Bring on the Rain!
#1
A photo that Zach from the Courier posted..this is taken at Applegate Lake. The woman who took the photo said they were driving on the lake bottom and looking for the town that was covered up. Let it rain!

[Image: 404855_2958171436190_1318639659_33157665...3111_n.jpg]
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#2
WOW WOW WOW. I knew we had one of the driest Decembers on record but this picture really brings it home. Astounding.
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#3
This is at the southernmost part of the lake. (farthest from the dam.) I think it's this low every year, but not this late in December. The link shows the area the photo was taken. (I think) Smiling

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=applegate+...e&t=h&z=15
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#4
And, it's a man made lake, so it isn't really indicative. The lack of rain is though. Of course at the beginning of this year through spring, we had enough rain to make us all pruney.
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#5
(12-28-2011, 10:43 AM)Tiamat Wrote: we had enough rain to make us all pruney.

Speak for yourself. Laughing
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#6
(12-28-2011, 11:20 AM)Valuesize Wrote:
(12-28-2011, 10:43 AM)Tiamat Wrote: we had enough rain to make us all pruney.

Speak for yourself. Laughing

Big Grin I just meant that by May last year we were all begging for mercy from the endless rain.
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#7
[Image: Ping.jpg]
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#8
(12-28-2011, 10:43 AM)Tiamat Wrote: And, it's a man made lake, so it isn't really indicative. The lack of rain is though. Of course at the beginning of this year through spring, we had enough rain to make us all pruney.

Sure it's indicative. The level of the lake corresponds to the amount of water that has been flowing which corresponds to the amount of rainfall in the Applegate river.

And as far as being "a man made lake".... what lake around here isn't?Big Grin

I've driven around on the lake bottom when it was way lower than this. BTW the town the women was looking for that was covered up was called copper and there's not much left of it, if anything to find.
I can't remember but I seem to remember seeing some evidence of the town.
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#9
(12-28-2011, 01:31 PM)tvguy Wrote: BTW the town the women was looking for that was covered up was called copper and there's not much left of it, if anything to find.
I can't remember but I seem to remember seeing some evidence of the town.

Is this something leftover from the town?

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=applegate+...e&t=h&z=19
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#10
(12-28-2011, 04:09 PM)Valuesize Wrote:
(12-28-2011, 01:31 PM)tvguy Wrote: BTW the town the women was looking for that was covered up was called copper and there's not much left of it, if anything to find.
I can't remember but I seem to remember seeing some evidence of the town.

Is this something leftover from the town?

I don't know what you are looking at. I don't see anything but trees and water.

I think Copper was nothing more than a gas station,post office and a house and not a underwater ghost town like some people claim.
I remember seeing footers are something there one time. The Corps of engineers pretty much cleaned everything out as far as I know before it was ever flooded.
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#11
I remember there being a murder of some kind there in the early '70's I think, perhaps a family being killed in some gruesome or unsolved manner.
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#12
(12-28-2011, 05:21 PM)PonderThis Wrote: I remember there being a murder of some kind there in the early '70's I think, perhaps a family being killed in some gruesome or unsolved manner.

Funny you should mention that. I moved here in 1979 and I loved to go up and fish, hike and explore that are.
The streams, Carberry creek, and middle fork were very beautiful to me. Anyway there are a lot of places to camp up there and we were surprised that hardly anyone was ever up there or especially camped.?
Until we talked to the localsLaughing They were afraid to camp there.
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#13
(12-28-2011, 05:21 PM)PonderThis Wrote: I remember there being a murder of some kind there in the early '70's I think, perhaps a family being killed in some gruesome or unsolved manner.

http://officialcoldcaseinvestigations.co...php?t=2392
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#14
(12-28-2011, 01:31 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(12-28-2011, 10:43 AM)Tiamat Wrote: And, it's a man made lake, so it isn't really indicative. The lack of rain is though. Of course at the beginning of this year through spring, we had enough rain to make us all pruney.

Sure it's indicative. The level of the lake corresponds to the amount of water that has been flowing which corresponds to the amount of rainfall in the Applegate river.

And as far as being "a man made lake".... what lake around here isn't?Big Grin

I've driven around on the lake bottom when it was way lower than this. BTW the town the women was looking for that was covered up was called copper and there's not much left of it, if anything to find.
I can't remember but I seem to remember seeing some evidence of the town.

OK, TV. I know you like to argue. You get this one.
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#15
(12-28-2011, 05:53 PM)Tiamat Wrote:
(12-28-2011, 01:31 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(12-28-2011, 10:43 AM)Tiamat Wrote: And, it's a man made lake, so it isn't really indicative. The lack of rain is though. Of course at the beginning of this year through spring, we had enough rain to make us all pruney.

Sure it's indicative. The level of the lake corresponds to the amount of water that has been flowing which corresponds to the amount of rainfall in the Applegate river.

And as far as being "a man made lake".... what lake around here isn't?Big Grin

I've driven around on the lake bottom when it was way lower than this. BTW the town the women was looking for that was covered up was called copper and there's not much left of it, if anything to find.
I can't remember but I seem to remember seeing some evidence of the town.

OK, TV. I know you like to argue. You get this one.

OH then, I'm writing this in my logBig Grin
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#16
(12-28-2011, 05:55 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(12-28-2011, 05:53 PM)Tiamat Wrote:
(12-28-2011, 01:31 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(12-28-2011, 10:43 AM)Tiamat Wrote: And, it's a man made lake, so it isn't really indicative. The lack of rain is though. Of course at the beginning of this year through spring, we had enough rain to make us all pruney.

Sure it's indicative. The level of the lake corresponds to the amount of water that has been flowing which corresponds to the amount of rainfall in the Applegate river.

And as far as being "a man made lake".... what lake around here isn't?Big Grin

I've driven around on the lake bottom when it was way lower than this. BTW the town the women was looking for that was covered up was called copper and there's not much left of it, if anything to find.
I can't remember but I seem to remember seeing some evidence of the town.

OK, TV. I know you like to argue. You get this one.

OH then, I'm writing this in my logBig Grin

I would. I just backed right off, didn't I?Big Grin
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#17
In the early 70's my mom and I went up there before they started filling the lake. I don't remember any evidence of the town then.
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#18
Quote:December 14, 2008
By BILL MILLER
for the Mail Tribune
Copper sometimes is called Oregon's underwater ghost town, even though the buildings are all gone and it really wasn't much of a town.

At best, it had a one-room schoolhouse, a farm, a store, a gas station and a momentary post office that all disappeared before 1980, when the Corps of Engineers completed the Applegate Dam and began drowning the town site in 100 feet of water.

IF YOU GO

From Jacksonville, drive west 7.5 miles on Highway 238 to Ruch. Turn south (left) onto Upper Applegate Road. Continue 18 miles and past the Applegate Dam to the Copper boat ramp. From the ramp, look down and to the east. Depending on when you visit, the old town site will be below you and either under water or covered in gooey mud.
Guy Watkins was the last of his family to live on the old homestead, finally closing the store and gas station and moving his 100 head of cattle and the rest of his life to a new home on higher ground.

Watkins had been a vocal opponent for nearly 30 years, ever since seriousdiscussions about constructingthe dam began right after the end of World War II.

He continued to fight even when things got very serious in 1962. That's when Congress authorized the Rogue Basin flood control project, which included the Applegate Dam.

"It gets irritating not knowing when I will have to leave the store," Watkins told a reporter in 1977. "I guess I will, as soon as I get this new house built."

By then, Watkins had given up hope that President Jimmy Carter would deny funding for the project. Carter had put the Applegate on a list of 18 federal water projects he wanted stopped, but by the end of 1977 it was obvious he was softening his position, and preliminary work already had begun.

Mark Watkins, Guy's grandfather, was born in England and came to the United States in 1844 when he was 12 years old. By the late 1850s, he was mining in Southern Oregon, mostly in the Applegate watershed.

He filed his homestead claim in December 1889 for 160 acres along the Applegate River, just north of the California border. Long before the Watkins post office was established there in 1893, with Watkins as postmaster, the surrounding area already had been known as the Watkins Precinct.

Mamie Winningham, Watkins' daughter and Guy Watkins' aunt, established the Copper post office in 1924 just to the north of the then-closed Watkins post office. It was named for the copper-mining boom in the nearby mountains that had begun in the late 1880s.

Though that post office lasted less than eight years, it was run from the very store that Guy Watkins would watch being torn down in 1978. He would die 11 years later.

Just before the winter rains, the south end of the Applegate Reservoir nearly disappears, revealing large rocks and thick mudflats where Copper used to stand.

As the water level drops, the old asphalt highway that once ended near the Copper store is revealed, becoming the lower end of the lake's "Copper" boat ramp. Pushing aside the dried mud you still can see the faint yellow centerline that once divided the road.

That's it. That's everything — just mountains, mud and highway, and not a ghost in sight.

Writer Bill Miller lives in Shady Cove. Reach him at newsmiller@yahoo.com.

From the MMT archives
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#19
Yea for the rain and the warmer weather that comes with it. We had no heat in the house yesterday evening and this morning it was a toasty 65 degrees in the houseBig Grin
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#20
Indeed it IS warmer.
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