Remembering Douglas Card and Eugene Skinner's journey home

The story is he went up on top the butte that eventually has his name and he looked around he saw how if you look all the way around you're surrounded by a circle of hills and he said this makes me feel like i'm down inside of a bird's nest surrounded by these sides but this is just beautiful here and then he supposedly said you know guys this is it this is where i'm staying this is where i want to be and this is good enough for eugene skinner and his family he was looking for the perfect spot and he found it so how come skinner and mary ended up here they were both from new york then they they hadn't been satisfied there they traveled to hennepin county illinois and he in fact had been a cabinet maker and he was a sheriff for a while but life hadn't gone well they'd had two little baby daughters die so they were kind of sad and depressed still looking for utopia and they decided to go out west and so in the spring 1845 they took off in a wagon train to head to california and they had an incredible trip the story we have diaries from that about how they had to lower the wagons down the mountains with ropes and so forth the skinners had almost no money and mary actually picked up extra money during the trip i think it was sewing gloves or shirts or something for the other pioneers and that's how tough life was they made it over the mountains and they made it down you know where sacramento was today sutter's fort and remember this is mexico sutter was swiss but he'd established this colony when the skinners wagon train with bristow and some of their other friends arrived they were immediately taken in by sutter and actually skinner spent that winter working as a carpenter working for sutter by spring they knew they didn't want to stay there an american couldn't own land unless he became a mexican citizen and you know people like skinner aren't about to do that they leave sacramento setters fort heading north mary was pregnant by that time and so bristow and i think dotson was with them and so there was a party they headed north of course you know all by pack and by horse this year that was there was not a wagon road the california trail was nothing but a horse trail they did not come into our side of the valley they didn't come into eugene they continued north and they settled up there in polk county by dallas but skinner still didn't feel he found the perfect spot on earth he and bristow and dotson started talking this still isn't right and so they decided to head back down and they got off the california trail there by monroe crossed a long time river and basically followed river road down into here you can see for example skinner beauties i mean you know what there's something over here they kept going and they got down to pleasant hill and bristow takes this this place down there he loves that and then dotson took something someplace up by the mackenzie or someplace and but skinner still hadn't found his place so they come right back down here and he's looking around at this point we're talking about still the fall of 1846 at that point other than bristow who was batching it out there at pleasant hill by himself the closest other neighbor was up here in corvallis and skinner was both a good businessman he wanted a place he could make money for his family but he also had a big heart and he was very sentimental about nature you know you put it together he had both an emotional vision but as a practical businessman he had it all plotted out he picked the best spot it's right there in the trail great north south east west communication right on the river uh close to the other california trail this would be the best town site this would be the ferry site a perfect view of on top skinner butte so he knew what he was doing when you think of from the very beginning of that cabin there the first settlers around and on to grow into the city that is it's really fantastic he he had a vision of the perfect spot on earth he is going to go clear across north america to find it and he found it