Oregon Plains is the name of a large, barren plain between Vermontville and Bloomingdale, site of the Oregon Plains Road.
Plattsburgh Republican, December 17, 1887
...Rainbow Station, at present consisting of a guide board, two miles from Wardner's at the head of Rainbow Lake, is passed at a distance of three miles from Round Pond, altitude 1,673 feet; three miles across a level uninhabited country reaches Vermontville, at the edge of the prairie where there is no station yet. The first settlers here were from Vermont, hence the name. The broad plain which stretches across the country here, comprising an area of thousands of acres is what is known as "Oregon." It is level and reaches nearly from one branch of the Saranac to the other. It is an easy country to build a railroad through and wherever the surface is cut for ditching or grading it shows white sand, with a very thin scurf of vegetable mould on the surface, on which little grows that is of much value. At no very distant day in the past there must have been a lake here, reaching nearly across from the north to the south branch of the Saranac river. On this plain little attempt at cultivation has been made. The inhabitants say the land is so "frosty" that it is worthless, but it also seems too sandy to ever be of much account, without heavy expense for fertilizers. Along the west border of this prairie rises a range of low hills, and here the land is excellent, the native forest being maple and beech, of which fine groves yet remain, maple sugar being one of the important productions, while the fields and buildings bear indications of good crops.
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