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72 °F Forecast | Road Cams Tuesday, May 24, 2005 Today's News | Shop Our Valley | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery | Contact Us SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Health Biz Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley SHOP OUR VALLEY AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Classified Place an ad TOP JOBS EXTRA Ashland News NIE Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Moving here? eSouthernOregon CUSTOMER SERVICE FAQ's Advertise with us Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend May 11, 2005 Kendal McDonald of Portland uses a cesium magnetometer to search for the remains of Fort Lane in a field near Central Point. The fort was built in 1853 by the U.S. Army and used to protect American Indians from settlers. Mail Tribune / Roy Musitelli What lies beneath The remains of Fort Lane, scattered across a Central Point field, have sparked interest By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune For three days, Kendal McDonald carried what looked like a combination rain gauge and high-tech dowser back and forth across the Central Point meadow. But it was neither water from above nor below that interested the anthropologist from Beaverton. She was employing the sophisticated cesium magnetometer in search of the remains of Fort Lane. Built in 1853 by the U.S. Army’s First Dragoons based in Benicia, Calif., the short-lived fort represented the Rogue Valley’s only civil authority when it was established. "This measures real subtle changes in the Earth’s magnetic field at surface level," she explained after completing her field work. "For instance, if someone dug a pit, it would be backfilled with something that is different than everything around it," she said. "This is sensitive enough to pick up the changes in the local magnetic field." Advertisement Because the device is extremely sensitive, the owner of Z-Too Archaeogeophysical Prospection doesn’t wear anything containing metal such as a watch or jewelry while she works. "There are some interesting patterns showing up," she said. "But, until I merge all the computer data sets together, we won’t know what we have." The computerized results are expected to be compiled in map form by mid-May. The information will be used in Southern Oregon University’s archaeological field school this summer. The project will be a joint effort by SOU, the Southern Oregon Historical Society and the Oregon Department of Transportation. In addition to the computerized guidance by McDonald on the county-owned land, the archaeologists are also being guided by an 1855 drawing sketched by the fort’s commanding officer. "If you look at the drawing, you have the same butte right there," observed Mark Tveskov, associate professor of anthropology at SOU who will be in charge of the field school. He pointed to a short butte in the distance. A tree on the right side of the drawing may also be the huge sugar pine more than four feet in diameter at the base still growing in the meadow, he added. A U.S. Bureau of Land Management employee will do a boring of the tree to determine how old it is, he said. "Once we determine exactly where the fort was, we are going to open up a wide area and see what the buildings looked like," Tveskov said, noting he hopes the dig will reveal how soldiers lived their daily lives. Built in a horseshoe shape, the fort had more than a dozen buildings, including infantry quarters, officer quarters, kitchens, a small medical building, guard house, blacksmith shop and store. But nothing remains above ground, save for a nearby stone monument built of rocks taken from the fort’s foundations by the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1929. Artifact hunters with metal detectors have worked the site over the years. But former SOU assistant professor of anthropology Ted Goebel, Tveskov’s predecessor, conducted a small sample dig in 1997 that confirmed some archaeological remains were intact. Because of past unauthorized digging at the site, the location of the fort is not being publicized. The fort was built the same year the equally short-lived Table Rock Indian Reservation was established. Gold had been discovered near Jacksonville in 1852, bringing a gold rush that brought conflict with local Native Americans. "The idea was that the Indians would give up the title to their lands in the rest of the upper Rogue Valley and move onto the reservation," Tveskov said. The reservation, which existed until 1856, covered the area from what is now White City to the mouth of Little Butte Creek west to Evans Creek and north to what is now Sams Valley. The fort was built atop one of the original donation land claims in the region. The owner’s house had been burned down by the Indians, Tveskov said. "The remains of his cabin is out here somewhere," he said. "I hope we can find it, too." Tveskov, who is writing a book about the history of the Indians in the region, said the treaty was quickly broken. "Not all the Indians were committed to giving up their land and the whites were not happy with everything," he said. "There was a lot of cross-cultural conflict and violence." Not long after the reservation was created, a Jacksonville resident led a local militia unit that killed about 30 Indians on the reservation. "It was open warfare after that," Tveskov said. "After that Fort Lane and Fort Orford (on the coast) was used to prosecute the war." "What I find interesting is the military situation in the Pacific area back then," said Ashland resident and anthropology student Bruce Albert, 69, who has been poring over local records about the fort. "The military charge was initially to protect the settlers," said Albert, who spent two decades in the Marine Corps. "But it turned out the settlers were causing more hate and discontent on the Indians than they (military) could stand. So they took it under their wing to protect the Native Americans." The most intense period of violence was from fall 1855 through 1856. The Indians, including Takelma, Shasta and Athabascan, were forced on a march in spring and summer 1856 to the Siletz and Grand Ronde reservations west of Salem. And the small company of soldiers at the fort marched off, leaving the fort to be ravaged by nature and scavenged by local settlers. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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