Bear Creek (Rogue River tributary)
Bear Creek is the name of a stream located entirely within Jackson County, Oregon. The stream drains approximately of the Rogue Valley and discharges an annual average of into the Rogue River. It begins near Emigrant Lake and travels through the municipalities of Ashland, Talent, Phoenix, Medford, and Central Point. History. Prior to the arrival of settlers in the 1850s, the "Bear Creek Valley" was home to three Native American tribes; these were the Takelmas, the Latgawas, and the Shastas. The scattered camps hunted deer and elk, fished for salmon, and consumed plums, sunflowers, and  root crops. When the area was originally settled, the stream was called "Si-ku-ptat" by the natives and may have been known as "Stewart River" by settlers. Various forced migrations occurred during the 1850s in which almost all of the Native American inhabitants were displaced to Indian Reservations by 1857. Farmers and ranchers continued to acquire land claims, and when the Oregon and California Railroad arrived in 1883, Bear Creek was chosen as the route to follow. Geology. The Bear Creek watershed is a curved valley (actually part of the Rogue Valley) averaging about wide and long, covering approximately  . The confluence with the Rogue River is in the northwestern tip of the valley. The highest point in the watershed is on Mount Ashland at an elevation of about . From there at least 83 streams in 21 sub-watersheds share a link with the greater Rogue River Basin. The landscape surrounding the watershed has been carved by tectonic activity leaving steep canyons that are prone to flooding when snow melts in the spring. The slopes are part of the transition zone between volcanic soil and granitic soil covering much of Southern Oregon and Northern California and are prone to significant  periods of erosion and runoff during high-flow periods. Furthermore, the elevation of the watershed at the point of confluence is about , and a significant amount of kinetic energy builds up over the first of drop. Historically, the landscape plays a large part in dispersing this energy but flooding has become a regular problem along the Bear Creek; several earlier bridges in the Rogue Valley have been wiped out during random flood events.