Praying for Oregon Counties: Jefferson

Mt. Jefferson

Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. James 5:16

 As a young adult I traveled with my family in the spring of 1974 to the mining claim of family friends somewhere up the Santiam. To this day I’m not quite sure where we were, or how we got there. After a picnic, their teen children invited me and my brother to take a hike, leaving the elders at the tiny cabin. At first it seemed a normal mountain hike up a ridge, but when we reached the top I realized we were climbing a rock dike or sill, very steep on both sides and so narrow at the top we could straddle it to look at the view. And what a view! Across a small valley was Mt. Jefferson, so close it seemed you could touch it, but distance is deceiving when looking at a 10,000-foot mountain, and it was miles away. That night the snowcapped mountain was all I could see when I closed my eyes.

 Mt. Jefferson, the second-highest mountain in the state, is on the very western edge of Jefferson County. The county was named for the mountain.

 Jefferson County was created a bit late in Oregon history, not sectioned off from Crook County until 1914. Settlers had begun arriving in the 1850’s and large cattle ranches were established. In 1855 the Warm Springs Indian Reservation was created that included the northwest corner of Jefferson County as well as part of Wasco and other counties. Today the reservation has 348,000 acres. The railroad connected the area with the Columbia River in 1911 which increased the farmers’ ability to get products to market and gave a boost to the population and economy in the early 20^th century. In 1911 the town of Madras, named after the city in India, was incorporated and later became the county seat.

 The area supports numerous agricultural products, including vegetable, grass and flower seeds, garlic, mint, potatoes, hay and sugar beets. Cattle ranching continues and timber products were a major part of the economy until the recent closure of Warm Springs Forest Products.

 The landscape varies from forested hills to high, dry desert. Near Madras in the central part of the county, the Metolius River and Crooked River join the Deschutes. In 1964, at this confluence, Round Butte Dam was built creating Lake Billy Chinook, named after a member of the Wasco tribe who traveled with the Fremont expedition as a guide in 1843. Billy Chinook was a teenager at that time. He was an orphan who lived at Wascopam, the Methodist mission at the Dalles, and was baptized there by Daniel Lee, Jason Lee’s nephew. Billy Chinook traveled to the east coast for education and became an influential leader in Oregon, advocating for the Wasco tribe. The lake named after him is a popular recreation area for the state, only about three hours from Portland.

Lake Billy Chinook

The Warm Springs Indian Reservation included the Walla Walla tribe and the neighboring Wasco. Later, Paiutes were added, even though they were long-time enemies of the other tribes. In the 1930’s they became the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. The tribal headquarters is in Warm Springs, in Jefferson County.

 We’ve seen our share of natural catastrophes in Oregon the last year or two, and I am familiar with others: the Columbus Day windstorm of 1962, the Tillamook Burn of the 1940’s, but I was unaware of things that happened in Central Oregon in the 1930’s. While homesteaders prospered for a time in Jefferson County, from 1917 to the 1930’s drought conditions prevailed, much as they did in the mid-west at that time. On April 22, 1931 a wind began to blow in Montana, came down across the Idaho panhandle, through Washington, and the Warm Springs Reservation. When it crossed the Metolius River it began to blow in a circular fashion, a cyclone. This unusual wind destroyed 10 million board feet of timber in the area around the Metolius and blew away acres of topsoil that had been made vulnerable by the drought. Ships off the coast could see the dust blowing into the ocean.

 Where there had been forests and arable soil, sagebrush and juniper took root. Some of the communities, like Grandview, south of Madras, that had sprung up around successful farms, became ghost towns.

 Like many Oregon counties, the government is a three-person elected Board of Commissioners. Currently the commissioners are: Mae Huston, Wayne Fording, and Kelly Simmelink.

 How do we pray for Jefferson County?

 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. James 5:16-17

 Wildfires and their aftermath are an ongoing concern in Central Oregon.

·         The current drought in Oregon is impacting Jefferson County. Since the county is a major supplier of seed, the drought is causing a problem with global seed supply. Pray for rain.

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