In 1883, Ottilie Parker and her sister at Parkersburg, Ore., on the lower Coquille River were invited to a wedding in Gold Beach, about 60 miles south. They accompanied Mary Windsor, who was older and the bride’s future aunt.
Riding on the tugboat of the girls’ father, they reached Bandon and traveled by horseback with a mailman about half way to Port Orford, spending the night at a farm. Following the trail to Port Orford, about 15 miles away, the mailman and his three charges became soaked from heavy rain and fording swollen streams.
At Port Orford’s Knapp Hotel, they received dry clothes, supper, and beds. The girls stayed another night, then continued with a different mailman, riding on the beach, climbing rocky headlands and crossing swollen Brushes Creek. The fourth night was spent at Euchre Creek with Mr. and Mrs. Woodruff.
After riding horseback for seven miles on the beach and over some bluffs, they reached the home of the Doyles. They took a small boat across the Rogue River to the Gauntlett home in Gold Beach, then known as Ellensburg, and attended the wedding of Ida Gauntlett to Charles Lockwood on April 19, 1883.
Source: Parker Kronenburg, Otillie. Curry County Echoes; originally published in Bandon Western World June 1988.
