For thousands of years, the Tututni people lived here, and their tribe stretched over the south Oregon Coast and lower Rogue River.

First European visitors

In 1792, George Vancouver, one of the first Europeans to come into contact with these natives, described them as being curious, mild, and peaceable.

However, in 1850, the US Congress passed the Oregon Donation Land Act. This Act allowed white settlers to file claims on Indian land in Western Oregon although no Indians Nations had signed a single treaty.

Battle Rock Park

Cool & Unusual

Lifeboat Station

Cape Blanco Lighthouse

Hughes House

Captain Wm Tichenor

So when Capt. William Tichenor of the Steamship Sea Gull arrived in 1851 with muskets and cannons to estßablish a European settlement right in their village, the Tututni's Qua-to-mah band reacted with hostility to the newcomers, whom they felt were encroaching on their territory.

This resulted in deadly conflict between the two cultures.

Tichenor, needing to return to north for supplies, left a group of nine men behind. Taking up a position on a nearby seastack now known as Battle Rock, Tichnor’s men were attacked by a band of over 100 warriors. 23 natives were killed and two of Tichenor's men were wounded.

Soon afterwards a truce was called when the settlers told the natives that they would be leaving in 14 days. For the next two weeks, they did not see any members of the local tribes. However, after the 14th day, an even larger band of warriors attacked, when the chief of the tribe was killed. Retreating with their dead chief, the tribe set up camp nearby. The settlers soon fled north under cover of darkness to Umpqua City.

In July, Capt.Tichenor returned with a well-armed party of 70 men and established the settlement now called Port Orford.

In the early 1850s, trappers, miners, and farmers infiltrated the entire length of the Rogue River, and their plows and livestock destroyed the grass seeds, acorns, camas, and other food sources important to the native people. Mining depleted trout and salmon.

The tension this caused mounted and broke into attacks all up and down the Rogue River by both whites and natives, culminating in the 1855-56 Rogue Rivers wars. The last resistors, Chief "John" and his band, as had been done across the continent, US troops forced-marched the natives 125 miles up the coast to the reservation.

Founded in 1856

Port Orford was formally founded in 1856. It would serve as a receiving port for mercantile and fishing. The port district was formally set up over 50 years later in 1911. It was during this time that Port Orford would become a shipping port for local Port Orford cedar.

The port was sold in 1935. However, in 1957, a little over a hundred years since the founding of the cty, the port was bought back. Eventually, Port Orford would see a decline in fishing and the shipping of timber would cease.

In October 1941 then-mayor Gilbert Gable, frustrated with the poor condition of the state roads around Port Orford, which hampered economic development, suggested that a number of counties along the Oregon and California state border should secede and create the State of Jefferson. This movement came to an end with US involvement in World War II.

Today

Today, Port Orford is a small, working fishing town with an active arts community - with a serious resistance to the gentrification many small towns are experiencing and a real dislike of homogenized strip malls and franchise businesses.

People here are independent, iconoclastic and protective of the area’s untamed charms. Much of the city and its many organizations is managed by hard-working volunteers.

You can visit interesting sites from Port Orford’s past, and looking at the many unspoiled views, or exporing the natural, undeveloped areas, it’s easy to imagine being one of those people from our history.