Marshall and Sarah Dean holding a grandchild. The Deans homesteaded a piece that included today's Farewell Bend State Park near Huntington. (Submitted photograph).

By TY GONROWSKI

Of the Baker City Herald

Farewell Bend has always been impotant in this region’s history.

It has been a spot for fur trappers to regroup before heading to a rendezvous or to trap elsewhere.

It has been a resting place for weary travelers on the Oregon Trail.

It has been a homestead site.

And now, it’s a state park near the town of Huntington.

Although Huntington has been populated since brothers of the same name bought out the Miller stage station in 1882, and a post office was on the Farewell Bend site in 1867, the land where the state park currently is had never been homesteaded.

That is until 1920 when Marshall and Sarah Dean acquired 157 acres through President Woodrow Wilson’s Homestead Act and added 480 more acres at the Farewell Bend site in 1922.

andquot;Our grandparents were the first people to homestead there and work the land,andquot; said Kara Jo Willits of North Powder.

The Deans moved from Bear Lake County, in Idaho, which borders Utah and Wyoming, in the early 1920s looking for greener pastures in Oregon.

And that’s exactly what they found.

andquot;From the mountains you look down and see the river and all that green there,andquot; said Betty Bubrig, a New Orleans resident and grandaughter of the Deans. andquot;After all these barren lands they traveled, they saw this valley.andquot;

This weekend, descendants of those original homesteaders will once again inhabit the land on the banks of the Snake River as they gather for a family reunion at Farewell Bend State Park on the exact site where the homestead used to be.

Bubrig said they expect over 100 people from four generations to show up to a place where their ancestors used to run horses for the Caldwell, Idaho-based cavalry.

They will all return to a very historic location.

Farewell Bend was named, according to andquot;Oregon Geographic Names,andquot; in the days of the Oregon Trail when the site was the last glimpse that pioneers had of the Snake River, which they followed through much of what is now Idaho.

The immigrants didn’t happen upon the spot by chance, though, it was the fur traders who guided them through the mountains to Oregon that brought them to Farewell Bend.

andquot;They brought (the wagon trains) to places like Farewell Bend because they knew they could find what they need there,andquot; said Randy Smith of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, which manages the state park site at Farewell Bend.

The trappers were familiar with Farewell Bend, Smith said, because it was used before the Oregon Trail as a place to rest and leave from when trapping in other areas.

Smith said the location was a chance for immigrants to stop before a tough stretch of travel.

andquot;Animals and people were completely exhausted at this point and they were now entering the hardest part of their journey,andquot; he said. andquot;There were probably some pretty serious conversations going on at Farewell Bend.andquot;

Smith explained that the conversations probably dealt with what was to come and how to handle that.

The location was also a gateway for cattle ranchers moving livestock elsewhere.

andquot;People like Pete French who had 191,700-some acres of land, would have been running cattle through there,andquot; Smith said.

Today, Farewell Bend State Park sits where the Marshalls once ran horses and where pioneers and fur trappers once rested.

The park is equipped with a number of camp sites, both tent and electric; two cabins; along with teepees and wagons that can be camped in.

Sites can be reserved by calling the state parks reservation number at 1-800-452-5687. The day use fee is $3 while a tent space runs $15 until October 1 when it drops to $11. Teepees and wagons cost $29 per site.

Farewell Bend State Park also sits on Brownlee Reservoir on the Snake River, so it is a prime fishing, boating and water skiing spot. Basketball hoops, a sand volleyball court and horseshoe pits are also avaliable on site.

It’s also a favorite spot of many to do what the pioneers once did there on their arduous journey: sit, talk and relax, exactly what the Dean clan will be doing this weekend.