Category Archives: General Pacific Northwest History

RAIL LAND GRANTS – PLAYING CHECKERS ON THE NORTHWESTERN MAP

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Oregon & California lands given back to the federal government include much of the BLM lands – orange. These were part of the original land grants given to the O&C Rail Road.

Looking at maps showing Federal lands of the West, you quickly notice a checkerboard arrangement incongruously drawn without seeming reason.  Certainly, no topographical purpose.  You now see the result of the rail land grants – grabs – of the 19th century.

One of Abraham Lincoln’s main planks to his 1860 presidential campaign became realized by the 1862 Pacific Railway Act.  This gave Congress the ability to grant land and low-cost loans to railway companies building lines across the West.  Lincoln’s goal was a transcontinental line to unite California and the Pacific Coast to the rest of the country.

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RAIL STATIONS OF THE NORTHWEST – MULTIPLE STATIONS BETTER THAN ONE?

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Union Station in Seattle – originally the Oregon & Washington Railroad Depot.

As rail travel in the western US continues to be a fade from the past, many people have forgotten several cities used to have more than one passenger terminal to use.  Some of the multiple rail stations have survived in other guises.  Some, simply gone.

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DEVELOPMENT – REALIGNMENT, US 101 ON EDGE OF OREGON

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Nestucca Spit - saved from realignment of US 101 by then Secretary of State Robert Straub.
Nestucca Spit – saved from realignment of US 101 by then Secretary of State Robert Straub.

US 101 is the main focus for would-be tourists to Oregon.  The Oregon coastline is truly spectacular.  The Oregon Coast Highway provides the main access for those wishing to see the magic.  Driving the length of the magnificent road gives one an excellent window into the wildness, beauty and changeability of a unique environment.

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GREAT DUNE OF KIWANDA – MAGIC ON THE OREGON COAST

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Erosion continually reshapes the landscape at Cape Kiwanda.

The Oregon Coast spans some fantastically beautiful scenery.  Driving along US 101 in the summer can be a bit frustrating at times stuck behind the travel trailers and rvs making their way north or south along the highway, but there is a reason so many are there.  People ask me what the favorite spot I have along the long coastline.  That is a lot like the question what your favorite travel place in the world is.  There are simply too many. One recent spot I discovered was the mystical charms to be discovered atop the Great Dune of Cape Kiwanda.

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THE DOUBLE NINE – PACIFIC HIGHWAY – DIVERGENCE AND WEALTH SHARING IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY

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Double Nine – East Side Version.

As a child, road maps drew me in. The lines on the map fascinated me, linking places I had never been to or heard of together. Numbers linked with the lines created journeys for discovery. In 1926, the federal government came up with a plan to number highways to replace names – in this case, the Pacific Highway – in order to establish an integrated system of roads throughout the country. The so-called “Federal system” did not mean the federal government built or maintained the roads. That process remained the responsibility of local and state governments. Highways simply gained numbers and signs so auto drivers could determine their location.

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PORTLAND RAIL BRIDGES – CONNECTING THE ROSE CITY TO THE WORLD

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Steel Bridge carries trains and pedestrians on the lower deck; light rail and auto traffic use the upper deck.

There are many articles – blog posts or otherwise – and even books about the bridges of Portland, Oregon.  Of the twelve bridges along the Willamette River – four more on the Columbia – little space usually covers the Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1 or the rail portion of the Steel Bridge.  If you exclude the new Tilikum Crossing Bridge, which carries light rail tracks and buses, the other rail bridges lack the grace of the St Johns or Fremont Bridges and the traffic of all of the other bridges – maybe the Steel excluded.

A recent post about the rail ferry at Kalama, Washington, some forty-five minutes north of the city, got me thinking about railroads and history.  While at first glance, both are reasonably complicated, in the case of the main rail bridges in Portland, like the ferry at Kalama, it all comes down to James J. Hill.

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YIN-YANG OF THE NORTHERN PACIFIC REVEALED AT KALAMA

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Model of the rail-car ferry Tacoma of the Northern Pacific Railroad at the Port of Kalama Interpretive Center.
Model of the rail-car ferry Tacoma of the Northern Pacific Railroad at the Port of Kalama Interpretive Center.

For years, Kalama meant the Northern Pacific. Kalama was the beginning of the Northern Pacific push from the west to create a third transcontinental rail line. Northern Pacific also used Kalama as a port for a rail ferry to cross over the Columbia River from.

A recent celebration with friends took us to the large McMenamins Kalama Harbor Lodge. The hotel-brewpub-restaurant complex is a brand-new development made in the appearance of a large Maui plantation. Maybe a bit incongruous along the banks of the Columbia River, the complex always appears popular driving past along I-5 judging from the number of cars in the parking lot.

And while, like with most McMenamins establishments, the Lodge is full of history and art laid out in the McMenamins way, right next door is another large building housing the Port of Kalama. The Port building features a large Interpretive Center on its east side housing several interesting exhibits dealing with issues the Port of Kalama has and does deal with. One of the Kalama themes deals with railroad history – Northern Pacific – and the port.

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TOKELAND – MAGIC OFF THE BEATEN PATH ON THE WASHINGTON COAST

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Former site of the Coast Guard Lifeboat station on the end of the Tokeland Spit.
Former site of the Coast Guard Lifeboat station on the end of the Tokeland Spit.

Tokeland is a small spit sticking into the northern entrance of Willapa Bay.  The estuary is an amazing body of water.  Some write the bay as the second largest estuary on the Pacific Coast.  That depends upon one’s definition of an estuary.  Some include the Puget Sound in the estuary category.  While parts of the Sound are estuarine, the Sound is an inland sea.

Definition of an estuary reads a partially enclosed body of brackish water with one or more rivers flowing into and an open connection to the sea.  The freshwater-saltwater intermix provides high levels of nutrients in both water columns and sediment making an estuary a wildly productive natural habitat.  West Coast Estuary Explorer also includes the Columbia River as an estuary.  They have split the river reaches into eight separate interconnected sections, from the river mouth to the furthest point of tidal influence, Bonneville Dam.  The enormous amounts of freshwater flowing through make the Columbia a special case.

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REVEALING BRANCHES OF HISTORY ON A PERSONAL LEVEL – GENEALOGY

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2000 Census report on ancestry majority by county – trends similar in recent years.

Television is replete with advertisements for Ancestry.com, “Every family has a story” is their moto.  The truth rings through attracting a wide base of customers to its cause, the rediscovery of family.  Ancestry.com is not the only genealogical online player, but they are the elephant in the room with over three million subscribers and access to billions of historical records. Genealogy making history personal.

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PILLAR ROCK – SALMON CANNERY RELIC ON THE LOWER COLUMBIA

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Boat in permanent drydock in front of the Pillar Rock Cannery.
Boat in permanent drydock in front of the Pillar Rock Cannery.

A recent trip took us downriver to the one of the only remaining salmon canneries along the lower Columbia River.  Pillar Rock is literally at the end of the road.  To go further east, you have to get in your boat.  The cannery dates to 1877 when it was built over the previous spot where Hudson’s Bay employees used to have an operation which salted salmon.  The salmon were then transported to the Sandwich Islands – Hawaii – for sale there, with so-so success.  Lewis & Clark also camped here both coming and going along the river. Local Native Americans had long used the site as a place of encampment for years before.

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