Documented folklore from the Club 49 map, told straight and sourced.
In 1938 an archaeologist digging a small cave in the wall of a wave-cut volcanic ring on the Oregon high desert pulled out dozens of sandals woven from sagebrush bark. Radiocarbon later put them at about 9,300-10,500 years old, making them the oldest directly dated footwear ever found anywhere in the world, and they are flat-out beautiful work: twined, sized, some clearly repaired. The cave sits in Fort Rock itself, a tuff ring blasted up through the bed of a Pleistocene lake, and the lake is why there is a wave-cut notch a hundred feet above a desert that now gets nine inches of rain a year. PUBLIC: Fort Rock State Natural Area is open and free; the CAVE is a separate site with guided tours only, seasonal, booked through the state park.
Fort Rock, Lake County (Oregon). Source: The oldest dated footwear on Earth, from a cave 70 miles south of Bend. The Club 49 map pins this legend at its documented country, beside the real mines, active claims, land status and modeled honey holes of the same ground. Open the free map and go stand in the story.
See every spot on the free map →