A review of a local street map is like walking through the pages of Sisters history, with names like Edgington, Fryrear, Barclay, and Camp Polk, enshrining people and places that played a role in the establishment and growth of Sisters.
Throughout Deschutes County are“market roads,” named after the family who lived on the road. The roads made it possible for ranchers, farmers, fishermen, and lumber companies to get their goods to markets.
Driving north of town on North Locust Street, by the Sisters Eagle Airport, it becomes Camp Polk Road, named after the early Camp Polk army post that was established in 1865, five miles northeast of present day Sisters, only to be abandoned the next year.
Samuel Hindman settled near the post in 1870 and established the first post office in the area. Today, Camp Polk Meadow is a 151-acre preserve of the Deschutes Land Trust. On the hill above the meadow is the Camp Polk Cemetery, where lie the remains of many early Sisters families, some of whom have roads named after them.
One of those families is the Fryrears for whom a road southeast of Sisters, running between Highways 20 and 126, is named. John B. and Elizabeth Fryrear came from the Willamette Valley and filed a claim in 1883 on 160 acres of land on Squaw (now Whychus) Creek east of Camp Polk where their family lived for many years.
The Fryrears both contributed to their community, Elizabeth as a midwife helping deliver many Sisters area babies. They had three sons and one daughter. John B. died in 1919 and was buried in the Camp Polk Cemetery. Elizabeth lived her later years in Sisters, where she was cared for by Kate Rockwell, better known as Klondike Kate. When Elizabeth died in 1926 she was laid to rest next to her husband in Camp Polk Cemetery.
The John Wilt family arrived in Sisters on October 15, 1885, having left Kansas in May of that year. They originally intended to go all the way to Coos Bay, but when they reached Squaw (Whychus) Creek, the McKenzie and Santiam roads were already closed by heavy snow, so they settled on land that is now part of Pole Creek Ranch off Highway 242.
Ranchers in those days raised oats, wheat, and barley for hay which was cut with a scythe; nobody owned mowing machines. The grain was threshed by a horse-powered threshing machine owned by J. B. Fryrear. It took eight men to operate and could thresh about 1,500 bushels in 10 hours.
John Wilt delivered hay, grain, and groceries to the crew grading the railroad being built by Col. T. E. Hogg northwest of Sisters. It was never completed, but the grade can be seen above Highway 20 at Hogg Rock.
Wilt Road takes off of Camp Polk Road north of Sisters and runs up the hill and out onto the grasslands where it joins Squaw Flats Road near the abandoned towns of Grandview and Geneva on the way to Lake Billy Chinook.
Many other Sisters roads and streets bear the names of earlier residents, including Harrington Loop, George Cyrus Road, and Gist Road.
The main street through Sisters (Highway 20) is Cascade Avenue named for the mountain range, with streets north and south of Cascade bearing the names of mountain peaks in the Cascades. The cross streets are all named after trees — from Locust to Pine.
Comments