History Tidbits: Finding Fremont

John C. Fremont was an early-day explorer of the West, a US Senator, and a politician. His exploration trip to the West in 1842 led him on the general path of the Oregon Trail. He definitely traveled through Eastern Oregon. He took chronometer readings by the stars wherever he traveled and by his readings, one would assume he traveled in Wallowa County.

The book Powerful Rocky by John Evans tells a different story. Evans was a local boy, a 1945 graduate of Wallowa High, and later a Librarian at Eastern Oregon College. Late in life, he became an enthusiastic historian of the Oregon Trail. Evans tells us it was later determined Fremont’s chronometer was off, erroneously putting his location in and around Lostine and Wallowa.

In fact, he was at Elgin. His notes verify this by the description of the land. He talks of a very flooded area where the river did not stay in its bounds. The river then courses into a rocky and steep canyon before entering another valley where there were many Cayuse Indians. To this day, the area between Imbler and Elgin floods regularly each spring. And then the Grande Ronde enters a deep rocky canyon before it enters Elgin. The Cayuse Indians of Umatilla County had a summer fishing camp where Elgin sits today.

Many years ago, the Woods family of Lostine found a powder horn, etched with Fremont's name, fueling speculation that he had been in the area. The horn remains a mystery, but Fremont’s true path is not.

Written by Marilyn Hulse, November 2023