Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1912-09-26
DRIVES FROM OREGON To IOWA.
G. A. II. Veteran Makes Long Drive
With Bus.


The following article from the
home paper of the Tidings city editor
tells of a rather remarkable stunt
pulled off this summer:
"A trip with a team of horses
hitched to a heavy bus, from Port
land, Oregon, clear to Iowa, over the
mountains and across the deserts,
seems a prodigious undertaking in
these days of transcontinental flyers.
Even in the romantic days of '49 a
solitary traveller across the long des-
ert waste was unheard Of And yet
d. r. Mckinley, we'll known old
settler of Mitchell county, has made
the journey.
He started out April IA from
Portland with the intention of taking
a few weeks trip around Oregon. At
ter driving up through the northern
part of Oregon and into Washington
he was suddenly taken with the no.
ton of driving across the mountains
home. AS there was nothing to op-
pose such trip and as time was no
particular object, he set out, avoiding
the towns and thickly settled places
and camping out in the big bus. In
the mountains he met with terrible
storms, travelling axledeep in the
snow and following the drifted trails
with difficulty through the heavy
forests. He struck off southwesterly
through Oregon and crossed Idaho,
then followed the southern border of
that state and of Wyoming. After
getting free of the mountains and
foothills, the hot, lonely deserts with
their long, flat wastes of sagebrush
and sand lay before him. Here he
followed the railroad, getting water
at the little stations 40 miles apart
and buying supplies at the occasional
solitary stores far from any settle
ments worthy the name. Farm
houses were as scarce as the towns;
in one instance he plodded along for
three hundred miles without seeing
a sign of house excxept at the rail-
road water tanks. The only people
he met was at long intervals, a bat
tered automobile party of transcon-
tinental tourists. One time, in the
middle of the desert, he came across
an auto stuck fast in a deep ditch,
unable to climb out the other side.
He stopped, unhitched his team and
together they raised the machine up
SO that it could pull out onto the
trail. No sooner had it faded away
into the dust of the desert than an
other machine, coming from another
went into the same rut and
the job had to be done all over. Two
or three times he came upon motor
cyclists, unable to travel in the deep
sand, pushing their machines across
the desert.
Altogether it was a trip that
seems more like a vague nightmare
than a reality. Storms beat the trail
and thickened the roads, the sun
blazed on the horses and sickened
them. Only heavy rain saved the
horses and all from death from water
in a poison creek, which had killed
many travellers and their teams be-
fore. Often a misdirection guided
him off on the wrong trail and he
travelled miles before discovering his
mistake.
When he reached his old home in
Newburg, the horses, worn down by
the fearful expedition, had lost fvie
hundred pounds and he himself was
lean and blackened.
Mr. Mckinley is we'll known
around Mitchell county. He settled
here in the early days, but since the
war has wandered about the coun-
try, returning often to visit his old
home, but always hitting the long
trail again before many years had
passed.