The McKenzie River corridor has been home to people for over 8000 years. The Molalla and Kalapuya people traveled along the river and on ridge-tops during their annual circuit of harvesting salmon, lamprey eel, camas root, huckleberries, medicinal plants and hunting.
Although European trading ships had been exploring the Oregon Coast for several centuries, it was not until 1812 that the first Europeans began exploring and trapping fur animals in the southern Willamette Valley. Among them was Donald Mackenzie who, as assistant leader of the Astorian Overlanders Expedition, hunted in the area for six weeks. The first map to show his name on the river was made in 1824 by Hudsons’ Bay Company. The McKenzie River is one of the few rivers in Oregon that did not retain its Native American name on this map.
The first recorded travel along the entire length of the river by Europeans was in 1853 when several scouts from “The Lost Wagon Train” found their way down the McKenzie River from the east side of the Cascades. The earliest homestead recorded in the upper McKenzie River valley was staked by James Belknap in 1861 just west of the South Fork McKenzie.
In the 1870’s two hot-springs resorts were in the upper McKenzie River area, increasing recognition of the area as a tourist destination. Stage stops for the wagon-road were developed every 6 to 10 miles apart, establishing the communities that are named along the river today.
In 1893 all lands within the McKenzie River watershed not already claimed by homesteaders became part of the National Forest or Bureau of Land Management. Automobiles began using the McKenzie River highway in the early 1900s, and soon became popular as a scenic motoring destination and for fishing lodges.
What do Herbert Hoover and Ice Cube have in common?
They both fished the McKenzie River!
The McKenzie has always attracted celebrities. Danny Kay, Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable, Orlando Bloom, Willie Nelson are just a few of the people who have come to fish the McKenzie. This winding river is filled with 22 native species of fish and seven non-native fish, and more than that, it is filled with a fun life experience in a world class river that has been fished in ever since people first lived in the area.
It’s the the watershed that makes up the McKenzie so unique. It’s made up of 13,000 square miles of some of the coldest and purest water on planet Earth. 13,000 square miles is twice the size of the island of Oahu and it comes together and forms a river that runs through lava chambers in the Sisters of the Cascade Mountain range that peak at 13,400 feet and then runs into a river down the western slope and into the valley for ninety miles before merging with the Willamette just southwest of Coburg at 504 feet.