or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us <or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us>
>Date: Saturday, May 29, 2004 7:29 AM
>Subject: [or-roots] Oregon Trail, or not...
>
>
>Hello,
>I've been lurking, but enjoy everyone genealogy tales.. You learn a lot
>about the state history by listening... Anyway since we're mentioning the
>trail and ruts, (by the way I liked that picture from Baker City... Great
>learning center there...) I am reminded when I was working on the Diamond
>Lake Ranger District (it's near Crater lake) of working on a thinning
>project and finding trail blazes.  Our anthropologist said she would look
>into what they may have been but I never heard if they were from the Oregon
>Trail or something different.  (To reassure everyone those trees were not
>taken and were protected with a buffer zone...)
>  If anyone knows the area, HWY 138 east runs through that area, do you
know
>if that was a younger trail then the rush of the 1830 and 40s or about that
>time frame?  I lived up there for 22 years and I don't ever remember
hearing
>about that sort of stuff.
>
>Heather
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