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The Allingham Guard Station at Camp Sherman. The original Allingham Ranch at that site served as a post office from 1893 to 1896. The Allingham property was transferred to the U. S. Forest Service and the ranch house (shown here) was used as a U.S. Forest Service ranger station from about 1906 until the late 1960s when it was burned. |
| One of the early-day settlers in the
upper Metolius
Valley was David W. Allingham and his family. Allingham, for whom the
Allingham
Guard Station, bridge and campground are named, crossed the plains and
mountains from Illinois to the Willamette Valley in 1852. Although he
was
only a youth at the time, David drove one of several ox-drawn wagons.
It
was on the wagon train drive that David Allingham met Margaret
Davidson,
whom he later married. The Allinghams crossed the Santiam Pass in 1884,
settled near Squaw Creek for a time, then in 1885 made their home on
the
Metolius.
The Allinghams traded with Bob Pyett, a squatter who had settled on the land in the early 1880s, two horses for his log cabin and corral. The Allinghams filed for a homestead patent and proved up on the claim. Cattle and horses were driven over the Cascades to the Allingham Ranch from the Willamette Valley. The nearby land was cultivated (presumably after removing some trees), producing hay for cattle and sheep, which were pastured near Mt. Jefferson in the summer. The meadow at the Allingham Ranch was irrigated by water from Lake Creek by a ditch (the Allingham ditch), which dated back to 1888. This meadow, along with the collapsed remains of a split rail fence, can still be seen today south of the Allingham Guard Station. In 1890 Allingham obtained rough lumber from a sawmill on the Graham Ranch (near the present-day Black Butte Ranch). The rough lumber was planed by hand and used to build a house that later became part of the Allingham Guard Station (see photo). Allingham obtained supplies from Prineville, then the largest city in Central Oregon. Mail was taken weekly by saddle horse from Prineville to Camp Polk. In 1900, the Allinghams sold the ranch to a Mr. Alley, who reconveyed the title of the land to the federal government. The Allingham House became the first
Sisters Ranger
Station and was occupied in 1906 by Ranger Perry A. South, for whom the
Perry South campground on the Lower Metolius was named. Over the years
the guard station was remodeled several times, once by the CCC in 1937.
In the course of the remodeling, newspapers and journals dating back to
the early 1900s were found in the walls.
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Metolius
Recreation Association
Camp
Sherman,
OR 97730
