Canyonville: Third-Oldest Settlement in Oregon

Canyonville sits at the southern end of the Seven Feathers Canyon, a natural chokepoint on the old Siskiyou Trail where the road narrows between steep ridges. Trappers came through here early in the nineteenth century, and by the early eighteen fifties gold and quartz discoveries in southern Oregon were pushing thousands of miners through this pass. A settler named Jesse Roberts built a hotel and a grist mill and platted the town he named Canyonville.

It became one of the most important way stations in southern Oregon. It incorporated in nineteen oh one, and the town today claims to be the third-oldest settlement in the state.