A Day in the LIfe by Paty Jager

Last Saturday started like any other day. We awoke, had breakfast and I did some household chores before going out to feed Apollo and George.

I checked on the water trough for the three big horses up on the hill. It needed more water. While it filled I took photos of lizards and gave Bud a rub down.

He enjoyed being scratched on his head, neck, shoulders, chest, sides, belly and back. I was standing on the opposite side of the gate giving him his all over grooming. When I finished, he blinked at me and turned pressing his backside against the gate. Obviously, he felt I had missed an important spot! I scratched the base of his tail and his big brown cheeks and he walked away.

Bud

Back at the house I spent the morning working on book promotion and writing blog posts for the coming week. Hubby arrived for lunch, we ate and I sat down and wrote on the work in progress. The afternoon wasn't as hot and my brain was clicking right along on the story when my phone rang.

Hubby called and said the truck driver who picked up a load of hay asked if we were going to the Frenchglen Jamboree. I'd noticed the ad in the newspaper but hadn't mentioned it thinking hubby wouldn't want to go. It was a day of kid's events and cattle roping competitions followed by a barbecue and DJ music. I agreed it would be fun to check it out. He came in the house at three cleaned up and we headed toward Frenchglen.

On the way we crossed a cattle guard that was doing a good job of guarding the cattle. ;) And the sign was truthful. We had to slow down several times for cattle using the road as their own highway.

We drove by the Peter French Round barn and Diamond Craters. This is a small area where volcanic lava made tunnels and bubbles that burst or crumbled, leaving large indentions in the earth.

Diamond Craters

Next we drove through Diamond Valley. If you've read my book Davis: Letters of Fate Diamond Ranch and other places on this trip are mentioned in the book.  All that is left of the community is a Hotel/ bed and breakfast, a couple houses and down the road a grade school.  It is a ranching area where they grow meadow grass hay and raise cattle.

Diamond Valley

We arrived at Frenchglen, driving by the arena where they were still roping. We continued on to the  Hotel.

There were some booths set up with people featuring arts and crafts of the past. They were closing up so we were too late to check out what they had. Which was a bummer because, you know me, I love anything that pertains to U.S. history.

Looking toward the Steens Mts.

There was more smoke from fires here. We couldn't even see the Steens Mountains. We paid for our dinner and sat on the hay bales arranged for seating. 

It was mostly locals with a few of the people staying at the hotel also attending. We could tell when the roping finished. trucks pulling horse trailers arrived parkign along the road and men and women in cowboy hats, wearing boots, and spurs lined up for food. There were a lot of young families. The whole time we sat there country music was played through large speakers. It was a good meal.

Cowboys & Cowgirls lined up for grub

As we were leaving, I asked hubby if we could return via the scenic tour route. He looked at the time and said, sure. We left Frenchglen headed as if we were going up on the Steens, then turned left to P Ranch. Yes, the P Ranch of Peter French the cattle baron who lived in the area in the late 1800s and who is a secondary character in my book, Davis. There was a doe and fawn eating in the old orchard.

We continued on the scenic tour route. We saw a mother pheasant with young on the road, two bucks laying in the tall grass. All we could see were the tops of their antlers.

Young pheasant

Lots of different birds, and a doe and fawn who ran down the road toward us.

This road follows along one of the canals that Peter French had built to be able to use more of the ground for raising cattle and hay.

Canal

 The waterways are lined with willows the Paiute use to make baskets and cradleboards.

willows

 Looking out across the vast meadow land, I tried to imagine what it looked liked with thousands of head of cattle grazing or teams of men and horses haying the meadows.

Large meadow

Now most of the land is part of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge.

The scenic road ended on the road to Krumbo Reservoir. We returned via 205 to the Diamond loop road. Instead of turning back the way we came, we drove through Diamond and came around through the Virginia Valley and home.

Once Apollo and George were fed and we were showered, we sat outside and watched the sunset. The smoke in the air gave the sky a beautiful pink tint.

Kicking Puppies and Kissing Babies; The Life and Death of Peter French

My soon to be released book, Davis: Letters of Fate is set in Harney County, Oregon in 1880. At the time of my story, it's figured eleven families lived in the Harney Valley which at the time was part of Grant County and the closest town with law and supplies was Canyon City just under a hundred miles away. The closest railroad terminal was 200 miles away in Winnemucca, Nevada.

Into this under-populated area that had marshland and meadows for grazing cattle came Peter French in 1872. French was a man of small stature and depending on who you talked to either a generous, benevolent boss who loved children; or a thieving jack-n-apes; or crazy as a coot because his anger caused him to kick a dog or shoot his gun at someone who angered him. His employees and children loved him. Those who dealt with him in business and trying to homestead didn't like him.

He had the backing and cattle that belonged to Hugh Glenn a businessman in California. First French started a ranch at Roaring Springs, grazing his cattle along the Blitzen River drainage where bunch grass grew up to a man's waist. Eventually he brought his cattle to Harney Basin an eighty mile by eighty mile valley with several lakes. Some lakes are so shallow the water is alkali and not worth drinking but others that are fed by the rivers made a natural watering hole for his cattle.

This area that Peter French brought his cattle to was had nearly three thousand square miles of valleys and range land. French set forth to claim it all for his cattle.

He had the Roaring Springs Ranch at the south end of the valleys, built the P Ranch where the Blitzen River  entered the valley floor from the Steens Mountains, and established Sodhouse Ranch at the north end of the valleys.

His vaqueros took care of the cattle and built the miles of wire fences he stretched from one holding ot the next, not bothering to worry that he was fencing in land he didn't own.

On Rattlesnake Creek at the north end of the valley sat Camp Harney and the Malheur Indian Reservation.

Peter French (photo from Wikipedia)

The camp was the most isolated camp of fort in the Army's Pacific Division. Two hundred infantry and cavalry soldiers called it home. It was a large facility, and as such, had barracks as well as a settler's store, commissary, sawmill, blacksmith shop, hospital, laundry, bakery and ice house.

As more people wandered into the area trying to make good on the 1870 swamp land act (land qualifying as "swamp" could be purchased at a rate of $1.00-$2.50 an acre.) it found homesteaders crossing French's fences to get to the marshland he had fenced in but didn't own.  In some cases, once those that had purchased the swamp land found they couldn't deal with the pressure of French, they sold their land to him for the same price they purchased it.  In some cases, local business men purchased the swampland at the low rate and then turned around and sold it to French for a small profit.

The Bannock and Paiutes were tired of the reservation life and started causing trouble in the region. Many locals and army men were killed before the tribes were contained and sent back to the reservation. The P Ranch suffered not only human lives but cattle as well. The Indians slaughter the cattle for food and for revenge.

After the Indians were controlled the cattle industry in the Harney Basin grew. French had 25,000 head of cattle and most of the land they grazed wasn't under title to him or Hugh Glenn.As French grew richer and his cattle herds grew, the homesteaders became more angry with him keeping them from good land with his fences.

After 1880, the time frame of my story Davis, there were nearly fifty homestead claims within the French fence lines. These were claims taken on land that French didn't own but had fenced off.  There were court battles and animosity toward Mr. French for twenty-seven years.

In December of 1897, one homesteader had had enough. Edward Oliver crossed French's land to get from his in-laws to his land. He was confronted by Peter French and after a confrontation, he shot French in the head.

Ed Oliver was released on $10,000 bail and local businessmen paid it for him. At the end of the trial the jury found Ed Oliver "..not guilty as charged in the indictment."  The case was closed. Peter French was buried in Red Bluff, California.

One of his oldest rivals, David Shirk said this about Peter French. "Thus ended the life of Peter French, a man of many admirable qualities of mind and heart, but whose tyrannical and overbearing temper brought about his own ruin. He lived a live of violence, and by violence he died."

Source:Untamed Land: The Death of Pete French & The End of the Old West by Mark Highberger.

Friday Facts- Peter French Round Barn

The Peter French Round Barn is in Eastern Oregon on the High Dessert.

The roof resembles a large umbrella. The red ceder shake roof is held up with juniper posts. 

It was built in the 1880's by cattle baron Peter French for training horses year around.
It is 100 feet in diameter with a 60 foot round stone corral ringed by a 20 foot outer circle where they rode the horses. 

The gates swing on mortar hinges.