In 1851 three young adventurers made
their way across Oregon, heading back from the
Willamette Valley to the California gold fields. Reaching the Rogue Valley,
they conceived a new plan. Rather than resume mining themselves, they would
make their fortunes providing food and accommodations to other travelers.
The three of them, Hugh Barron, James Russell, and
John Gibbs, filed Donation Land Claims on adjoining
parcels of land just off the Applegate Trail. Where
the three claims converged the partners framed an ambitious two-story building
to operate as an inn. They called it the “Greensprings Mountain House.”
The three of them became known as the “Mountain House boys.”
That same winter gold was
discovered nearby, in what was to become Jacksonville. A flood of prospectors
and pioneers followed. Over the next thirty years the Mountain House inn
fed and sheltered thousands of travelers along the California/Oregon Trail, playing
a small part in one of the largest voluntary migrations in history.
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