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.
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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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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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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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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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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 near 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 further to the south 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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The White Mountains of New Hampshire are seen by many as the pinnacle of mountain ranges in the Northeast and the eastern Seaboard, in general, no malice intended towards the Blue Ridge, Smoky or Adirondack ranges. Topped by Mount Washington – 6,289 feet – the range is historic. The mountain is almost the same height as its namesake in the Olympic Mountains of Washington State – 6,260 feet. That peak being a bit more difficult to climb. Rising above all other peaks in the White Mountains are the Presidents.
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Fort Hoskins and Yamhill were two of the earliest uses of the U.S. Army in the newly acquired Northwest lands gained in the middle 1840’s. The sites, long abandoned, have undergone extensive archaeological excavations. Protected as public parks today, a visit gives a fascinating insight into the antebellum Regular Army and the interactions between Native Americans and newly-arrived white settlers intent on occupying new grounds.
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The Oregon Coast is a scenic wonderland long discovered by tourists. Many tourists take in the long coastline in one long excursion up or down US 101. While continually spectacular, that is like Americans “seeing” Europe in one or two weeks. The history and geography of the coast is better taken in parts. Clatsop County in the north is very different from Lincoln in the middle and Coos and Curry Counties in the south. This trip we travelled to the Central Oregon Coast – Lincoln County, basing ourselves in the county seat of Newport.
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The Spanish-American war, forgotten mostly today, was a very popularly received event among the American public. The ongoing rebellion in Cuba was recurrent front-page news. Newspapers ever eager to entice readers with lurid tales of Spanish atrocities. Forgotten by most now, the Spanish-American War is remembered by numerous monuments spread around the country. Like the war they memorialize, those monuments tend to be overlooked and passed by today without much notice.
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