Myrtle Creek: Named for the Groves

Myrtle Creek takes its name from the Oregon myrtle trees that lined this bend of the South Umpqua River. When gold fever sent miners flooding into southern Oregon in the late eighteen forties and early eighteen fifties, many passed through here on their way south along the Applegate Trail. Lazarus Wright established the post office in eighteen fifty-four, and by eighteen sixty-five John Hall had laid out a proper town site.

Stores and grist mills went up to supply the diggings, and the settlement grew into a reliable waypoint between Roseburg and the mining country to the south. The town incorporated in eighteen ninety-three and eventually shifted its economy to timber, sitting astride the South Umpqua valley that gave Douglas County much of its early wealth.