Trillium
was originally homesteaded in 1869. A wagon road used for constructing the
Sterling Mine Ditch (now a 30-mile hiking trail siystem) was hand-built with ox
carts in 1877. The old ranch house dates from
1902, following a succession of log cabins. The county road was built up the
Little Applegate canyon in 1938 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, providing year-round access for motor
vehicles. During the 1950s into the mid ‘70s, Grandma’s Trout Farm
operated at Trillium, providing guest cabins and riverside camping for clients
coming to fish, hunt, ride horses. Grandma's also operated a trout fishing
school, where people would come to learn the fine arts of tying flies and
casting on flat and moving water. After helping Grandma and her crew for several
summers, Chant Thomas and some friends bought Trillium in
1976, and operated Trillium Trout Farm for three years until an
extended drought ended the fish farm era.
The
following paragraphs on Trillium history are excerpted from The
Trillium Book.
The
original dozen people who gave birth to Trillium in 1976 were well
aware that just the act of establishing an intentional community where
we could share the Land was an act of social activism. The first years
were filled with the awesome tasks of cleaning up the terrible messes
(abandoned vehicles and machinery) we inherited, remodeling and
building cabins, repairing and building water systems, establishing
gardens and planting fruit trees, restoring and operating the trout
hatchery, and getting to know each other. Socially, we were
"adopting" several of the old local ranchers, working to try
and stop construction of the Applegate Dam, and networking with other
fledgling intentional communities.
Several of the original
group helped start Cooperative Forest Workers, where many local people
found employment working together restoring the forests. In 1979, we
started Trillium School, which operated on the land for five years.
Accredited, and publicly funded in its last year, the school peaked at
over twenty students, grades K-9, with a staff of seven. The school
enriched the community in many ways until funding was cut under the
Reagan administration. When the school closed, Trillium donated all
the desks, books, and supplies to Horizon School, which we helped
establish in the nearby Williams Valley.
Also in 1979, we started a
natural food store and gas station in the hamlet of Ruch, 13 miles
down river. Originally operated as a cooperative with several Trillium
residents as employees, the store provided organic food to a large
rural area and a stable supply of gasoline during the uncertainties of
the gas crises. A deli has replaced the gas station and the store
continues as our local supply of organic and natural foods.
We
have a rich history as a cultural and educational center where
thousands have visited for retreats, gatherings and workshops. Healing
arts and environmental awareness have been common themes,
incorporating music and the powerful presence of Nature (so alive
here) to provide individuals with life-changing experiences. Some of
the early events included: Southern Oregon Alternative Schools
Conference, California-Oregon Midwives Conference, Oregon Community
Land Trust Retreat, and a Native Plant Society Herb and Botany
Workshop. For several years the Women's Herbalist Conference drew
hundreds of women to Trillium each June.
Most summers from 1985-2002 we held our Southern Oregon Healing
Gathering (Trillium Festival of the Healing Arts). Celebrations occur
annually on Mayday (Trillium’s birthday) and seasonal holidays.
Several
cottage industries have operated out of Trillium, including Karma
Builders, a construction company, which specialized in salvaging
buildings and recycling the materials. All the buildings at Trillium
were remodeled, restored, or constructed primarily with recycled
materials. Other cottage industries have included a midwife service
and birth center, commercial apiary and bee box construction,
sculpture/ceramic studio, dome-building, pack-making, forest work,
wilderness guide and llama packing, gardening and wild-crafting,
custom clothing, cabinets and musical instruments.
Trillium
has been active in environmental efforts over the years, working
intensively with Headwaters and TELAV (Threatened and Endangered
Little Applegate Valley) to successfully halt several logging and
grazing projects, and a dam once proposed for the Little Applegate
River. We also helped organize the Applegate Occupation Team, which
helped to stop aerial herbicide spraying on federal lands by occupying
the spray sites in 1979-80. Trillium held several three-day workshops
on direct action and nonviolent civil disobedience for people working
on the Bald Mountain Road blockades in the Kalmiopsis in 1983-87.
During the great forest fires of 1987, Trillium gathered together
residents and neighbors, forming a fire crew that worked on a major
fire.
Recent
History into the Present
On New
Years Day 1997, a flood resulting from unusually heavy warm rain
falling on an even more unusually heavy snow-pack caused severe
flooding in the eastern Siskiyous, particularly in the Ashland area.
Here at Trillium, Birch Creek jumped its banks and overflowed the 12
ponds that were designed to slow flood waters. Fortunately, Jackson
County was declared a disaster area and we secured a grant from the
Federal Emergency Management Administration to fund the necessary
repairs.
The
previous autumn, Chant had brought the first university program to
Trillium, as a group of Prescott College (Arizona) students stayed in
the old Trillium School building for a month of studies, including a
week at Crater Lake National Park and another week in the high
Cascades on a llama-packing expedition. Several years earlier, Chant
founded Dakubetede Environmental Education Programs (DEEP) with
academic accreditation through Southern Oregon University and Antioch
University (Seattle).
In the spring of 1997, the first DEEP Ecostery, an 8-week, 17-credit
residential program began in the Trillium School building that Chant
had restored. Those university students, with help from some of
Susanna’s high school students from Medford, provided much work and
enthusiasm for helping Trillium recover from the flood.
Since 1997, Trillium has functioned as a university “wilderness
campus” community with a wide variety of students from all over the
world staying here for various academic DEEP programs, internships,
and residencies under the guidance of Chant and Susanna. Trillium also serves as
host for Birch Creek Arts and Ecology Center, which hosts various events and
programs in the fine and healing arts, and in cultural, ecological, and
spiritual activities.