In 1970 a group of idealistic people from around the country joined together with the intention of forming a utopian community. In 1973 they purchased the 1200 acre Cerro Gordo Ranch on Dorena Lake. A core group of 200 families planned to build an eco-topian town on the ranch. The town was to have a population of about 2,000 people, no cars, its own school system and market place.
An early planning meeting for the community.
The community never really got off the ground. Land use issues, financing and human nature kept the town from becoming a reality. Neighbors opposed the plan. They felt that they already had a pleasant little rural utopia going and did not want a town of 2,000 superimposed on it.
Two original members of the Cerro Gordo Community ride horses on the property.
A handful of people moved on to the property and built houses. As the years went by, people started to give up on the idea and drifted away. Some people who moved to the area to join the community stayed in the area and focused their energy and idealism on other projects in Lane County. The community still exists as a legal entity and Cerro Gordo is now a beautiful rural neighborhood of about 15 houses.
Another photo from the Great Flood of 1964. On Christmas Day two women walk along the railroad tracks. This photo was taken at Rocky Point, where Sallee Road meets Row River Rd. The railroad tracks are now the Bike Trail.
Picnickers enjoy a day at Dorena Lake in 1964. The lake was just 15 years old then. It was built to control flooding in the Willamette Valley, but ended up being a great place to get out and enjoy the sun and water. Ah, summer!
This woman wears a practical split skirt to ride from the Lund Hotel on up to the mines in the earliest days of the 20th century.
At a time when decent women were expected to wear dresses and remain ladylike, the women of the Bohemia Mining District were breaking all the rules.
Mabel Crouch, pointing on the left, would have scandalized the townsfolk with her trousers, but up at Fairview Lookout comfort and practicality were the order of the day. The gals with the grit and determination to travel the long, hard roads to the mines were way ahead of their time when it came to appropriate clothing for women.
Georgeann Jennings combines sass and practicality in her cute homemade outfit. The Jennings were a prominent early mining family. Georgeann is pictured with her father, George, and her mother, Lenora. These photos are from Ivan Hoyer’s excellent book, Bohemia Gold. The Bohemia Mining Museum on 10th St in Cottage Grove has one copy left, so hurry in if you want it!
Jim Edwards of Cottage Grove gave an excellent talk on the Kalapuya at the June meeting of the Cottage Grove Historical Society. I obtained some new information there on the Kalapuya and this valley. The Kalapuya used the Row River Valley as a path to Fairview Mountain to pick Huckleberries and to the Umpqua River to fish. They fished the Row extensively. As late as the 1950’s fish traps were still visible at Rocky Point. Wildwood Falls was also a favorite fishing spot. The Row River Valley was a trading route with the Klamath. From the Klamath the Kalapuya obtained obsidian, for which they had many uses, including surgery. The path they used to get over the Cascades was called the Parker Trail. Part of it still exists as the trail to Parker Falls. There is an Indian burial ground on Bald Point near Cerro Gordo. Chief Millipu is reportedly buried there. The spelling for his name is a guess, as I can find no written record of him. A photo shows a bark house typical of Northwest Indians.
This photo from 1911 shows Chief Jake Fern and his wife. Chief Fern was descended from Chief Camafeema. Camafeema means “ferns that grow from the ground.” Many of Camafeema’s descendants used Fern as a surname.
The December 14th, 1904 edition of the Cottage Grove Sentinel had this charming article about a dance at the Kerr home in Wildwood. Home of George Kerr near Wildwood on Friday Night a Scene of Enjoyment That not all the good times are experienced in towns is evidenced by the social gathering at the home of Mr. and Mrs. George Kerr near Wildwood on last Friday night. Their son and daughter, George and Mrs. Lena Pitcher had come from Eastern Oregon, and the “old folks” made it an occasion to invite their friends and relatives to their home to have an old fashioned time. Talent from Cottage Grove was engaged to furnish the music and from early in the evening until late at night everyone present was busy enjoying themselves. Mrs. Kerr facetiously remarked that “there never is a shortage of Pitchers in the family,” as the daughter, Lena, married Alva Pitcher, Ella married Ben Pitcher and Nellie married Green Pitcher. The Kerr homestead was often referred to as the Wildwood Hotel. It functioned as a sort of Bed and Breakfast for travelers to and from the mines. The Kerrs lived about a mile or so up the road from Wildwood Falls. Nothing remains of the old home/hotel.
I found a couple of cool old photos of the Bohemia Mines on Pinterest. The first shows a woman riding the ore tram from one mine to the other. The caption says Margie Knowles but I do not know if that was the person in the photo or the photographer. Anyway, it looks like it was a fun way to get around up on the mountain.I found a couple of cool old photos of the Bohemia Mines on Pinterest. The first shows a woman riding the ore tram from one mine to the other. The caption says Margie Knowles but I do not know if that was the person in the photo or the photographer. Anyway, it looks like it was a fun way to get around up on the mountain.
This one shows the aftermath of a tough trip up Hardscrabble Grade. Even today a trip up the Grade often results in an overheated engine.
Photo from The Cottage Grove Sentinel (Nona is one of the women pictured above on a porch on Rat Creek)
The Life of a Pioneer by Mrs. Nona Kelly
I was born March 28, 1889, seven miles east of Cottage Grove on the south side of the Row River a short distance above where the spillway of the Dorena Lake is now located. My father, Cage Van Schoiack, took up a homestead there on which we lived until I was eleven years old, when we moved to the north side of the Row River to a thirty acre piece of land that my father and mother bought from an uncle, Greenbury Van Schoiack, and had built a house on it.
We moved there on Oct 19, 1900. I well remember this because a younger sister, Belle, now Belle Skelly of Eugene, was born that night. This piece of land joined the homestead that my parents then owned, but it was very inconvenient for my older brother and I to get to school, a distance of two miles which we walked. My father had to take us across the river in a row boat as there were no bridges near us at the time. We attended school in a one room school house first known at the Kirk School and later changed to the Dorena School. About thirty or thirty-five students attended and all eight grades were taught by one teacher.
At times in the winter when it was storming the water in the river would be so swift and muddy it would take the boat below the landing, which was very dangerous. If we had to make a trip out to Cottage Grove in the winter time it was an all day trip with a team and wagon or hack. The mud in lots of places would be hub deep as there was no gravel on the road. While in town we would go to the grocery store owned by Lewis and Veatch where the folks would get a dimes worth of cheese and a dimes worth of crackers (the crackers were kept in an open barrel) and we would sit around the wood stove and eat our lunch. Some times Mr. Lewis or Oliver Veatch would give we kids an orange or a sweet cracker and my what a treat that was.
We always had plenty to eat because my folks always raised a big garden and my mother canned and dried a lot of food for winter. I can remember us putting out five sacks of corn in a day to dry. We would dry it on top of the cellar and of course it had to be well covered with mosquito bar to keep the flies away from it. We dried lots of apples and prunes, too. The folks always had cows, pigs and chickens so we had meat, lard, butter and eggs at home, but there were nine of us to feed so it took a lot of food.
I have seen my father cross the river when it would swim the horse he was riding, or wash the back end of the wagon around. Later a bridge was built across the river near Cerro Gordo known as the Kelly bridge. It was torn down by the Government when the Dorena Dam was built.
In 1908 I was married to Fred Kelly who passed away in 1941. We were married at the home of my parents and spent the first year of our marriage at Rocky Point. Then we moved to a small farm about two miles from where I was born and lived there for thirty two years. We had two sons, Alta who now lives in Eugene and Harry living in Cottage Grove. I am at home at 704 Quincy Ave in Cottage Grove.
Written by Nona Kelly in her own words.
Thanks go to the Cottage Grove Historical Society for making this available. This was probably written sometime in the 1960’s or 1970’s.
