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(, ) is a city in Klamath County, Oregon, United States. Originally called
when George Nurse founded the town in 1867, after the Link River on whose falls this city sits; the name was changed to Klamath Falls in 1892. The population was 19,462 at the 2000 census, with an estimated population of 20,720 in 2006. It is the county seat of Klamath County.
The Klamath Indians and Modoc Indians were the first inhabitants of the area. The Klamath name for this place was
, which referred to the phenomenon of the Link River flowing upstream when the south wind blew hard. Their name for the falls was
The Modoc Tribe's homeland is about south of Klamath Falls, but when they were pushed onto a reservation with their adversaries the Klamath, a rebellion ensued and they hid out in nearby lava beds. This led to the Modoc War of 1872–1873 was a hugely expensive campaign for the US Cavalry, costing an estimated $500,000 – the equivalent over 8 Million in year 2000 dollars. Seventeen Indians and 83 whites were killed.
The Applegate Trail, which passes through the lower Klamath area, was blazed in 1846 from west to east in an attempt to provide a safer route for emigrants on the Oregon Trail.
The Klamath Reclamation Project began in 1906 to drain marshland and move water to allow for agriculture. With the building of the main "A" Canal, water was first made available May 22, 1907. Veterans of World War I and World War II were given homesteading opportunities on the reclaimed land.
During World War II, a Japanese-American internment camp, the Tule Lake War Relocation Center, was located in nearby Newell, California, and a satellite of the Camp White, Oregon, POW camp was located just on the Oregon-California border near the town of Tulelake, California. In May 1945, about east of Klamath Falls, (near Bly, Oregon) a Japanese balloon bomb killed a woman and five children on a church outing. This is said to be the only Japanese-inflicted casualty on the US mainland during the war.
Timber harvesting through the use of railroad was extensive in Klamath County for the first few decades of the 20
century. With the arrival of the Southern Pacific Railway in 1909, Klamath Falls grew quickly from a few hundred to several thousand. Dozens of lumber mills cut fir and pine lumber, and the industry flourished until the late 1980s when the Northern Spotted Owl and other endangered species were driving forces in changing western forest policy.