Sunday afternoon, September 25, 2022 I drove over the Rogue River on the Isaac Lee Patterson Bridge into the port of Gold Beach. The weather was nice with perfect visibility that Sunday afternoon as can be seen below.
I found one nice restaurant I felt comfortable in for dinner on the south side of the Rogue River, west of the bridge. It is next to Jerry’s Wilderness Whitewater Boat Tour Gift Shop and Museum.
Rogue River Whitewater Adventure.
I had initially booked the 7 hour, 104 Mile white water round trip, thru the most beautiful section of the Wilderness zone which is only accessible by Hydro Jetboat of the Rogue-Siskiyou National Forest, to the Paradise Lodge.
The lower Rogue River water level was too low to reach the Paradise Lodge in September, so I took the shorter 64 Mile round trip adventure to Agness. (The first cartographer misspelled “Agnes.” So, it has been spelled Agness, ever after. The Pilot of my boat named his daughter Agness!)
The first mail boat was an 18 foot, double-ended craft made of cedar. By 1930, the mail-boat fleet consisted of three 26 foot boats, equipped with 60-horsepower Model A Ford engines and designed to carry 10 passengers. By the 1960s, rudderless Hydro Jetboats powered by 280-horsepower engines, began to replace propeller-driven boats. These Hydro Jetboats can safely negotiate shallow riffles, and the largest could carry nearly 50 passengers. As of 2010, Hydro Jetboats, functioning mainly as excursion craft, still deliver mail between Gold Beach and Agness. (The Rogue River mail boat company is one of only two mail carriers delivering the mail by boat in the United States.)
Click the below photo to view Uncle Jack’s next Oregon’s Coast Road Trip, from his next September, 2022 adventure.
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