Randolph is an

unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to: * Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality * Unincorporated entity, a type of organization * Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...

community in Coos County,

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 ...

, United States, founded as a "

black sand Black sand is sand that is black in color. One type of black sand is a heavy, glossy, partly magnetic mixture of usually fine sands containing minerals such as magnetite, found as part of a placer deposit. Another type of black sand, found on ...

" gold mining boomtown in the 1850s. Although it is considered a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...

because there are no significant structures left at the site, the

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...

classifies Randolph as a

populated place Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

. It is on the north bank the Coquille River about north of Bandon and about 3 miles east of the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

History

The community was established during a brief gold rush in Coos County by a Doctor Foster and a Captain Harris. According to ''History of Southern Oregon'' (1884), they named the place after

John Randolph of Roanoke John Randolph (June 2, 1773May 24, 1833), commonly known as John Randolph of Roanoke,''Roanoke'' refers to Roanoke Plantation in Charlotte County, Virginia, not to the city of the same name. was an American planter, and a politician from Virg ...

, a

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

politician. However, an article published by the

Oregon Historical Society The Oregon Historical Society (OHS) is an organization that encourages and promotes the study and understanding of the history of the Oregon Country, within the broader context of U.S. history. Incorporated in 1898, the Society collects, preser ...

in 1957 suggests two other possibilities: that it was named for

Randolph, Massachusetts "To Say What One Feels" , pushpin_map = , pushpin_label_position = right , pushpin_label = , pushpin_map_caption = Location in Massachusetts , coordinates = , s ...

, or for one of the founders of

Port Orford, Oregon Port Orford (Tolowa: tr’ee-ghi~’- ’an’ ) is a city in Curry County on the southern coast of Oregon, United States. The population was 1,133 at the 2010 census. The city takes its name from George Vancouver's original name for nearby Ca ...

, Randolph Tichenor. The site was first located several miles northwest of its current location, near the confluence of Whisky Run–a small stream–and the ocean. The sands at this location were mined between 1853 and 1855. A legend states that two miners buried a five-gallon can of gold dust under a tree in those days, but when they returned a forest fire had swept through the area, so they were unable to locate the gold, which has never been found. The locale was originally named Whisky Run, and at one time it had the largest population of any gold camp on the coast, even approaching that of

Jacksonville Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the co ...

. Whisky Run was established in close proximity to an existing village of

Coquille people The Coquille ( , sometimes spelled Ko-Kwel) are a Native American people who historically lived in the Coquille River watershed and nearby coast south of Coos Bay. They were signatories of the Oregon Coast Tribes Treaty of 1855 and were subsequ ...

known as the Nasomah tribe. Relations between the large group of miners and the small group of Nasomah grew increasingly tense after a series of sexual assaults on Coquille women and a verbal altercation at the Randolph Ferry over the Coquille River. In 1854, about 40 miners formed an anti-Coquille vigilante group, the Coos County Volunteers. Claiming that the Coquille had committed misdeeds such as riding a horse without permission, the Volunteers attacked the Nasomahs as they slept and killed about 20 of them.

Joel Palmer General Joel Palmer (October 4, 1810 – June 9, 1881) was an American pioneer of the Oregon Territory in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. He was born in Canada, and spent his early years in New York and Pennsylvania before serving ...

, the

Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs The Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs was an official position of the U.S. state of Oregon, and previously of the Oregon Territory, that existed from 1848–1873. Background The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was created in 1824 to regulate ...

, responded to the massacre by persuading the remaining Coquilles to sign a treaty surrendering ownership of their homeland of about in 1855 and agreeing to be transported to the

Coast Indian Reservation The Coast Indian Reservation is a former Indian reservation in the U.S. state of Oregon, established in 1855. It was gradually reduced in size and in the 21st century is known as the present-day Siletz Reservation. History The Coast Reservation wa ...

further north. A somewhat different account of relations between the Nasomah and the miners appears in Verne Bright's "Randolph: Ghost Gold Town of the Oregon Beaches". In this account, some of the mutual antagonism stemmed from a fight in 1851 in which the Nasomah attacked twelve white men traveling along the Coquille River by canoe, killing eight of them. This incident, Bright says, was preceded by two decades during which white sailors and settlers infected many Nasomah and other

Tututni The Tututni tribe is a historic Native American tribe, one of Lower Rogue River Athabascan tribes from southwestern Oregon who signed the 1855 Coast Treaty, and were removed to the Siletz Indian Reservation in Oregon. They traditionally lived a ...

with Old World diseases, usurped their hunting and fishing grounds, and generally treated them with cruel disrespect. After the 1851 fight, "The "Indians pillaged and murdered at intervals during the months that followed, and Randolph's earliest miners worked in the shadow of continued peril." For their part, the miners retaliated by summarily hanging or shooting Indians accused of theft. These acts of violence and related fears culminated in the formation of what Bright refers to as the Randolph Minute Men, who attacked the defiant Nasomah at night, killing sixteen, wounding four, taking "two score women, children, and old men" prisoner, and burning the Nasomah village. Violence continued at a reduced level until the removal of most of the remaining Indians to the Coast Reservation. Whisky Run was later moved to the mouth of the Coquille River, and after the gold rush subsided, it was moved inland to its current location. A trail, originally established by the Coquille people, ran from the original site of Randolph to

Empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...

. Randolph post office opened in 1859 and ran until 1893.

References

External links

Historic image of Randolph SchoolImages of Randolph
from Flickr
Randolph Town Site historic inventory
by Stephen Dow Beckham {{authority control Unincorporated communities in Coos County, Oregon Ghost towns in Oregon Unincorporated communities in Oregon

History

See also

Further reading

References

External links