-bottoms, and
plains; and in the southern portion the grassy valleys of Lost
River and Link River, and of the TJpper Klamath, Lower
Klamath, Modoc, and other smaller lakes. Klamath County is
well watered by Williamson, Sprague, and Lost Rivers, besides
its many lakes. There is also a canal for irrigation purposes,
starting from the head of Link River and running southeasterly
forty miles to Lost River; another taking water out of Klamath
Lake to float logs to a saw-mill twelve miles from the lake; and
a third taking water to a large roller flouring-mill.
Klamath County has been devoted to stock-raising, as it had no means of moving crops. Yet it was wheat raised in this county which took the premium at the National Exposition of 1884, at New Orleans. Both Lake and Klamath Counties raise fine wheat at an elevation of four thousand and five thousand feet, and grow excellent fruit and vegetables.
The water-power of Link River is very inviting, there being a fall of sixty-four feet in a mile and a quarter, the average breadth of the stream being three hundred and ten feet; but only one saw- and one flouring-mill have been erected upon it. I have referred in another place to the peculiar features of the Klamath basin, which make it a wonderland,—namely, Crater Lake, the volcanic deposits, hot springs and cold springs, and rivers that start from nothing and after running some distance disappear.
Klamath County was long under the protection of Fort Klamath, established on the border of the Indian Reservation in 1864. It was the scene in 1872-3 of the Modoc War, and of many bloody battles and massacres, the story of which will long furnish material for the novelist as well as the historian.
Linkville, situated on Link River, which unites the Upper and Lower Klamath Lakes, is the county-seat and metropolis of this district. It has a population of about seven hundred, a handsome court-house, supports a newspaper, a church, and a graded public school, has several factories, and is a resort for health-seekers, who use the hot and cold baths furnished by nature in the immediate vicinity. The town suffered greath’ by fire in September, 1889, but is being rebuilt in an improved style and with many fine structures. Linkville was founded in 1871 by George Nourse, who planted a nursery on the river- bank at the foot of the upper lake, which is still growing there,
