The 1840’s saw emigrants begin to make Oregon – especially the Willamette Valley – a destination of choice.  After a brief struggle, newcomers chose to make Salem the capital of the new Territory instead of Oregon City.  But Salem was definitely an inland choice.  Transportation to the sea was needed to enable easier communication with the rest of the World as opposed to a six-month jaunt across the Rockies.  As the 1850’s rolled on, the best choice of a seaport lay at the mouth of the Columbia River – enter the Astoria to Salem Road, military in purported purpose, but strategic thinking lay at the heart.

IDEA FOR A ROAD GERMINATES

Finally, in 1855, supporters got the US Congress to pitch in some money for a survey and construction of a military road to connect the capital, Salem, to the seaport of Astoria.  In July, Lieutenant George Derby, a member of the acclaimed West Point class of 1846, arrived in Astoria with a survey party and $30,000 for the project. 

Derby had graduated into the Ordinance branch of the army but had switched into the Topographical Engineers shortly after gaining his first assignment.  Promotions being slow, it took him five years until he finally gained his commission as a second lieutenant going on to make first lieutenant in 1855 and eventually captain in 1860.  He had seen action i8n the Mexican War with General Winfield Scott’s force gaining a brevet to first lieutenant for gallantry in action at the Battle of Cerro Gordo 18 April 1847.  During the battle, Derby was shot through the hip.  Ordered home, the wound healed and that fall he was on a survey team which selected a site for Fort Ripley near the confluence of the Crow Wing and Mississippi Rivers.  Following that trip, he returned to Washington where he further developed his drafting skills at the Topographical Bureau.

J. P. SQUIBOB COMES NORTH

In 1849, the Army sent Derby to California where he made several reconnaissance trips through the Central valleys of the new State.  One trip took him from San Francisco through the Gulf of California to the mouth of the Colorado River.  Returning home in the spring of 1852, he was back in California by the end of the year.  After a couple years in San Diego, he found time to get married – an interesting story in itself. Their home in San Diego is part of the Whaley House Museum complex today. 

Derby probably is best known today for his off-duty hobby of writing humor articles for the San Diego Herald under the pseudonym of “John Phoenix Squibob”.  Some of his pieces also gain publishing in the New York Knickerbocker and the San Francisco Pioneer.  A collection of his pieces appeared in book form as Phoenixiana eventually in 1856, becoming a bestseller of its time – the book has undergone forty reprints since that time.  Derby returned to San Francisco in the fall of 1854 spending several months attached to the staff of General John Wool, commander of the Department of the Pacific. With a new year, the young topographical engineering humorist posted north to Astoria.

west point and the northwest

West Pointers were well represented in the Pacific Northwest during the 1850’s.  One of Derby’s classmates and fellow topographical engineers, George Brinton McClellan, left enough of an impression on the humorist-soldier-surveyor that he named his son after his classmate.  McClellan had earlier taken part in a surveying expedition in the Northwest. He led part of the team under command of another West Pointer, Isaac Stevens. Stevens exchanged his military career for a political one as the first Territorial Governor of Washington.  That combination had not gone well both men disagreeing on the possibility of a potential cross-country railroad passing through Washington’s Cascades.

DERBY GIVEN CHARGE

While Congressional delegate Joseph Lane of Oregon pushed hard for the Astoria-Salem Road, Derby also was given the task to investigate possible military roads linking Vancouver Barracks to both Fort Dalles and Fort Steilacoom.  For the Astoria Road, Derby arrived with a $4,000 budget for the purpose of surveying the route through the Coast Range. 

TERMINAL SQUABBLES

After putting in requests for equipment and supplies from Vancouver Barracks, he returned to a squabble among locals regarding the terminal point for the road.  One village – Lexington, today, part of Warrenton – was the rendezvous point for river pilots and loading place for Columbia River steamers. 

The second site, further upstream, was where the customs house was located – next to the Safeway Store on US 30 a few yards to the east of present downtown Astoria.  There was no road between the two villages because of the rugged country lying between the two.  Derby noted that the customs house lay at the end of the easiest pass through the mountains.  To end the road at the other site which served as a larger village with a hundred people would cost $6,000 since it extended the road by two miles.  To connect the villages, Derby estimated a cost of $3,000.  Action on the project with the extra costs became deferred to the Secretary of War Jefferson Davis with the lower village protesting Derby’s conclusions while petitioning the Treasury Department to move the customs house.

THE ACTION BEGINS

By the end of July, Derby organized and sent out a party of eight men with six pack animals to cut a trail from Astoria to the Tualatin Plains.  The plan was to connect there – the settlement of Harper on the middle branch of the Tualatin River – with a country road connecting south to Salem.  This meant that instead of building a road 113 miles long, the money could apply to the first sixty miles.

NO “DRY HUMOR” IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

While that party was out, Derby went upriver – 12 August – to Vancouver to see about the other roads.  New got to him in early October the Coast Range party was back in Astoria, broken down and in foul moods due to the hard conditions they had faced.  A new party set out to survey the last twenty miles, but the rains set in before the survey was half finished.  As Derby himself noted, “there in no such thing as dry humor” in the Northwest.  Another of his quotes was “It rains incessantly twenty-six hours a day for seventeen months a year.”

Returning to San Francisco for the winter, he concluded the final part of the survey should wait until the road was constructed.  The $30,000, Derby thought was sufficient to build the first twenty miles, from Astoria to the Nehalem River.  His plan included a road through the forest cut to a width of 33 feet with a carriage way one half of that. 

He also warned that a road could not – for the money – be considered “by any means an excellent carriage road.  The amount of appropriation would not suffice to make five miles of good road … through this country; and I presume the object of the appropriation is merely to get a road through at small expense, and trust the settlers to improve it at their convenience.”  Total cost for the road according to Derby’s superior in San Francisco, Major Hartman Bache, came out at $2,000 per mile. This meant an additional $96,000 becoming required.  The project continuance bounced back to Washington for a decision.

SEASON TWO

Initial contracts were let out in anticipation of approval, but Jefferson Davis was not happy.  “Not approved.  If contracts cannot be made in accordance with the original instruction (meaning a new road from Astoria to Salem and not Harper), the officer in charge will hire men to execute the work conformably to the design heretofore communicated.”

So, Derby returned in the spring of 1856 and directed work on the road for two months until funding ran out.  Only one bridge and twenty miles of road lay finished.  Derby, relieved of his duties in the early fall with Bache noting on Derby’s annual report to him, “the report leaves nothing wanting in his efforts to carry out the law.”  Back in Washington, Lane requested an additional $55,000 appropriation for the completion of the road, but politics in the mid 1850’s was beginning to get very complicated with party and sectional differences coming to bear.  It was not until January 1857 that the appropriations bill for the road finally passed both Congressional houses.

MONEY PROBLEMS

With Derby gone, his successor, Lieutenant George Henry Mendell – West Point 1852, resumed the work on the road in April 1857.  By September, two teams working from opposite ends created 24 miles on the northern end and 16 miles pushing out from the Tualatin Plains before rains set in with another 16 miles not complete.  Mendell reported the standard of road construction slipped from that advocated by Derby because of the lack of funds available.  He suggested another $30,000 so a “fair” wagon road would result.

The winter of 1857-1858 saw a refocus on where road building should take precedence the following season.  Southern Oregon became the new focus with roads built under the supervision of Colonel Joseph Hooker.  More funding was requested from Congress in the meantime for the completion of the Astoria-Salem Road.  Eventually, with that bill approved, it was not until the spring of 1859 Lieutenant Junius Brutus Wheeler – West Point 1851 – came onto the scene to complete the road.  Again, with two parties working, 33 miles were built over the Green and Saddle mountains of the range with half of the monies remaining at the end of the building season.  Wheeler, at season’s end, gained new orders to report to West Point.  By the beginning of the Civil War, the road was still not open over its entire length for wagons, though a pack horse route did exist.

A WAR INTERVENES

As Oregon became a State in 1859, money for road construction shifted from Washington to Salem.  During the Civil War, no money became available until 1864 by which time other projects became more important.  The federal interest in the military road finally ended in 1876 at the bequest of Oregon senator John Mitchell.  The road was abandoned as a “military road” and the roads as they were, became donated to the counties through which the route ran.

BEYOND GEORGE

A side note for George Derby.  After returning from Oregon, he posted to do lighthouse surveys in the Gulf of Mexico.  Not long after, in 1859, Derby needed a leave of absence because of developing health problems.  Some medical practitioners today note he suffered from a probable brain tumor from the symptoms of and course of his final years, dying insane in New York in 1861. 

His son, George McClellan Derby, emulated his father graduating first in his class of 1878 at West Point.  The son became best known for his exploits in balloon reconnaissance during the Spanish American War in Santiago, Cuba.  Continuing the long grey line in the Derby family, George McClellan’s son, George Townsend Derby, also graduated from West Point in 1927 rising to the rank of colonel – like his father.  The direct West Point line finally broke down with George Townsend’s son, George Kidder Derby, graduating from the Naval Academy in 1951.

A COMPLETE ROAD?

The wagon road as completed ran from Astoria to the Nehalem Crossing near the hamlet of Elsie while the route north from Salem ended near Timber.  No armies ever marched over the route.  The route did serve for pack animals and stock driving.  The country through which it ran is even today very difficult topographically and forest-wise.  Some roads today use some of the original route, but other sections quickly became lost to re-vegetation.  The route over the northern Coast Range would have to wait until the late 1930’s.

ORIGINAL ROUTE TODAY

FROM THE NORTH

The original Astoria-Salem Road exists only in parts.  In its entirety, the route never caught on as a major thoroughfare.  In the beginning, the road as proposed linked the Willamette Valley to the main seaport of the time, Astoria.  Portland was only just beginning its rise in the 1850’s, a rise making the road non-essential, especially as relations between Native Americans and emigrants quieted down as a response to the end of conflicts on the west side of the Cascade Mountains.  With a location at the upper end of deep-draft vessels on the Columbia and Willamette Rivers, the city’s seaport soon became the most important port dooming Astoria to also-ran status.

The road rolls out of Astoria today by Oregon Route 202 – originally the northern terminus of the Nehalem River Highway.  Until US 26 – originally Oregon 2 built in the 1930-1940’s – this route over the immediate Coast Range to the Nehalem River at Jewell represented the only land alternative for cars beyond the Lower Columbia Highway – today, US 30.  Route 202 heads upstream from Jewell intersecting with Oregon Route 47 at Mist.  The pre-Sunset Highway route then followed Oregon 47 south through Vernonia continuing to follow the Nehalem River upstream past the junction with the Sunset Highway to Timber.  From Timber, initially the roads led further south to Glenwood on Gales Creek where it turned east to reach Forest Grove on the west end of the Tualatin Plains.

OLD ROUTE GETS LOST IN THE FORESTS

However, the Astoria-Salem Road only went along Oregon 202’s route as far as the hamlet of Olney on the Young’s River.  There, the old road turned south instead of following the North Fork of the Klaskanine over to Jewell.  Coming off the Youngs River Road, just after crossing the Klaskanine, the first left is Green Mountain Road.  The second is Saddle Mountain Road, unmarked.  This road approximates the old wagon road through the patchwork of growing and clear-cut forests.

You must get clever and have good maps to follow in this ground.  You want to end up on the south edge of Saddle Mountain crossing down into the West Humbug Creek drainage leading down to where US 26 runs today.  Here, the old road crossed over the Nehalem and headed back up into the hills close to the US 26 present path.  Just past the large rest area heading east on US 26, the old road followed today’s highway up Bear Creek to Wheeler Road – signed as “Section 10 Road”.  The old route follows Wheeler Road for to a third where you bear to the left intersection – Camp 5 Road on the map.

ON TO GIVEOUT MOUNTAIN

This is some of the ruggedest terrain now made more difficult by heavy logging and inevitable road gates.  The old “road” – a mere pack trail at this point – probably descended to cross the upper Salmonberry River instead of heading so far to the east as Camp 5 Road does.  After crossing the Salmonberry – Camp 5 Road on the map runs into Wheeler Road again – turn right onto Ellis Road.  Around a half mile west, another right onto an unmarked road takes you up and around Giveout Mountain, one of the most difficult parts of the old road.  The next road off Ellis also will take you to the top of Giveout. Alternatively, just stay on Wheeler Road until it intersects to the southeast with Cochran Road and turn left heading down to Timber.

From Giveout, you need to be creative venturing a bit from the old pack train route.  Take the road along a crest making up the southwest headwater area of the Nehalem.  This road will drop down to Cochran Road where you turn left – straight ahead – just east of Cochran Pond.  Cochran Road approximates the old route as it follows the Nehalem down to Timber.

THE ROAD EASES

It gets easier from here.  The route goes south on roads still in solid existence.  First, south on Timber Road to Oregon Route 6 at Glenwood.  Here you turn left and head the short distance to the intersection with Oregon Route 8 just north of Gales Creek.  From here, the Derby-shortened route headed to Forest Grove and on to Portland following routes taken by Oregon Route 8 and Oregon Route 10.  For the original terminus, Salem, take a right onto Stringtown Road – keeping south of Gales Creek – and then right onto Oregon Route 47 just south of Forest Grove.  In one mile turn left onto Spring Hill Road and drive south.  This turns into North Valley Road.  At Ribbon Ridge Road turn right and then left at the point where it dead ends into the Yamhill-Newberg Highway – Oregon Route 240. 

STOP FOR WINE?

About a half mile to the west, turn left onto Kuehne Road running past the Laurel Ridge Winery.  In about a mile, veer left again onto Abbey Road.  Abbey Road runs south to the town of Lafayette, a much more important village in 1855 than today’s commuter town.  Turn left again at the intersection with Oregon Route 99W – Pacific Highway – and four blocks later, a right at the intersection with the Lafayette Highway – Madison Street.  The Lafayette Highway then runs south – also known as Oregon Route 154 – merging into Oregon Route 153 – Bellevue-Hopewell Highway.  At Hopewell, turn off Oregon Route 153 onto Hopewell Road – right – heading south to its intersection with Oregon Route 221 – Salem-Dayton Highway.  A last right and Salem awaits in another five miles.

ON TO THE SUNSET HIGHWAY

The Astoria-Salem Road idea proved ahead of its time.  To attempt to push a road through the wilds in 1855-1860 is incredible, especially with the limited amounts of money available.  Politics and time got in the way, however.  War, changing priorities and simply time pushed the uncompleted project onto the back burner until forgotten.  The road to the Coast would eventually run over the North Coast Range – actually two roads built at the same time.  They would have different reasons for life than the military-purpose laid out for the original.  They would have different sponsors and different terminal points.