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Bly is an unincorporated community in Klamath County, Oregon, United States. By
highway, it is about 50 miles east of Klamath Falls. As of 2000, the population was 486.
The name Bly comes from the Klamath word p'lai, meaning "up" or "high", referring to
its location up the Sprague River. A post office called Sprague River was established
in the area in 1873, and the name was changed to Bly in 1883. At that time, the
community was near the east end of the Klamath Indian Reservation. The 21st century
community of Sprague River is downstream and west of Bly and Beatty.
Around 1900, Bly had two general stores, two hotels, and a saloon. A history
published in 1905 referred to the surrounding area as the "precinct" or the "valley"
and estimated its total population at 750. The chief products of the valley at that
time included cattle, horses, mules, and a few sheep as well as oats, clover, and hay.
In 1935, the United States Forest Service acquired a 4-acre site in Bly for a
district ranger station to manage the western part of the Fremont National Forest.
The Forest Service paid $625 for the property. The ranger station was built by
Civilian Conservation Corps workers under the supervision of Forest Service district
ranger Perry Smith. The seven original buildings at the Bly Ranger Station were
constructed between 1936 and 1942. A modern administrative headquarters building was
added to the compound in the 1960s. The ranger station compound was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 1981.
Bly is also the site of the only fatalities of World War II in the mainland United
States due to enemy attack. On May 5, 1945, a Japanese balloon bomb exploded as it
was being pulled from the woods by curious picnickers. Killed in the explosion
were: Elsie Mitchell, 26, wife of minister Archie E. Mitchell; Edward Engen, 13;
Richard Patzke, 14; Jay Gifford, 13; Sherman Shoemaker, 11; and Joan Patzke, 13.
Rev. Mitchell heard the explosion and discovered the bodies. Victims were compensated
by the government. A memorial was erected at what today is called the Mitchell
Recreation Area.
In 2002, Bly attracted national attention when Earnest James Ujaama was indicted
and arrested for, in part, conspiring to set up a terrorist training camp on a
ranch near Bly between October and December 1999. The indictment claimed that Ujaama
was a follower of Abu Hamza al-Masri, and had ties to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Ujaama pleaded guilty in 2007 to a single count of providing material support to
the Taliban although the charge of attempting to set up a training camp in Bly was
dropped. Abu Hamza al-Masri was convicted of this and other charges in 2014. In
May 2009, Oussama Kassir was convicted for conspiring to assist in the camp's
creation, based in part on testimony from Ujaama.
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