The Ghost Town of Sterlingville, Oregon

Sterlingville thrived then declined, a “boom and bust” gold mining camp. As miners poured in, stores opened. A saloon, bakery, boarding house, and warehouse sprang up almost overnight. This was the real thing--a mining gold town with gambling houses, a dance hall, boarding houses, a livery, a blacksmith shop, saloons, a barbershop, and several streets lined with houses.

By 1933, during the Great Depression, 100 properties were being worked in search of gold, but they gradually wasted away until 1957. Today, Sterlingville is overgrown with trees and brush, with no trace of its former location, except for the cemetery. The cemetery is also known as Sterling Cemetery.

You can read the stories of the people in this cemetery, reflecting the hardships and diseases that took the lives of these early settlers. Typhoid, Diphtheria, and Smallpox killed thousands of people in the 1800s, often wiping out entire families. Scarlet Fever and diphtheria struck children particularly hard. Sterlingville Cemetery charts the progress of these epidemics with headstones marked with children’s names. Some of them are just markers with no name or partial name.

The saddest plot in a cemetery is that of Mary E. Saltmarsh, who died in 1878, aged forty-three, after outliving her ten children. None of them lived past nine years, most dying within their first two years of life. This tragedy unfolded between 1856 and 1878, ending when she died in childbirth. Her tall, white, pointed obelisk gravestone tells the tale of the children's deaths, where the birth and death dates of her ten children are engraved into the white marble.

Another tragedy in Sterlingville befell George Yaudes, a gold prospector from Pennsylvania, and the town’s postmaster. Three small stones in the cemetery are for his children, Albert, Lettle, and Aaron. Sadly, all three died on May 22, 1884, from diphtheria. When the first child died, George went off to buy a casket, but before he returned home, he was told the other two had died. And of an unfortunate coincidence, the mother was Annie Saltmarsh, the sister of Joseph Saltmarsh.

Here are some other random graves within the cemetery.

Sterlingville is not considered a pioneer cemetery because it currently buries people today. This new grave was from October 2023.

If you’re a hiker who enjoys history and beautiful views, the Sterling Mine Ditch Trail system is for you! Though there are 24 miles of trails in this area, a popular segment is the Tunnel Ridge/ Bear Gulch Loop, which incorporates all the best qualities into one five-mile trail, with highlights including the ditch tunnel, flume remnants, panoramic vistas, old-growth trees, spring wildflowers, and a seasonal waterfall. Along Sterling Creek Road, you can spot the tailings and boulders left behind from the hydraulic mining.

If you want to come to the cemetery, it is south of Jacksonville, Oregon. In Jacksonville, take Cady Road to Sterling Creek Road, and at about six and a half miles, the Sterlingville Cemetery will be on your left. If you are coming up from Buncom, Oregon (another Ghost Town nearby), the sign for the cemetery is hard to see, and I did pass it and had to turn around.

If you are into a Ghost Town adventure, there are two other ones close by to Sterlingville. You could say three with Placer, Oregon, but there is nothing to see here. The other two are Buncom and Golden. I have already done a post on Golden Oregon, and here is the link if you want to read about it.

The Ghost Town of Golden, Oregon (crazydsadventures.com)

I will be doing a post on Buncom, Oregon, soon.

Places to Stay:

Wine Country Inn

The Orth House

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