Milepost 20

Leander Cruzan crossed the plains with his father at the age of eleven and finally settled just twelve miles west of Eugene. On July 12th, 1866, Leander married Miss Caroline Matthews and settled on the McKenzie River where he took the responsibilities of postmaster. As postmaster he named his town after himself. Leaburg was founded in 1877. Residents played with renaming their community to Jimtown after a popular business owner in the early 1900s, but it didn’t stick.

The Leaburg Dam offers views of salmon and steel-head climbing a fish ladder. Leaburg Lake is about 40 acres where motorized boats can have fun and fish. The Leaburg Trout Hatchery and EWEB Water Board Park are located on the south side of the river. The trout hatchery is open to the public and features ponds with albino cutthroat, Columbia River sturgeon, and Atlantic salmon, some weighing up to 20 pounds. There’s a pond for the children to feed the fish with food pellets for sale for a quarter. The hatchery annually grows 750,000 fish, mostly rainbow trout, to be released in Oregon rivers. The 55-acre EWEB Park has facilities for groups up to 600 people (reservations required). It is only open during daylight hours and features picnic sites overlooking the McKenzie River, free covered electric cooking centers, outdoor firewood grills, a softball field, volleyball court, horseshoe pits, boat landing, trails, and swings for children.

The Historic Old McKenzie Hatchery is also in Leaburg. The State originally built the hatchery at the turn of the century, the facilities were used by the state to grow trout and salmon until the 1950s. Many original structures are still on the property. The main house was built in the early 1900s for the hatchery superintendent. A number of local groups and government agencies joined together to revitalize the property, which is now part of the Lane County Park Department.

The most photographed covered bridge in Oregon is in Leaburg, and the family the bridge is named after still operates their orchards in the community as well. On December 14th, 1877, Susan and Thurston Goodpasture had a son born in Eugene. They named him after one of our country’s Founding Fathers.

Benjamin Franklin Goodpasture grew up on the McKenzie and as a teenager he started his career in raising cattle. As his life went on he sold real estate and then automobiles. He served on the Eugene City Council for years. In 1926 “Frank” Goodpasture retired to his family’s filbert orchard. Twelve years later in 1938, the Goodpasture bridge was built and spanned 165 feet making it the second longest covered bridge in Lane County.