To date, the Twin Tunnels of Mosier make up the most spectacular section of the Historic Columbia River Highway formerly lost, now restored. That honor will probably fall in a couple years, superseded when the Mitchell Point section comes back. From the viewpoint near the tunnels, you look out to the magnificence of the tilted synclines on both sides of the mighty river. Come in springtime and the floral display will be on to add to the magic.
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In Scott Cook’s wonderful round-up gem of places lesser known in the Columbia River Gorge, Curious Gorge, Mist Falls is uncovered and revealed. This waterfall moods changes dramatically with the seasons, from a solid waterfall after a rain to one with mists dancing in the wind. Mists never seeming to be in any hurry to settle back on the ground as they enjoy their brief moment of freedom. It sits as a nearby neighbor to the king, Multnomah Falls. The waterfall is most visible to the motorists ripping along Interstate 84. Those motorists – the drivers, anyway – only get a fleeting glance. Their attentions quickly focus on cars using the left-hand exit for the nearby huge parking lot at Multnomah. Mist Falls is a true overlooked gem in the midst of Waterfall Alley.
Continue readingAs Portland grew during the 19th and 20th centuries, smaller towns were annexed along the way. Some of those towns were substantial, like East Portland. Others were much smaller, like the little town of Linnton across the Willamette River from St Johns. The last post touched on the Lower Columbia River Highway. This time we will come back closer to the beginning of that road.
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After posts on Samuel Hill, Samuel Lancaster, and Henry Bowlby it was time for me to revisit some of the projects they inspired and oversaw. The Columbia River Highway remains the magic the three men. That magic best shared along the Upper Columbia River Highway, known today as the Historic Columbia River Highway. A couple fine books have been written on this road. And while in the future, I may hit upon some of the highlights (Shepperd’s Dell is one such case), today it is the Lower Columbia River Highway.
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The two Samuel’s – Hill and Lancaster – get all of the attention for the building of the Columbia River highway in the Gorge where the mighty river bores through the Cascades Range. The highway project proposed by Sam Hill included a highway from Portland downriver to the ocean at Astoria. Enter Henry Lee Bowlby.
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Samuel Lancaster established himself one of the pioneers of modern American highway construction with his connection to the Columbia River Gorge highway project in 1915. That highway was only one of a myriad of programs involving Lancaster over a busy lifetime.
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It is easy to forget which ruins are from which war as you wander about in the Julian Alps. Many trails have beginnings in one of the World Wars or in the events preceding or suceeding. Many mule tracks still hiked on built by either Italian or Austro-Hungarian military engineers. Vršic Pass became a main road only during the First War. The cost of hundreds of Russian prisoners of war dying during in its construction by some ten thousand POWs. The Julians were set to become Italy’s new “natural borders” with the east.
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The last posts spun off of study and visits I made following German American religious communes in the American 19th century in anticipation of the New Millennium. My own family history encompasses the solidly American religious phenomenon of Joseph Smith’s Mormon movement. The German American efforts petered out for various reasons – communism and celibacy being major factors. Both groups were convinced that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ was at hand. Both groups were convinced that, as the Elect, they would help usher in the New Age. The main difference is that the followers of Joseph Smith knew Jesus would return to the World in Independence, Missouri. They had it straight from the source.
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World War One was a reluctant push onto the global stage for the United States. The country involved itself only with the last nineteen months of the war. A slow starter, it took a year before meaningful numbers of American troops began to reach the European theater. The summer of 1918 saw the development of a new army which learned the lessons the European citizen armies had already earned over almost four years of brutal industrialized killing. Remembrance would come later, enter the ABMC.
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To say Samuel Hill lived a fascinating life is almost an understatement. A frenetic Quaker, Sam’s life is magnificently on display online where you can find his excellent biography Sam Hill, The Prince of Castle Nowhere written by John Tuhy. Among his many interests was his participation in the Good Roads movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hill was instrumental in the development of both the Pacific Highway, a route linking the three Coastal States to each other from Canada to Mexico. He pushed for the development of a true coastal highway paralleling the Pacific Highway – today’s US 101 – as well. But Hill is best known for his role in the development of the Columbia River Gorge Highway, now over a hundred years old.
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