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153 years covered in 14 miles Photo by Bob Pennell In top hat and tails, "Doctor" Tom Gettling of Grants Pass drove his buggy down the Applegate Trail Saturday toward Sunny Valley. Wagon train re-creation gets Applegate Trail fete rolling By Dani Dodge SUNNY VALLEY -- Dee Douglas, 77, bounced and swayed with every rock and rut the covered wagon hit as it crept along the Applegate Trail Saturday. But the retired electronics worker from Merlin rejoiced in the pain -- and kept pushing her quarter horses Rosie and Shamrock on down the trail. "I just enjoy the challenge," Douglas said, pulling her ruffled skirt down to hide the denim jeans she wore beneath. "I like getting to the feel of what people did years and years ago." Saturday, Douglas was one of eight teamsters who drove horse- and mule-drawn wagons, accompanied by about 30 horseback riders. Their 14-mile ride was over one of the most challenging stretches of the Applegate Trail forged by Jesse and Lindsay Applegate in 1846. The participants began their journey on Friday night on the south side of Mount Sexton. Then they took a little-used mining road over the hill, arriving in Sunny Valley for a celebration Saturday afternoon. The celebration continues today from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Applegate Trail Interpretive Center, just off Interstate 5 Sunny Valley exit. Old-time fiddlers and a local history presentation by descendants of the Applegate Trail settlers will be highlights of today's event. The re-enactment of the journey was sponsored by the center, whose owner, Betty Gaustad, is also the president of the Sunny Valley Applegate Trail Society. "The Applegate brothers blazed the trial so that from 1847 to 1879, this became one of the safest ways to settle Oregon," Gaustad said. The re-enactment of the trail crossing had been an annual event until last year, when it just never happened. Gaustad, a former flight attendant who mortgaged her ranch to build the interpretive center, decided it was important to keep the tradition going. "I think it gives people some of the same feelings the pioneers had: pride ... bravery ... fortitude," she said. "I'd like to see some of those same feelings established today more widely." The Applegate brothers and their families traveled the more northern Oregon Trail in what is called the Great Migration of 1843. But during the portion of the trip across the Columbia River, a raft overturned and both brothers lost 10-year-old sons. By 1845, the families had established homes on adjoining parcels of land in Polk County. Jesse and Lindsay left their brother Charles to care for the homesteads as they set off to establish a new trail that would bypass the dangerous passage on the Columbia River. The men followed an old trapper route to create a trail that branched off the California Trail in Nevada and ran northwest across the Black Rock Desert and the Siskiyous, into the Rogue and Willamette Valleys. In August 1846, the first group of 100 wagons left Fort Hall, Idaho, on the shorter and safer trail. Many died on that first trip, but the Applegate Trail was established and in 1853 more than 3,500 people took the route. On Saturday, the first down the steep incline into Sunny Valley was Liz Henderson of the Applegate Valley, pulled by her Percheron draft mules. "I'm a wagon-train junkie," Henderson said with a laugh. "Although we're deaf now and have bad kidneys." As teamster, Henderson had the reins. Two wagon assistants, called swampers, handled the brakes and other duties. Two out-riders accompanied the wagon on horses and were responsible for making sure the mules didn't bolt or go crazy and out-of-control. Swamper Judy Walport said the trip gave her the feeling of being a pioneer, especially when the wagon train was ambushed by thieves (although the thieves brandished only wooden play guns). "We did have it easier, though, than the settlers," Walport noted. "There was water at the top for us. They didn't know where they would eat or get water." And there was that element of danger. "If we would've lost a wheel we would've gone right over," Walport said, her eyes widening. But she noted that Henderson, who owns Rogue Valley Carriage Service, always keeps her wagon, with its bright red body and yellow wheels, in top shape. Douglas followed Henderson's wagon down the trail. The 77-year-old built her wagon using a 1906 undercarriage and the same types of wood as the settlers. As the Merlin woman was jolted over the trail Saturday, she couldn't help but recall her great-great-grandmother who had made a wagon-trail trip to Merlin in 1846. "(The re-enactment) helps people keep in in touch with history," Douglas said. "And hopefully you young people will see it and get interested in keeping it going." But she doesn't expect to abandon the fun of the wagon trail anytime soon, despite her age. "It's a bad habit," she laughed. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA