Upper Ditch

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

From the record

“The Logan/Esterly Upper Ditch is an abandoned, artificial watercourse in the Illinois River Valley of northern California and southern Oregon, United States. Built in 1854 to supply water from the river's East Fork in California to several hydraulic mines in Oregon, it quickly returned a large profit to its investors.”
Wikipedia article Logan/Esterly Upper Ditch, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 69 National Register listings published here for Josephine County · listed in 2001 · category: Structure.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

Address. Historic Channel of Logan-Esterly Upper Ditch, Cave Junction, 97523
When was it listed? October 2001
Category. structure
Also known as. Upper Illinois Valley, Oregon Mining Resources MPS
Census division. Cave Junction
National Register reference number. 01001149 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

134 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 134 fires within 5 miles of Upper Ditch between 1992 and 2020, burning about 168 acres in total. 47 started naturally. 23 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	47
Arson/incendiarism	23
Equipment and vehicle use	22
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	9
Recreation and ceremony	9
Other causes	6
Misuse of fire by a minor	5
Debris and open burning	4
Fireworks	4
Power generation/transmission/distribution	3
Smoking	2

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
8 September 1998	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Grants Pass Unit	HAYSTACK
7 September 2017	Natural	2.0 acres	Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest	CRAZY PEAK
6 September 2003	Natural	under an acre	Grants Pass Unit	4 CORNERS
5 September 2019	Natural	under an acre	Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest	ELDER
5 September 2003	Natural	1.0 acres	Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest	CRAZY PK. # 2
5 September 2003	Natural	under an acre	Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest	CRAZY PK. # 3
5 September 2003	Natural	under an acre	Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest	CRAZY # 1
5 September 2003	Natural	under an acre	Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest	EAST FORK # 1

Every fire recorded in Josephine County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 86 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 86 workings within 5 miles of Upper Ditch: 34 past producers, 22 occurrences, 11 prospects, 11 producers. 11 still produce. What was taken out: Gold, Chromium, Copper, Manganese. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Allen Prospect	Gold, Silver, Lead, Copper	Prospect
Bailey Mine/Waldo Area Placers	Gold, PGE	Past Producer
Cowboy Mine	Copper, Gold, Zinc, Silver, Cobalt, Nickel, Arsenic	Past Producer	1900, 1903
Cowboy Mine	Nickel, Copper, Cobalt	Past Producer	1900, 1916
Daisy	Gold, Copper	Occurrence	Bornite, Chalcopyrite, Gold, Malachite
Deep Gravel Mine	Gold, Iridium, Osmium, Platinum	Producer	1874
Esterley Chrome Mine	Chromium, Iridium, Palladium, Ruthenium, Rhodium, Platinum	Past Producer	Chromite
Esterley Chromite Mine	Chromium, Uranium, PGE	Past Producer
Esterley Placer	Gold, Silver, Platinum, Chromium, Iridium, Ruthenium, Rhodium, Palladium, Osmium	Producer	Stream Placer
Lucky Strike	Gold, Silver, Copper, Lead	Producer	Chalcopyrite, Galena, Pyrite

Every working recorded in Josephine County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Cameron Mine	1.5 miles	2001
Osgood Ditch	1.7 miles	2001
Allen Gulch Townsite	1.9 miles	2001
Allen Gulch Mill	2.1 miles	2001
Allen Gulch Townsite	2.2 miles	2001
High Gravel Mine	2.2 miles	2001

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 01001149 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Josephine County	All 69 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.