Klamath County, Oregon

Kl Rural and ready K lamath County, Oregon is a large ru- ral county in the southern part of the state with a population of 67,000. It was named after the Klamath, the tribe of Native Americans living in the area at the time the first European explorers entered the region. Today, about half of the county’s 6,132 square miles are owned by either the state or federal governments, with the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management being the largest land own- ers. The Klamath Basin, which was established on the Lower Klamath Lake in 1908, has the nation’s first waterfowl refuge. Since then, five additional refuges were established within the Basin for the millions of birds that migrate each year along the Pacific flyway. Thus, Klamath County is well-known as a bird-watching paradise, as well as a “wonderful place for anybody who loves the outdoors,” says Mark Gallagher, the County Planning Director. “We have Crater Lake National Park and the Na- tional Forest is a great place for hiking, camping,