Klamath Heritage: View of Klamath Falls c. 1908
/View of Klamath Falls c. 1908. (Klamath County Museum)
Klamath County Museum’s first Photo of the Week for 2019 shows the view that most travelers would have seen as they arrived by stagecoach or wagon at Klamath Falls in the late 1800s and early 1900s, as they crested over the hill south of town on the Keno Road (now Riverside Drive). Most freight wagons making deliveries to Klamath Falls came by the same route, up Topsy Grade in the Klamath River canyon and through Keno.
Marsh and wetland on the west side of Lake Ewauna is plainly visible, as is smoke rising from a sawdust pile at the Moore Bros. lumber mill. The mill began operation in 1907, helping date this photo. The mill, which closed in 1914, stood about where the Wingwatcher Trail is today, near the eagle perch snag on the east side of Highway 97.
Also helping date this photo: On the east side of town (the right side of the photo), there’s no evidence of a railroad, which came through in 1909. Arrival of the Southern Pacific brought an end to most freighting and stagecoach travel in the Klamath Basin.
The A Canal, dug in 1906, is visible in the form of a white line on the right side of the photo.
The three most prominent buildings in town at the time – all made of brick or stone and built in 1905 – included the Baldwin building, Klamath County High School on the hill, and farther down Main Street, Central School for the primary grades.
Esplanade Avenue has been graded up the hill leading to Pacific Terrace, where only one house stood at the time the photo was taken.
The flat-topped peak on the horizon is Plum Ridge.
Press release provided from the Klamath County Museum.