Ross McCloud and
Mary Campbell McCloud
Ross McCloud (April 16, 1819 - August 22, 1868) was a California pioneer and early settler in Northern California. Born in Ohio, as a young man McCloud moved to Iowa, where he married Mary Campbell in 1848. He came to California as a Forty-Niner in the early 1850's, but had limited success in the gold fields. His wife took the Oregon Trail and joined him in Northern California in 1853.
Together they operated an early inn in the (now-disappeared) mining settlement of Portuguese Flat, California on the upper Sacramento River. The McClouds purchased the rights of the Lockhart brothers to property at the site now known as Upper Soda Springs in present-day Dunsmuir, California, where (beginning in about 1857), they expanded an early wayside hostel into a more substantial inn.
McCloud was instrumental in improving the roads and trails in Siskiyou County, California, and was twice elected County Surveyor. In 1856, the Shasta Courier published a statement by Ross McCloud in which he advertised completion of his new project: "The new trail by way of the Sacramento river to Yreka is now completed and (mule) trains can now pass without crossing any mountains or having any deep snows to contend with. No molestation from Indians. The undersigned claims this trail to be the best mountain trail in Calif, and asks the public to test its merits and decide for themselves. There is no want of feed for animals on this route. Ross McCloud, Shasta, Cal. Feb, 2, 1856."
By 1860, mule train and later stagecoach traffic between California's Central Valley, Yreka, California and Oregon had increased, and the McClouds (and their business partner Isaac Fry) operated a toll bridge over the Sacramento River at Upper Soda Springs, as well as increasing the size of the inn. In particular, travelers came to enjoy the "soda water" at the Upper Soda Springs site. Ross also built and operated a sawmill near present-day Mt. Shasta, California.
While he is regarded by some as a namesake of the McCloud River and the nearby town of McCloud, California, the original source of the name is a trapper and hunter from the Hudson's Bay Company, Alexander Roderick McLeod. A. R. McLeod and his hunting party spent several weeks trapped by a severe snowstorm near the headwaters of the McCloud River during the winter of 1829-1830. By the 1850's and 1860's, the name of the river took on the spelling "McCloud," perhaps in part because Ross McCloud was a well-known resident in the area, but more likely because "McCloud" was the more conventional spelling of the name. When the town of McCloud, California was organized in the late 1800's, the town took its name from the nearby river.
