Salmon Creek Falls is one of the most beautiful falls in this area. And behind the falls is a pond of clear, reflective water. As you look at its pristine beauty, you might never guess that at one time this was the main source of water for the city of Oakridge.
Kelsey’s River was named after a prominent family who settled here in the early days. It was later named Salmon Creek by the Forest Service. The falls played an important part in the original creation of the city we know as Oakridge.
When people first moved to this area, they used springs from the mountains as their source of water. Later, they dug wells and created ponds and reservoirs with pipes that fed to the buildings. You can still see one of these early pipes on First Street between Beech and Alder. It is sticking out of the bank – about 3” in diameter.
In 1910, Eldon Templeman built a huge store in town and behind it he built a large, very tall tower that was a water storage system for himself and his neighbors. That worked well for many years, but as Oakridge grew in population, they needed more water.
As Franklin D. Roosevelt was trying to bring the country out of the great depression, the federal government set up programs to put people to work and one of the programs was the WPA – Workers Progressive Administration. In order to get money for a new water source from the program, the city had to be incorporated, so about the year 1935, Oakridge became a legal city.
The money was received, and a new dam and water storage tank was built up at Salmon Creek Falls. The water was piped into Oakridge via large wooden pipes about 10 inches in diameter. Unfortunately, the flood of 1964 washed a great deal of that pipe out of the ground.
Fortunately, at that time, the city of Oakridge had already started putting water tanks up on the hill above the city and were in the process of digging wells to pump underground water into those tanks. The water pipes destroyed by the flood were never replaced and the Salmon Creek Falls water system was abandoned.
The falls are located on Salmon Creek east of Oakridge. If you follow Salmon Creek Road (1st Street) for about five miles, you will see the entrance to Salmon Creek Falls.
Written by Sheila Chitwood for the Dead Mountain Echo, June 2008
George Custer lives in Oakridge with his wife Sayre. George is a former smokejumper from his hometown of Cave Junction, a former captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. and ran a construction company in Southern California. George assumed the volunteer duties as the Editor of the Highway 58 Herald in 2022. He loves riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, building all things wood, and playing drums on the weekends in his office.
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