Buncom, Oregon: The Mining Camp Where a Chinese Boss Built the Five-Mile Ditch

Buncom, Oregon (also spelled Bunkum, Buncombe, or Buncomville) is a ghost town at the confluence of Sterling Creek and the Little Applegate River in Jackson County, approximately 20 miles southwest of Medford. Gold was discovered on Sterling Creek in the 1850s. Chinese miners were among the earliest workers. The post office operated from 1896 to 1916. Three buildings survive.

01The Sterling Creek Gold District

Gold was discovered on Sterling Creek about four miles upstream from the Little Applegate River in the 1850s. The town of Sterlingville briefly boomed nearby. As the easy placer deposits were worked out by white miners, Chinese miners moved in — a pattern repeated across the West, where Chinese workers profitably reworked claims that white miners had abandoned as insufficiently rich.

Buncom was never a platted or incorporated town. It grew organically as a supply point for surrounding ranches and mining operations. A general store, saloons, and eventually a post office (established 1896) gave the settlement a center.

02Gin Lin: Pioneer of Hydraulic Mining

Gin Lin was not a laborer — he was an entrepreneur. He accumulated his wealth by contracting Chinese work crews to white mining operations, then used that capital to buy his own claims. His purchase of the Bunkum ranch and mining rights in 1864 made him one of the few Chinese miners in Oregon who owned his operation outright.

The five-mile Gin Lin Ditch was a major engineering project. It diverted water from Yale Creek along the southern bank of the Little Applegate River to power hydraulic monitors — high-pressure water cannons that blasted hillsides apart to expose gold-bearing gravel. Gin Lin successfully mined multiple locations in the upper Applegate and lower Rogue valleys. Local legend credits him with founding Buncom to house his Sterling Creek mining crew.

Today, the Gin Lin Mining Trail (Forest Service Trail #917) in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest follows parts of the old ditch and mining works.

03The Minerals

Gold was the primary draw, but the Buncom Mining District (created 1867) also produced cinnabar (mercury ore), chromite, and silver. The district operated through the early twentieth century. By 1918, the gold was depleted and the post office closed.

04A Fabricated Ghost Town

The three buildings that stand at Buncom today are not exactly what they seem. The post office (built 1910) is the only structure on its original site. The cookhouse and bunkhouse were built by the Federal Mining Company in 1926, two miles downstream, for a resumed mining operation on the Little Applegate. Decades later, the buildings were moved upstream to the present Buncom site.

In 1990, Reeve and Lyn Hennion purchased the property and established the Buncom Historical Society to preserve the site. The ghost town is promoted by the Southern Oregon Historical Society.

05What Remains of Buncom Today

Three buildings: the 1910 post office, the relocated cookhouse, and the relocated bunkhouse. The Gin Lin Mining Trail offers a hike through the hydraulic mining landscape. The Southern Oregon Historical Society maintains historical markers at the townsite.