From O.A. Stearns to George Himes

In this letter, Orson Avery Stearns predicts the future success of Klamath County’s large-scale reclamation projects and describes the “plenty of good range” available in the region for livestock grazing. Stearns owned a 417-acre ranch and farm just outside of Klamath Falls, where he raised livestock and operated a dairy. George H. Himes, a writer and historian, was the secretary and curator of the Oregon Pioneer Association, which later became the Oregon Historical Society.

In 1902, Congress passed the Reclamation Act, which established a government agency to implement irrigation and hydropower projects throughout the west. The Reclamation Service department surveyed Klamath County in 1903 and 1904, and in 1905 began to implement an elaborate system of irrigation canals, dikes, and dams that pulled water from the Lower Klamath and Tule Lakes to irrigate homesteaders’ farms in the arid region. As a result, the Klamath Basin’s wetlands, lakes, and marshes were drastically diminished from an area once encompassing 185,000 acres to 75,000 acres.

During the summer of 2001, a drought and increased demands on the basin’s water supply aggravated conflicts between different interest groups in the region, pitting farmers against environmentalists, commercial fisherman, and Indian tribes. In order to maintain enough water in the Klamath River to protect two federally endangered fish species, up to ninety percent of the Klamath Project farms were not irrigated.

Further Reading:
Foster, Doug. “Refuges and Reclamation: Conflicts in the Klamath Basin, 1904-1964.” Oregon Historical Quarterly 103, 2002): 150-87.

Robbins, William G. Landscapes of Promise. Seattle, Wash., 1997.

Laugeson, Amanda. “George Himes, F.G. Young, and the Early Years of the Oregon Historical Society.” Oregon Historical Quarterly 101, 2000: 18-39.

Written by Kathy Tucker, © Oregon Historical Society, 2002.