Grave Creek Bridge sits astride the Old Pacific Highway about 15 miles north of the town of Grants Pass in southern Oregon. The 105-foot-long bridge was built in 1920 and thoroughly restored by the State of Oregon in 2001.
Grave Creek takes its name from a tragic event of the western migration. In 1846 a wagon train following the Applegate Trail, a cutoff from the Oregon Trail, was laboring its way to the top of rugged Sexton Mountain. Just as the wagons cleared the summit, young Martha Leland Crowley passed away from typhoid fever. Her grieving family descended the mountain and buried Martha next to the beautiful creek that wound through the valley below. The creek became known by the ungainly name of Martha Leland Crowley Grave Creek, later shortened to simply Grave Creek.
In 1855, during a period of conflict between the native inhabitants and the encroaching white settlers, a palisaded stockade called Fort Leland was built at the spot. Being on the major emigration route from California to Oregon’s fabled Willamette Valley, the fort grew into a small community called Leland, with a hotel and blacksmith for the convenience of stagecoach travelers. The Applegate Trail eventually morphed into the Pacific Highway, which then became US Highway 99, later to be superseded by Interstate 5. A 5-mile segment of the old highway, from the top of Sexton Mountain across the valley, over the bridge and up to the top of the next ridge north, still exists and makes for a pleasant adventure away from the freeway.
Just north of the Grave Creek Bridge is the Applegate Trail Interpretive Center Museum. It’s well worth visiting to become immersed in the history of the trail, the fort, and the surrounding area.
