Colonel Joseph S. Ruckle (or Ruckel) was a businessman who moved to

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

in 1855. In Oregon, he captained Van Bergen's

Oregon Steam Navigation Company The Oregon Steam Navigation Company (O.S.N.) was an American company incorporated in 1860 in Washington with partners J. S. Ruckle, Henry Olmstead, and J. O. Van Bergen. It was incorporated in Washington because of a lack of corporate laws in ...

steamship named the ''Fashion'' on the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

. He then built his own boat, the ''Mountain Buck'', and then a railroad portage. The rail portage, which was the

Oregon Portage Railroad The Oregon Portage Railroad was the first railroad in the U.S. state of Oregon. It originally ran for , with an accompanying of telegraph line, and was later extended to a length of . The railroad was located on the south bank of the Cascades ca ...

, was around the Cascades on the Columbia, and was the first railroad in Oregon. Ruckle was elected state senator in 1858 over Clackamas and

Wasco Wasco is the name of four places in the United States: Places United States * Wasco, California, a city in California ** Wasco State Prison, located in Wasco, California * Wasco, Illinois, a former hamlet (unincorporated town) in Illinois, now pa ...

counties. A Democrat, he represented District 2, but as Oregon had not yet entered the Union, there was no official session in 1858. He only served during the 1859 special session, the first meeting of the state legislature. In 1864 and 1865, he and George Thomas built the

Thomas and Ruckle Road The Thomas and Ruckle Road, also known as Ruckles Road or Ruckels Road, was a wagon road over the Blue Mountains. George Thomas was a stagecoach driver who came west to California in 1849, before moving to Walla Walla. Colonel J. S. Ruckle arriv ...

over the Blue Mountains. He also developed a quartz mine near Powder River that became known as the Virtue Mine.

References

External links

History of Ruckel and the Oregon Portage
at

RootsWeb.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. In November 2018, t ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruckle, Joseph S. People from Clackamas County, Oregon Businesspeople from Oregon Oregon state senators Year of death missing Year of birth missing