The number of whites entering the Rogue River watershed greatly increased after 1846 , when a party of 15 men led by Jesse Applegate developed a southern alternative to the Oregon Trail ; the new trail was used by emigrants headed for the Willamette Valley . Later called the Applegate Trail , it passed through the Rogue and Bear Creek valleys and crossed the Cascade Range between present-day Ashland and south of Upper Klamath Lake . From 90 to 100 wagons and 450 to 500 emigrants used the new trail later in 1846 , passing through Rogue Indian homelands between the headwaters of Bear Creek and the future site of Grants Pass and crossing the Rogue about downstream of it . Despite fears on both sides , violence in the watershed in the 1830s and 1840s was limited ; " Indians seemed interested in speeding whites on their way , and whites were happy to get through the region without being attacked . " In 1847 , the Whitman massacre and the Cayuse War in what became southeastern Washington raised fears among white settlers throughout the region . They formed large volunteer militias to fight Indians . Tensions intensified among whites passing through the Rogue River Valley in 1848 at the start of the California Gold Rush , when hundreds of men from the Oregon Territory passed through the Rogue Valley on their way to the Sacramento River basin . After Indians attacked a group of miners returning along the Rogue in 1850 , former territorial governor Joseph Lane negotiated a peace treaty with Apserkahar , a leader of the Takelma Indians . It promised protection of Indian rights and safe passage through the Rogue Valley for white miners and settlers
Whitman massacre
Whitman massacre
Rogue River Wars