Douglas County Museum

Land of Umpqua (Images of America) Douglas County Museum

From the snowcapped crest of the Cascades to the crashing surf of the Pacific Ocean, the Land of Umpqua covers more than 5,000 square miles of southwestern Oregon. The area was home to Native Americans for more than 10,000 years before they were joined by fur trappers, gold prospectors, and pioneers; each group left their unique mark on the resource-rich landscape. Echoes of gunfire from the Rogue Indian War of 1856, steam engine whistles of the Oregon and California Railroad, and whirling sawmill blades can still be heard in Umpqua's isolated valleys, which have hardly changed in the last 100 years. Much of the area's rapid growth in the 19th century coincided with the expansion of photography. What resulted is an invaluable album of the forests, fields, farms, and towns that make up the Umpqua River Valley.