Category Archives: History

ANCIENT DREAMS AWAKEN BY FOSSILS OF THE JOHN DAY

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Sheep Rock with Picture Gorge to the right.

Thomas Condon, John Day and fossils all come together in the middle of Oregon.  The fossils came first.  Then, trapper and hunter, John Day, working with the Pacific Fur Company came west in 1810. He spent the final ten years of his life living in the Pacific Northwest.  He and fellow fur trader Ramsay Crooks were robbed and stripped of their clothes by Native Americans near the confluence of the John Day and Columbia Rivers.  History records four different dates for John Day’s death and posterity has left many geographic features named in his memory.

Sheep Rock from the John Day River near Cant Ranch.

The best known is the John Day River. Note – there is another smaller John Day River near Astoria close to the Pacific.  This river is the fourth longest river in the lower 48 United States without a dam along its entire length. It is the longest within Oregon and the Pacific Northwest – not that there have not been plans for one.  The section between Service Creek and Tumwater Falls is part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

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FORT WALLA WALLA CEMETERY – END OF THE FRONTIER

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Fort Walla Walla Cemetery holds the dead of some of the last Indian Wars, the close of the Frontier.

FORT WALLA WALLA CEMETERY

The cemetery was established soon after Lieutenant Edward Steptoe organized the first Fort Walla Walla, a few miles east of downtown, in 1856.  The fort moved two times in the immediate years following and the cemetery ended up presently just to the west of the last fort, the present-day Veterans Administration Medical Center.  The cemetery holds graves from the different eras of the fort’s existence, 1856-1910.  Civilian graves are separated from the soldiers by about thirty yards.  Three monuments reflect some of the major battles during the 1877-1878 Nez Perce War in which soldiers who spent some time in Fort Walla Walla lost their lives.

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WIND MOUNTAIN, A GREAT ALTERNATIVE TO THE DOG

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Looking across the Columbia River at Wind Mountain from Indian Point on the Oregon side of the Gorge.

Driving to the large trailhead at the bottom of Dog Mountain, Washington Highway 14 drives right around the base of another smaller peak with its own form of drama, Wind Mountain. A beautiful cone-shaped peak, Wind has a brother, Shellrock Mountain, on the opposite side of the Columbia River in Oregon. Both mountains are thought to be from the same volcanic intrusion which needed to be cleaved in half by the Columbia River.  Unlike Shellrock, Wind Mountain has a trail to the top.

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FORT UMPQUA – LONELY POST SWALLOWED BY THE SANDS

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1857 sketch of Fort Umpqua from the river.

Of the three Army posts erected around the periphery of the Oregon Coast Indian Reservation, Fort Umpqua is the most forgotten. The State has made Fort Yamhill into a Park. Benton County has done the same with Fort Hoskins. Fort Umpqua lies hidden on the wrong side of the mouth of the Umpqua River, hidden by sand, vegetation and time.

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FORT WALLA WALLA – CURTAIN CALL ON THE FRONTIER

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Parade Ground and Administration Building at Ft Walla Walla VA Complex

Today’s fort is the fourth to go by this name.  The first fort was a fur-trading post opened by the North West Company. The post was built at the confluence of the Walla Walla and Columbia Rivers.  Established in 1818, the post ran until abandoned and burnt down during the 1855 Yakima War.  A steamboat landing settlement sprang up a few years later. The remains now all under the waters backed up from the McNary Dam some miles further down the Columbia.

Original Fort Walla Walla trading post at the confluence of Snake and Columbia Rivers.
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REDISCOVERING HIDDEN TREASURES OF GOLDEN AND SILVER FALLS

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Waters of Glenn Creek freefalling at Golden Falls.

Hidden away in the Coast Mountains of Coos County is a small state Park preserving two of Oregon’s more spectacular waterfall treasures – Golden and Silver Falls.  The two falls are among the highest and most dramatic found west of the Cascades.  Hiding at the end of a long road which gets narrower and wilder as you travel back into the mountains, the park is one of Oregon’s lonelier state parks.  Drive to the road’s end and magic begins.

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MAGIC OF THE FALLS OF MCCHORD CREEK

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An antidote to the Multnomah Falls circus.

Above Elowah Falls view across the Columbia River to Hamilton and Table Mountains.

Many waterfalls await discovery in Oregon. Some of the best are found in the Columbia River Gorge. Some are out there obvious to all while some like to hide away from prominent view. Multnomah Falls is the tallest and one of the most majestic. A large car park built in between the lanes of the freeway tries to accommodate the many who come for a visit. It is a standard by which others are measured. The Northwest Waterfall Survey rates Multnomah at 89.92 points. The falls are enchanting, but some of the magic wears off with the crowds you endure to witness. McChord Creek calls.

Driving up the Gorge on a Thursday in April, the car park at Multnomah Falls was, as normal, completely full. Five miles further east on the freeway, I-84, there were two cars parked at the Yeon State Park lot just off the freeway. Granted, two of the three trails leading out from here were closed – one from a fire in 2017 and another from a recent landslide this winter – but the one trail still open was pure enchantment.

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FORT SIMCOE – SHORT STORY PAUSE TO THE STORM

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two pound cannon
Looks like a two-pound cannon, one of two on the east side of the Parade Ground with Officer’s Row on the opposite side. Artillery would have consisted more probably of M1841 mountain howitzers.

Of the many military posts erected by the US Army during the 19th century, few remain as well preserved as the collection of buildings found here in the middle of the Yakama Nation at Fort Simcoe.  The post was only manned for three years before the fort was abandoned; the men sent north to Fort Colville.

Brevet Captain George McClellan’s party, in 1853, found traces of gold along the upper reaches of the Naches or Yakima Rivers.  They searched for a railroad route over the Cascades, something McClellan continually stressed when meeting with Natives from the local Yakama tribes.

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RE-FOCUSING THE ARMY EASTWARD ON THE COLUMBIA – FORT DALLES

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James Madison Alden’s painting of Fort Dalles from 1857.

Beiniecke Library Yale University.

Fort Dalles was one of the original forts set up by the Army as it came west after the 1846 treaty with Great Britain solidifying borders on the 49th parallel.  Before 1855, the fort was a small fort with room for one or two companies of troops.  The Yakama War changed that.  From the middle of 1856 until the beginning of 1859, the fort became one of the Army’s main centers in the Northwest.  Home for the Ninth Regiment, Fort Dalles became the jump-off point for campaigns, interior explorations, road, and fort building and a supply depot for all these activities.

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BLOCKHOUSE GUARDIAN ON THE COLUMBIA – FORT CASCADES

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Steamboats making for the Cascade Locks near the Upper Cascades later in the 19th century. Fort Lugenbeel was just around the corner to the left.

Fort Cascades served as the main post comprising several blockhouses set up to defend the vitally important transportation corridor along the Columbia River through one of the treacherous points along the river.

The Oregon Trail was a long and perilous route.  Perhaps the most difficult section lay almost at the trail’s end as it made its way through the Cascade Mountains to the promised lands of the Willamette Valley.  Once the Trail dropped down out of the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon, it followed along the Columbia River.  It was possible to float your wagons down much of the river, but most kept to the road leading up and down along the south side of the Columbia.  Crossing the John Day and Deschutes rivers were minor difficulties compared to the last difficulty lying ahead in the mountains.

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