 Jefferson
County was created on December 12, 1914, out of territory
that was once part of Crook County. The county was named after Mount Jefferson,
the second highest peak in Oregon with an elevation of 10,497 feet, which marks
the county's western skyline. The county is bounded on the north by Wasco County,
on the east by Wheeler and Crook Counties, on the south by Deschutes County, and
on the west by Linn and Marion Counties. The county encompasses 1791 square miles.
Madras, named after
the city in India, was incorporated in 1911 and serves as the county seat. A new
county courthouse was built in 1961. County government is administered by a three-member
board of commissioners. The
county's population at its first federal census in 1920 was 3,211. The 2000 population
of 19,009 represented a 39% increase from 1990. Principle
industries are agriculture, forest products, and recreation. The fertile North
Unit Irrigation District in the central part of the county produces seed, potatoes,
hay, and mint. The eastern part of the county has dry wheat farming and grazing
land for cattle, and the western part is timber country. The Warm Springs Forest
Product Industry owned by the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation
is the single largest industry. The reservation is located on portions of land
in four counties including 236,082 acres in the northwestern corner of Jefferson
County. The
county owes much of its agricultural prosperity to the arrival of the railroad
in 1911 and to the development of irrigation projects in the late 1930s. The railroad,
linking Madras with the Columbia River, was completed after constant feuds and
battles between two lines working opposite sides of the Deschutes River.
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|  Sprawling
reservoir Lake Billy Chinook in Jefferson County was named for a Chinook Indian
boy who joined up with John C. Fremont's second expedition at The Dalles in 1843.
Chinook accompanied Fremont (and Kit Carson of later fame) south through present
day Central Oregon to California, including a harrowing journey across the Sierra
Nevada Mountains in the heart of winter.
While
traveling through what is now Jefferson County, Fremont commented about the chasm-like
valleys and vertical precipices that made the region impracticable for wagons
and barely useable by horses. In an illustration of the difficulty of the terrain,
the howitzer cannon brought by the expedition had to be disassembled and carried
separately by hand. | |
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