Klamath County Museum Outreach Tour August 8, 2020 with Coordinator Kristen Sonniksen

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Klamath County Museum Outreach Preview

TNT Klamath Falls, Oregon

Klamath County Museum offered this past Saturday an Outreach Tour on August 8, 2020 with Coordinator Kristen Sonniksen. Where a group of 10 to 15 followed along with a tour of the History tour of outdoor murals Downtown Klamath Falls.

Jeff Cornwall in the late 1990's wrote a grant and got $5,000 to start the downtown murals project. Most of the murals were painted between 1999 and 2018. KFDA the Klamath Falls Downtown Association took up the project after that by thinking of murals as being more interactive. Klamath County Museum Coordinator Kristen Sonniksen thinks, "Murals are a great tool of communication and that they can really bring a community together. Not only tell a historical story, but also bring a bit of artistic pizazz to add to our downtown buildings."

Coordinator Kristen Sonniksen of the Klamath County Museum led a walking history tour of outdoor murals in downtown Klamath Falls hosted by Klamath County Museum in Klamath Falls, Oregon. The first mural is a picture of the Klamath Basin Farming from 1873. According to Coordinator Kristen Sonniksen, "cattle ranching was the leading industry for over a 150 years. Especially with 1906 Klamath Falls Irrigation project." Kristen Sonniksen also stated that, "a 180 Thousand acres of farmland previously wouldn't have had access to water and not able to grow crops."

Klamath County Museum Outreach Tour August 8, 2020

Klamath Basin Project (1906) When trapper Peter Skene Ogden first saw the Upper Klamath River Basin in 1826, he observed that “the Country as far as the eye can reach [was] one continued Swamp and Lakes.” Following the end of the Modoc War in 1873, settlers began arriving in the region, eager to raise crops and livestock. The National Reclamation Act, signed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902, made extensive agriculture in the Upper Klamath Basin possible by authorizing the reclamation of swamps and lakes to increase irrigable acreage. In 1906, the newly established Reclamation Service initiated the Klamath Project to drain lakes and wetlands for cultivation.

One of the artist Chris Young did his drawings on the wall by projecting the image onto the wall through a transparency so he could get the outline according the information from a gentlemen and friend of Chris Young who was there at the time and on the tour. Chris Young had other commitments so he was unable to attend the tour.

Klamath County Museum Outreach Tour August 8, 2020 Part Two

Pooles Pelican Theatre was located at 120 S 8th Street. It ran from January 1929 to March of 1961 and during this time Klamath Falls was really booming with a lot of theaters around tow at the time according to Klamath County Museum Coordinator Kristen Sonniksen.

Southern Pacific came into Klamath Falls on May 20, 1909. There were over a 100 people on this train. Celebrations include a circus. Almost the entire town shut down for this according to Klamath County Museum Coordinator Kristen Sonniksen.

James C. Garland of TNT