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1908 Map of Grants Pass

Name: 1908 Topographic Map of Grants Pass
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1930
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1930

About this map

Grants Pass serves as the regional anchor on the Rogue River, where the Southern Pacific railroad and the early Oregon Coast Highway converge. This early twentieth-century landscape is defined by an intensive mining economy, with the mountainsides of the Siskiyous riddled with claims like the Bill Nye Mine, Columbia Mine, and the curiously named Bone of Contention Mine.

South of the main river valley, the terrain transitions into a network of creek-side settlements such as Murphy, Provolt, and the remote Browntown near the California border. The presence of the Oregon Caves National Monument in the southwest corner and the many hydraulic and quartz mining operations along Williams Creek and the Applegate River highlight a period when resource extraction and early conservation efforts began to coexist. From the Limestone Quarry to small schoolhouses like Griffin School, the map documents the infrastructure of a maturing frontier.