Talk:Fort Umpqua

location

Hey EncMstr, I see you added coords from the GNIS entry. I hesitated to do so when I first found them since they contradict the location given by Mackie, "about 15 miles above the river's mouth". In one of D.W. Meinig's books he has a map showing the fort inland by about 15 miles or so. This discrepancy between two good books and the GNIS coords left me a little confused and unsure, so I left the page without coords. It would be interesting to figure out why this difference exists. Perhaps there were multiple Fort Umpquas? In any case, perhaps something should be said in the article about the difference between the location according to the article's text (15 miles above the river's mouth) and the coords given, which are clearly at the river's mouth. What do you think? Pfly (talk) 07:56, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

It looks like the difference of the coords cited in the article are different by mere feet? To further complicate matters, GNIS also lists the historic populated place of Umpqua City, Oregon: U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Umpqua City (historical). There was also an Umpqua City p.o. I'm going to google for the text of the OGN listing of Fort Umpqua (lots of folks reprint the info verbatim, with or without permission). If I can't find it I'll try to summarize it as I take it neither of you has a copy? Katr67 (talk) 22:11, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

This is the closest to the OGN text--search on "July 28, 1856", the date the fort was established. In a nutshell, there was/were (a) Hudson's Bay Company Fort Umpqua(s) which was/were different from the Fort Umpqua described in this article whose coords are listed in the article. Here are a few more sources (again, search on the establishment date):

• A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest
• http://www.archive.org/stream/generalgeorgecro011730mbp/generalgeorgecro011730mbp_djvu.txt
• http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~archaeology/heritage/case/*yamhill.html

Katr67 (talk) 22:27, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The 1856 Fort Umpqua was one of three forts set up to keep an eye on the Indians of what was then the huge Coastal Indian Reservation (today remaining as the Siletz Reservation) and the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation, the others being Fort Hoskins and Fort Yamhill. Katr67 (talk) 22:34, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I didn't check to see where the GNIS points where, but eyeballed them enough at the time to see that they were close to each other, so didn't sweat which one I chose. Measuring, I see they are 800 metres apart, close to the present mouth (4.6 kilometres (2.9 mi)). Do the links above give a more specific location than "15 miles from the mouth"? —EncMstr (talk) 05:43, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict, but I note my post more or less address this) Ah ha, I thought there might have been multiple Fort Umpquas. The book by Mackie, from which I got most of the info for this place, is online at Google Books: Trading Beyond the Mountains, by Richard Mackie. There are two maps in it that show Fort Umpqua (the maps cover large areas though, so the exact location is a bit vague), on pages 97 and 105. I think these links go to those pages: page 97 map and page 105 map. HBC operations along the Umpqua River are described on pages 114-116 (and elsewhere a little). In the text Mackie does not say much about the fort, except for it being "...some fifteen miles from the river mouth... it was intended to serve for the fur trade of the Umpqua, Rogue, and Klamath rivers, all of which possessed bars impassable to ocean-going vessels." Although he does not say so explicitly, the text suggests, rather strongly, that the fort was near the Siskiyou Trail. The fort was connected to Fort Vancouver overland via the "Southern Party" brigade, which created and used the Siskiyou Trail. Anyway, thought I'd post this info. The fort was probably quite short-lived--established in 1838 and likely abandoned by 1844, when the Southern Party ceased to operate. I suspect the exact location of the HBC Fort Umpqua is not known, and that the GNIS entries on Fort Umpqua are about different forts of the same name. But I don't have any actual information on these last points, just making guesses. There are a number of other forts that were originally HBC posts with the same name later used by the US at different locations--sometimes many many miles away. Fort Nez Percés ("Old Fort Walla Walla") and Fort Walla Walla, for example. Pfly (talk) 06:02, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Just found these two webpages which suggest the HBC Fort Umpqua was near present-day Elkton, Oregon: Fort Umpqua at Fort Wiki (even with a photo of a historical marker saying as much), and fortumpqua.com. The Fort Wiki page is rather convincing. Pfly (talk) 06:19, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Oop, and a third, the City of Elkton's website mentions Fort Umpqua, if a bit lacking in details: Visiting Elkton. I'll try to find time to add some of the info from these sources to our page. Pfly (talk) 06:23, 8 March 2009 (UTC)