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Getting explorer on map Mail Tribune/Bob Pennell Jud Parsons would like to see this hill � near the intersection of the Mount Ashland and Colestin roads � named after pioneering explorer Peter Skene Ogden. Ogden was a trailblazer who explored much of the West, but few landmarks are named for him. Nameless peak on Mount Ashland�s flank gap could be named for trailblazer Peter Skene Ogden By Chris Bristol ASHLAND � Jud Parsons wants to put once-famed explorer Peter Skene Ogden on the map. With help from Jeff LaLande, he�s likely to get it done. Since 1918, the Parsons family has owned the better part of a 5,800-foot "hill" on the eastern flank of Mount Ashland, situated at the gap that marks the Siskiyou Pass. Like a lot of peaks in the region, it has no name. "As far as we�re concerned, it�s an unnamed hill," Parsons says. "On one map we saw Bald Mountain, but that was an in-house surveyors map. Never seen a name on any official map." Ogden never saw a name, either. Then again, he wasn�t looking at a map. In his day, the man who would become lead agent of the Hudson�s Bay Company was one of the premier trailblazers of the American West, leading "Snake Country Brigades" throughout the Oregon Territory in pursuit of the lucrative fur trade. On a cold February day in 1827, at age 33, Ogden became the first white man to see the Rogue Valley. From a mountaintop somewhere in the Siskiyous, he described it in his journal: "Following a small Stream for three miles I encamped. ... Oaks here being nearly double the size of any I have seen this season. Although I ascended a high hill, I could not discover the Main Stream." Ogden reached the Rogue drainage six days later, and it was one of many pioneering triumphs in the course of his life. But since his death in 1854, his name and his achievements have steadily faded from prominence. LaLande believes this is partly because Ogden is literally not on the map, at least in Oregon. "A lot of places he explored, his name is almost unknown," LaLande laments. "He hardly ever got the credit that was due him." For years historians believed the peak from which Ogden first surveyed the valley was somewhere in the Applegate (which wasn�t known as such then, because the Applegate family was still in Missouri).An archaeologist for the U.S. Forest Service, LaLande has written several scholarly accounts about Ogden. Based on his research, he believes Ogden was in the Siskiyou Pass. That "high hill" Ogden described in his journal was probably the mountain owned today by the Parsons family, LaLande says. "According to his journal for that day, Ogden climbed up a very high hill at or very near the pass for a better view and hopefully to see the beaver-filled river he heard about from the Shasta Indians," he says. "I�ve done a lot of research on the various places he could have climbed that day, and it all points to this mountain." Ogden is not a completely forgotten figure in the history of the West. The Mormons named a city in Utah for him (the explorer blazed the California Trail across the Great Basin) and a mountain in the Alaskan back country bears the name as well. Closer to home, a rest stop along Highway 97 near the Crooked River north of Redmond also is named in the explorer�s honor. But that�s it. And it�s not enough, LaLande says. "Peter Skene Ogden was such an important explorer in the history of the Far West," he says. "It�s ironic he has never been adequately recognized by a geographic name in the Pacific Northwest." Parsons agrees. The two first met 20 years ago, when Parsons bought a copy of LaLande�s Ogden biography, "First Over The Siskiyous" at a signing party. In Oregon, the state Geographic Names Board recommends names for natural features like mountains and rivers to its federal counterpart. Parsons told the archaeologist it was fine by him, naming the peak "Ogden Hill." "It�s just been kind of dormant ever since," Parsons says. "Every once in a while I�d see Jeff some place and I�d mention it. He�d say, �Yeah, yeah, we ought to do it.� Then he finally said I should do it since it�s my family�s property, and I thought, �OK, I will.� " The Parsons property has some history of its own unrelated to Ogden. The old stage passed through the gap, and a one-room cabin there once provided a hideout for the D�Autremont brothers, infamous for their murderous train robbery in 1923. Today, the Pacific Crest Trail passes through the family�s timberland. These days Parsons is stumping for the name change. He�s been gathering letters of support from the likes of the Southern Oregon Historical Society, and LaLande has contributed a treatise. The Parsons family also owns Hillcrest Orchard in east Medford, as well as a working farm in the Salem area. Parsons splits his time between here and there. "It�s not all that much work really," he says modestly. "I write a few letters, my secretary types them up." Stewart Allan, a member of the board and president of Allan Cartography in Medford, says Parsons has a good chance of getting it done. By sheer coincidence the board is meeting this Saturday in Medford. Parsons won�t be ready in time, but he�s shooting for the board�s next meeting this winter in Portland. "Ogden is an enormously important guy in Oregon history," Allan says. "If the evidence holds up, and by all accounts the research is solid, there�s a good argument for doing it." LaLande can�t wait. "It�s almost as if this relatively prominent mountain has serendipitously remained unnamed all these years for just this purpose," he says. "It�s a great opportunity for history." 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