Postcard showing a Life-Saving crew heading out through the surf to a vessel in distress.
Lighthouses were one thing to keep mariners safe as they traveled along the Pacific Coast, in and out of harbors and river bars. When they were not enough, a newer organization in Oregon appeared, the Life-Saving Service.
The official US Life-Saving Service got its start in 1878, though an ad-hoc arrangement went back further to 1848 when a series of unmanned stations, run by volunteers – similar to volunteer fire departments – existed along the coasts of New Jersey and Massachusetts. Without full-time employees, no organization or standardization of equipment or men, the results were middling at best.
Postcard view of the old Willamette Lighthouse on the Willamette-Columbia confluence.
The lighthouses found along the Oregon Coastline – north and south – draw thousands of visitors each year. Most still function, sending out light into the gloom and night. Much less is known about a trio of lighthouses guiding ships down the mighty Columbia River – a river referred to in 1766 as the “Oregon” to the port of Portland.
Getting across the notorious Columbia River bar was only the first leg. Ships on their way to Portland then had a long river voyage up the Columbia – 101 miles – followed by a right turn up the Willamette – another 11 miles. To help guide them required a bar pilot and once into the river proper, a river pilot would help the rest of the way.
Tillamook Head Lighthouse between the middle 1940-1950’s on very calm day. Today the island is covered with sea lions.
In case you did not read my last post about southern Oregon lighthouses, I will repeat some of the basic history leading to the lighthouses of north Oregon.
Lighthouses always seem to be high on the list of tourist attractions and the lighthouses of the southern Oregon Coast are no exception. Most of them stand on outstanding natural locations furthering their value for the casual tourist. All of them steep with historic and functional value. Nine lighthouses survive until today with a couple lost to time along the way. Two private lighthouses have also developed in recent years, but are not open to the public. Here, we start with lighthouses in southern Oregon.
Coquille River lighthouse on the right.
its successor is a light beacon on the left at the mouth of the Coquille River.
Wheat fields are Sherman County, but then again, so are the wind farms.
Switch off the mind and let the heart decideWho you were meant to beWindpower!
Flick to remote and let the body glideThere is no enemyWindpower!Etch out a future of your own designWell tailored to your needs, YeahWindpower!
Thomas Dolby - from his song Windpower 1982.
Such is the beginning of Thomas Dolby’s song in a dystopian Britain following years of authoritarian rule following an alternate Axis victory in WWII. Just like the countries of the North Sea, Oregon has seen the development of wind farms over the last quarter century as nations develop new energy sources. In this post, I am talking about the wind farms in Sherman County and Gilliam County. Further to the east, Morrow County, also is the site of wind farms, but everything gets more complicated here.
Europeans – albeit in American-form – have only been present in the Pacific Northwest for a little over 200 years. The main push of emigrants did not start until the mid-1840’s. Here our focus is on the mid-19th century Columbia River area views. A lot has changed since then. Some things remain timeless, however. The natural beauty of the landscape a prime example. Even here dramatic change does not go unnoticed.
A restored version of James Madison Alden’s tryptich view over Fort Dalles.
Fort Dalles Museum.
View over The Dalles today to compare – 160 years later.
“Laurels” on Laurel Hill. Pioneers mistook the rhododendrons for laurel bushes since the time of year they came through was early fall, long after the rhodies had bloomed.
Like the beginning, the Oregon Trail had various endpoints. For most, the overland passage ended at The Dalles. From here, emigrants with enough cash used barges to float their wagons down the river to the confluence of the Sandy River where they disembarked (Sandy Boulevard is the old route they took to finish the journey). In 1846, an alternative to the river journey arose – the Barlow Road.
The river route was expensive – $50 or more – and dangerous. By the time emigrants reached The Dalles, the season was fall. Water levels in the Columbia River were low meaning rocks in the Cascades Rapids – now submerged in the waters of Lake Bonneville at Cascade Locks – making the passage more perilous. Rafts and barges could easily flip causing loss of life and household goods.
There are times when all it takes is for one person to stand up, raise their voice and make a stand to change the way it was. The way it was supposed to be. One of the persons was Wallace McCamant. His big moment was a hundred years ago at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. It was a moment putting him into history’s limelight for a brief flash. A flash with consequences, rendered years ahead not as well recorded. Here is another story lying quietly in one of the secluded corners of River View Cemetery in the hills of southwest Portland.
La Fayette Grover as a US senator in the late 1870’s – Matthew Brady photograph.
River View Cemetery is one of two historic cemeteries in Portland, Oregon. Lone Fir was the first cemetery, but filling up in the latter 19th Century, River View was established in the hills just – then – outside the growing city. Here, the families of well-to-do Portland buried their loved ones and still do. Walking through the memorials is a history lesson of the city. Street names come to life – through death. The larger monuments tend to overawe the more numerous plainer ones, as if trying to sum up life as the dead thought of their experience. Stories abound here among all of the graves and it is one of the smaller, lesser monuments we move to today – the grave of La Fayette Grover, third governor of Oregon.
There is a small area in Portland where west-to-east streets are named after old Oregon governors. The sequence follows a series of Union military leaders from the Civil War – Grant, Sherman, Hooker, Meade, Porter (there is a Caruthers Street thrown in for good measure in between the governors, with a good story to boot.). In the governor section, there is Woods, Gibbs, Whitaker, Curry, Pennoyer, Gaines, Lane, Abernathy and Mood. Another governor with a short section of streets is Grover Street.
The former courthouse of Douglas County designed by Charles Burggraf – 1891
COUNTY COURTHOUSES OF OREGON
Of Oregon’s thirty-six counties, nine featured courthouses designed by Charles Burggraf at the turn of the 19th century. Burggraf was an Oregon-based architect and German immigrant. Three of those nine are still in use today, with two still operating as county courthouses while the other is a museum.
