Oregon - Medford District Office August 2004 

Public Lands USA: Use, Share, Appreciate 

Rogue River 

Ranch 

National Historic Site 

Rogue National 

Wild and Scenic 

River 

BLM

Top: Ranch, Bottom: Main House/Museum 2003 
Introduction

Rogue River Ranch National Historic 

Site is located in southwestern Oregon 

approximately 75 miles northwest of the city 

of Grants Pass. The ranch is at the mouth of 

Mule Creek and nestled in the heart of the 

Rogue National Wild and Scenic River’s 

wild section. Once a major Native American 

site, there is evidence of over 9,000 years of 

Native American habitation. In the 1880s, 

the site evolved into a small gold-mining 

community, with up to 100 residents trying 

to scratch a living from the gold-bearing 

gravel bars of the Rogue River. The ranch 

structures remaining today represent the 

center of the old community of Marial. The 

ranch hosted a trading post with lodging in 

the second story, a blacksmith’s shop, and 

numerous outbuildings that filled the early 

residents’ social and commercial needs.

The Ranch is open from May through 

October.

Rogue River Ranch/Billing’s Ranch, c. 1915 

Facilities

There are primitive camping areas and 

toilets on the river near the mouth of Mule 

Creek. Camping is allowed at the ranch; 
please coordinate with the caretakers. There 

is a public toilet, small parking area, and 

drinking water at the ranch. The drinking 

water is available at one outside spigot near 

the caretaker’s house.

A no fee campground, Tucker Flat, is 

0.1 mile down the road, northwest, from 

the ranch. Tucker Flat has six primitve 

campsites, toilets, and a trailhead into the 

Rogue Wilderness. Water is available from 

Mule Creek, water purification is advised.

Rogue River Ranch 2003 

Access

The ranch can be accessed by boating, 

hiking, or driving. The ranch is 22 river 

miles and 23 trail miles from Grave Creek. 

The drive to the ranch is 37 miles from 

Grave Creek. Most people take two days to 

float, three days to hike, and two hours to 

drive to the ranch. See the directions and 

the map in this booklet. If you drive, be 

prepared with a full tank of gas and plenty 

of food and water. There are no gas stations 

or services along the route. Drive with care 

as the roads are narrow and winding.
  

  

Directions to the 

Ranch

From Glendale 

0 miles  Exit 80 on I-5; go southwest to 

Glendale.

3 miles  In Glendale, turn right on Douglas 

County Road #27/Reuben Road. Cross 

bridge and turn left past lumber mill.

8 miles  Road junction; Douglas County 

Road #321.

16 miles At Riffle Creek junction; go left 

on paved BLM Road #32-7-19.3; follow 

signs to Marial.

24 miles  Junction with BLM Road 32-8-31; 

turn right and follow paved road.

29 miles  Road junction with BLM Road # 

32-8-9.2 on right; go left and continue 

on 32-8-31.

30 miles  Junction, turn left on BLM Road 

#32-9-14.2.

33 miles  Marble Gap junction; continue 

ahead, pavement ends.

36 miles  Fourmile Saddle junction; keep 

left and stay on 32-9-14.2.

45 miles  Rogue River Ranch/Marial/Mule 

Creek.

From Galice 

0 miles  From town of Galice head north on 

Galice Road.

8 miles  Cross Grave Creek Bridge and stay 

left on BLM Road #34-8-1.  This route 

is the “Grave Creek to Marial Byway”, 

follow byway signs to the Ranch.

13 miles Junction with Whisky Creek Road 

# 33-8-26; stay right on BLM Road 34-8-
  

1, pavement ends; narrow road, watchout 

for other vehicles and log trucks!

16 miles At junction with BLM Road #33-

8-13; stay left and continue on 34-8-1.

24 miles  Junction with BLM Road # 32-8-

31; go left and continue on paved road.

29 miles  Road junction with BLM road # 

32-8-9.2 on right; keep left and continue 

on 32-8-31.

30 miles  Junction, turn left on BLM Road 

#32-9-14.2

33 miles  Marble Gap junction; continue 

ahead, pavement ends.

36 miles  Fourmile Saddle junction; go left 

and stay on 32-9-14.2.

45 miles  Rogue River Ranch/Marial/Mule 

Creek.

Native Americans
 Archeological excavations have shown that 

Native Americans used the Marial area for 

over 9,000 years. Takelma speaking people 

represented an ancient people of the Rogue 

Valley, while Athabascan speaking people 

were relatively new immigrants to the area. 

Although languages differed, there was a 

common way of life shared by those living 

along the Rogue at Marial, a way of life 

based on hunting, fishing, and gathering.

Major food sources were fish, deer, acorns, 

and camas. Marial was likely a permanent 

village towards the end of native occupation, 

unlike more ancient occupations, which 

were probably seasonal camps, used from 

time to time by local people.

The native way of life along the Rogue 

came to an abrupt end in the 1850s. Despite 
efforts at treaty-making and after a bloody 

war, the surviving native people were 

removed to reservations in northern Oregon 

in 1856. During the ensuing years, however, 

a native presence was still expressed at 

Marial. Adeline Billings, wife of one of the 

first Euro-American settlers of Marial, was 

a Karuk Indian from northern California. 

Her childhood along the Klamath River to 

the south gave her many traditions which 

found a familiar home along the Rogue. 

Over the years members of the Cow Creek 

Band of the Umqua Indians, survivors of the 

nineteenth century wars, continued to cross 

the divide from the north to come hunt and 

fish at Marial.

Settlers and Gold 

Miners

In 1868, John and Adeline Billings settled 

near Agness with their first three children. 

They moved up river twice in the following 

years and had seven more children, making 

their final home at Big Meadows above 

Mule Creek in 1892.

In the early 

1880s, 

the Marks 

Brothers 

Mining and 

Milling 

Company 

operated a 

sawmill  Flume and trestle over the East 

and flume  Fork of Mule Creek c. 1910 

system on the East Fork of Mule Creek, 

which is where John and his sons worked. 
In 1887, Tom Billings, John and Adeline’s 

second son, filed an official homestead 

claim at the mouth of Mule Creek. One year 

later, Tom transferred the claim to his older 

brother, George. In 1894, Tom and his wife 

Anna had their first child, a daughter named 

Marial. The growing settlement at Mule 

Creek was named after Marial Billings.

In 1898, 

George, 

wife, 

Sarah 

Ann, and 

3-year 

old, Ivin 

Billings, 

settled 

near the

Mouth 

Crowin children next to hydraulic giant drive 

at a placer mine at Mule Creek, early 1900s 

of Mule Creek. By 1903, they had 

finished building a 2-story main house and 

established a trading post and boarding 

house for travelers.

About 1907, the Red River Mining and 

Milling Company bought Marks Brother’s 

East Fork of Mule Creek sawmill, flume 

system, and claim and George Billing’s 

claim on the west side of Mule Creek, 

Douglas Bar. A two-story house and assay 

office were then built at Douglas Bar with 

up to 5 hydraulic giants mining the Bar.  

In 1908, George and Sarah Ann built a barn, 

now known as the “tabernacle,” to stable 

horses and mules. By 1912, the Red River 

Mining Company was not successful enough 

so they folded. George Billings reacquired 

the original claim as an agricultural 

homestead. In 1916, George and Sarah Ann 


established a post office at Billings’ Trading 

Post.

Between those bustling years of 1903 and 

1929, the Billings Trading Company grew 

to become the center of social life for 75 

to 100 residents of the Mule Creek/Marial 

area. Settlers came by foot from as far away 

as Bald Ridge and Paradise Bar to attend 

dances and church services. The boarding 

house attracted miners, travelers, and an 

occasional roguish character in need of a 

hideout.

In 1931, George Billings sold his 70-acre 

ranch to Stanley Anderson for $5,000.  

The Anderson’s later purchased 130 acres 

across the river from the ranch. In the years 

following, the Anderson family added a 

caretaker’s house, bunkhouse, tackhouse, 

woodshed, storage shed, expanded the main 

house, and fixed up the chicken shed and 

blacksmith shop. They tore down most of 

the buildings at Douglas Bar and in 1956, 

they painted the main house red.

In 1970, the Anderson’s sold the entire 

complex (199.95 acres) to the U.S. 

Government under the National Wild and 

Scenic Rivers program. At present, the 

Bureau of Land Management maintains this 

National Historic Site and keeps an onsite museum open for public viewing. The 

Billing’s original main house serves as a 

museum with displays on Native Americans, 

the mining and farming era of the late 1800s 

and early 1900s, and the Anderson era of 

the 1930s through 1970. All are welcome to 

visit the ranch from May to October.
Three generations of Billings, John and 

Adeline, Sarah Huntley and George and 

their children: Ivin, Evered, and Alpine, 

worked and lived at Marial. Ivin Billings 

grew-up at Marial and shortly before his 

death in 1977, Ivin was interviewed and 

gladly shared his knowledge and feelings 

about life in the Rogue River Canyon. Ivin’s 

reflections are in italics on the following 

pages.

Main House

The main door was always facing the 

creek.  There was no fireplace; just a wood 

heater in the living room. Original door 

knobs, windows, and such were just good 

hardware. The ornate ones were put in later. 

All glass for windows was packed over 

from West Fork 

by horse -- came 

from Portland.  

Window frames 

were handmade.  

Furniture, chairs, 

sofas, rockers, 

was all handmade 

by Father. He was 

quite a carpenter.

Main House/Museum 2003 

From the time they moved on the place they 

start taking in boarders. Sometimes  there’d 

be 15 or 20 ‘fore night . . . they’s just come 

in on you . . .  just keep food on hand. Meals 

were 75 cents a day, a dollar with their 

bed.  Breakfast, we had eggs all kinds of 

vegetables from the garden, always all kinds 

of fruit. Made bacon out of bear, makes the 

finest bacon, hang it up and smoke it, slice 

right up, cook it in a pot of beans. Fish -- oh, 

those lovely salmon. Salt down about 2 ten 
gallon whiskey kegs full, three or four gunny 

sacks full of fish caught with a willow pole, 

hook and line -- all I ever used was a fly. 

Main house, boarding house, trading post, 

post office, call it what you will ... lumber 

for the house was all made by hand. Used 

ponderosa pine growing out on the flat, 

where the three apple trees are now -

- between the two pastures. Had 5 saws 

going at one time .... 10 men. Whipsawed it 

right here. The siding was shaved off with 

drawing knife and planed smooth to 1/4.  All 

work was by hand. The outside was built in 

a couple of years, but the inside took 6 or 7.

Maxine and Mrs. 

Corwin, Ivin Billings and Bill Corwin showing their 

catch at the Red 

River Mining and 

Milling Company, 

c. 1918 

Barn

Had a pet goat, 

couple of varmint 

dogs --

they’d tree bear, 

cougar, anything 

that come around. 

We had cats -- cats 

in the barn. 

Barn 2003 Only raised hogs 

one time. Mean! You can’t fence them out, 

you can’t let them run and there were a lot 

of wild hogs here. I’m more afraid of a hog 

than I am a bear. 
Tackhouse1990s 

This was all open country back then. The 

Indians used to burn about every two or 

three years. Burn off the brush, keep the 

berries coming, and the hazelnuts and the 

acorn, growing healthy. Game was so much 

fatter than they are now.

Tackhouse

Lost some 

horses on the 

winter range. 

Sometimes we’d 

get a severe 

winter and a lot 

of snow. We’d 

have to ski grain 

on our backs over 

the mountain. We’d chop down tan oak trees 

for the roughage and give them the grain to 

get through the hard spells.

Blacksmith Shop

In the 

wintertime, you 

would spend 

time working on 

equipment.  Dad 

was always busy 

making lash 

rope cinches 

and hooks. He did 

all the leather work, made his own pack 

saddles.

Blacksmith Shop 2003 

Tabernacle

We called it the storage shed.  For years we 

held dances upstairs. When father opened 

up Sunday morning services, we didn’t have 
Tabernacle 2003 

dances 

there any 

more. He 

really 

preached a 

very good 

sermon.

Gold Mining

I used to go down the bank near the ranch 

and get spending money. Anything smaller 

than what you could pick out with your 

fingers - wasn’t bothered with. Every spring 

after the creek lowers you get  $40 to $50. 

Gold is always, always trying to work down, 

down in every little niche and crevice.

Some became rich, yet most died poor. But 

more than the haunting of gold, it was the 

spell of adventure, the enchantment of the 

rugged canyon walls and wild river that 

clutched the souls of these early pioneers.

First was ground sluicing. Panning isn‘t 

good for anything, just for prospecting, find 

out where the gold is. Hard work, doesn’t 

go very fast. Gravel has to be worth 5 or 10 

dollars a yard. Rocker came next . . . you 

could handle 10 times as much as you could 

with a pan, I’ve done quite a bit of it. Made 

a living mining for several years here. 

Trapping

Mink, otter, marten, raccoon, fox, lynx cat, 

bobcat. I did it several winters during the 
teens. Grandfather would sell hides -- here 

were plenty of hide buyers. The mails were 

full of price lists every fall. 

From A Diary

The building was two stories high, 

upstairs was one large room packed full of 

beds. Bed sheets suspended from the ceiling 

by wires separated some beds from others. 

The owners and travelers, including women 

all slept in this room. Beds were mainly piles 

of gunny sacks and old unwashed blankets 

held up by a network of rawhide thongs 

across the underside of a frame. I never 

undressed here, slept in my long underwear . 

. . with my jacket for a pillow.  

When the place was full at night 

it was a nightmare. There was almost 

continuous coughing, snoring, grinding of 

teeth, talking in sleep, urinating in a can 

or out the window, and other night noises. 

There always seemed to be someone walking 

around the room or to the window or 

stairway, which shook the floor and building. 

Sound sleep for any length of time was 

impossible.

On one trip I arrived in the evening 

after walking all day over the trail and sat 

down, as the only guest, to a supper of cold 

boiled squash, stale bread and poor coffee. 

These people were poor, had no regular 

income. They gave the traveler the same 

accommodations they were used to. Their 

living came from the country. Their meat 

when they had any, came from the hills as 

venison, and their fish from the nearby river. 

In the fall they went on an animal hunt to the 

old Indian hunting grounds for deer and bear 

meat and huckleberries, which they dried for 

winter. They were used to this kind of living, 

which we now call poverty, but it was rough 

on many of the soft outsiders who ventured 

into their country.

Haeffner - Oregon Historical Quarterly
- 

For More Information

   Bureau of Land Management

Medford District
 

3040 Biddle Road
 

Medford, Oregon  97504
 

541/618-2200
 

www.or.blm.gov/Medford
 

Smullin Visitor Center at Rand

14335 Galice Road

Merlin, Oregon  97532

541/479-3735

May 15 - October 15

www.or.blm.gos/Rogueriver

Other Helpful 

Brochures 

Books about the Rogue River

Grave Creek to Marial National Back 

Country Byway

Rogue River Float Guide

Rogue River Trail  Grave Creek to Illahe

Shuttle Map

Bibliography 

Illahe, by Kay Atwood, 1978

Quotes by Ivin Billings, 1976

BLM Collection

This brochure was paid for with fee demo dollars. 

Please Recycle 

BLM/OR/WA/GI-04/038+4800