country more naturally beautiful and agreeable than this. The forest is confined to the mountains and hill-sides, and is not so dense as towards the Columbia.
Rogue River Yalley is divided into three counties,—Jackson, Josephine, and Curry. Jackson County was created January 12, 1852, and Josephine was cut off from it in January, 1856. The name of the former does not refer, as one might suppose, to the deity of good Democrats, but to Jackson the discoverer of the mines on Jackson Creek, after whom Jacksonville, the county-seat, was also named.
Jackson was the owner of a pack-train which transported provisions to the mines, who being encamped at this place made himself and the locality suddenly famous by his discovery. For many years the town enjoyed a good trade; but Jacksonville lost its opportunity when it permitted the Oregon and California Railroad to pass by on the other side. Medford, a few miles to the northeast, is on the railroad, and takes away the trade that formerly went to Jacksonville, which is now trying to recover it by building a branch road to Medford, which has about two thousand inhabitants.
Ashland, one of the prettiest towns in Oregon, has, on the contrary, profited by being upon the line of communication between two great States, and is prosperous. It was settled in 1852 by J. A. Cardwell, E. Emery, and David Hurley, who, being from Ashland, Ohio, named the place after their old home. It is located where Stuart Creek comes dancing down from the foot-hills of the Cascades, offering abundance of water-power, and where the view over the whole of Rogue River Yalley is delightsome. Its manufactures are lumber, flour, and woollen goods.
The population of Ashland is about three thousand, and there are over a dozen smaller towns in the county, the population of which is fifteen thousand.
Josephine County, named after Josephine Rollins, daughter of the discoverer of gold on the creek also named after her, differs somewhat from Jackson County in being at once more broken and more near the sea, which circumstances modify its climate and its resources. The latter have been chiefly confined to mining products, gold, silver, and copper being fou
