91ÊÓƵ

They were sound asleep, those five, tired miners.  They had fished their dinner from the banks of a stream where they had set up camp for the night.  Bellies full of fresh pan-fried fish, muscles tired, eyelids heavily closed, they lay in a circle around the campfire.  The smoke stained their already dirty faces.  It had been a hard day.  It was the fall of 1862.

Suddenly, the quiet night exploded with the sounds of rifles.  The miners awoke to find bullets and arrows raining down upon them.  One of the miners was immediately killed. The other four were wounded and tried to escape.  A couple of the men made their way to the creek and walked in it for almost a mile before one of them could go no further and was only able to crawl to a nearby clump of bushes, where he died.  The other man made his way to safety, but his wounds were so bad that he died the next day.

The other two men, who were younger, washed and cared for their wounds as they traveled east to Canyon Creek, hiking over rough country, avoiding the road just in case the Indians might find them.  Both men finally reached a mining camp and recovered.

Fall turned to spring, then to summer.  A group of immigrants made camp near the same spot where the five miners had been attacked.  While two young girls were playing, they found a gold watch. Later, the group found a skeleton.  Most likely, it was the miner that was killed first.

The serene, flowing water became known as Murderers Creek.

The creek is located in the Phillip W. Schneider Wildlife Area, formerly known as Murderers Creek Wildlife Area.  (Good call from whoever changed the name…)  All throughout the year there is excellent viewing of birds and in the fall many hunters seek out the deer and elk.  During the winter and early spring the bighorn sheep can be seen grazing.

Habitat improvements need to be made to the Murderers Creek area, and a contractor is needed to remove juniper trees from approximately 600 acres in early spring 2010 through June 2011.  Juniper trees have significantly degraded the mule deer winter range habitat.  Mule deer are one of the primary big game species in East Oregon and have high social, economic, aesthetic and hunting values that are important to the economy of rural communities.

Cutting down the junipers sounds like really hard work.  I wonder if the contractor will take time to cool off in Murderers Creek?