Hike #28 - Chinese Diggings/Beebe Woods Trail, Jacksonville, OR

The Chinese Diggings trail in the Woodlands Forest Park, is rich with history of the Chinese miners that worked in Southwestern Oregon between 1850 and 1900.  This 1/3 mile moderate trail,connects with the Rich Gulch trail to Hill Street and to the Beebe Woods trail and on through to Applegate Street. This is the best place to view old water ditches and mining tailings piled up by teams of Chinese workers. The trail is the most extensively mined site within the Rich Gulch Mining District. There are two trail side exhibits.
Southwestern Oregon mining communities consisted of people from a number of different ethnic groups. Chinese miners represented the largest single ethnic group in the region. Arriving with the first gold discoveries in the early 1850s, the Chinese remained in the area until the 1880s.
http://www.ohs.org/education/oregonhistory/narratives/subtopic.cfm?subtopic_ID=237