By Ron Brown

GOLD HILL, Ore. -- A lot of attention has been focused this winter on whether there will be enough water for recreation, wildlife and agriculture in our area this year. That's actually been a concern for a lot of reasons from the time the first settlers came to Southern Oregon. The old logging road on Nugget Butte, above Gold Hill, is one of the few remnants of a mammoth project, that had it been completed as planned, could have changed the face of several southern Oregon communities.

Before it became a logging road it was a small ditch, the beginning phase of a project to divert Rogue River water, by canal, from prospect to Gold Hill. That canal would have been more than 90 miles long! In 1899, a group of investors led by Ms. Phoebe Deekum of Portland, proposed the project that would have been ambitious, even by today's standards. Excavation on the 93-mile-long ditch began at both the prospect and Gold Hill ends of the project in June of 1900. It was estimated that it would take a thousand workers using equipment like this two years to complete the massive project. Developers anticipated a building boom in Gold Hill.

The million-dollar project was expected to pay for itself in less than five years, and would have opened Sams Valley to irrigation and would bring rail, lumber, sawmill and hydroelectric business to the Gold Hill area; even a sugar beet factory was suggested. That didn't happen until 15 years later, at Grants Pass, and then folded within three years, but competition for water and investor dollars with Condor Power Company, which was at that time building Gold Ray Dam, led to court battles, and property disputes that kept the ditch builders off vital property they needed to finish the project.

Miles of rough-out ditch line was dug, but none of it connected all together. It was no secret where the route of the Highline Ditch was to go, so it was not hard for those who opposed it to buy key pieces of right-of-way to block the ditch project. All that remains today is a line carved along this mountain near Gold Hill, and the canal that takes water to Pacific Power's Hydro Plant at Prospect.

After more than 110 years, there's very little to suggest that at one time this was planned to be a canal, bringing Rogue River water from Prospect all the way down to the terminus at Gold Hill. Really looks not much more like a trail now. In fact, the locals for many years called it the 'nature trail'.

It seems ironic today that the project that won out, Gold Ray Dam, is gone now almost without a trace. The project that was never completed still remains, hidden in the trees and brush above the Rogue River. Phoebe Deekum, who planned and promoted the Highline Ditch project, was from a wealthy Portland family that invested in real estate in Southern Oregon. Much of the western half of the Gold Hill is called the "Deekum Addition" because of her investments and promotion.