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.

A NEW ROUTE

One emigrant arriving in the fall of 1845, Sam Barlow leading a small wagon train of seven wagons, found the settlement jammed and no available river transport.  He pushed his train south from The Dalles after hearing of a Native American route leading over the south side of Mt Hood.

Making their way as far as Tygh Creek, Barlow with three others scouted ahead for a route ahead.  While he scouted, another twenty-three wagons had come up led by Joel Palmer.  Palmer joined Barlow and the enlarged work party began blazing a trail through the dense forest in the Cascade foothills.

In scouting for a possible route, Barlow’s son William – 22 years old – along with Palmer and another man climbed to the 9,000 foot level on the south face of Mt Hood to search for a way through the west side towards the Willamette Valley – 12 October.

With the season getting late, the expanded party placed their wagons and most of their supplies just to the east of what became Barlow Pass.  They set several men to guard the supplies on the site they called Fort Deposit.  The rest of the party continued by mule pack train over the west side of the mountains reaching Oregon City late in the year.

A NEW ROAD

In Oregon City, Barlow was able to gain approval for a charter to construct a toll road along the route taken – Mount Hood Toll Road.  Gaining $4,000 in finance from Philip Foster.  Foster established a farm along the route near Eagle Creek down near the Clackamas River, the first farmstead emigrants encountered in Oregon.  Barlow hiring 40 men blazed the road in the early part of 1846. The road opened later in the year for $5 per wagon plus ten cents per head of livestock.  The first year saw nearly 25% of the emigrant total using the new road – about 1,000 people on 150 wagons.

The concession for the road ended in 1848 with both Barlow and Foster leaving the venture.  The toll road continued, however, for the next seventy years.  In 1919, the State gained control of the road.  Much of the route became part of the Mount Hood Highway – US Highway 26 – but old sections of the road survive.

ON AND ON

Like Sandy Boulevard, Foster Road through southeast Portland dates to this time connecting the Barlow Road farmstead of Philip Foster to the new settlement of Portland.  Barlow would become the Justice of the Peace for Clackamas County in 1850 buying a land claim where the little town of Barlow – named for his son, William – is today just west of Canby.

Palmer enjoyed many other adventures in the early pioneer history of Oregon – more road building, government. He lost the 1866 election for governor to La Fayette Grover by 671 votes – after serving as Indian Agent for the Siletz Agency before being forced to resign for being too lenient with the tribes.

BITS and PIECES

Much of the old toll road Highway 26 incorporated, though parts remain in the surrounding woods.  By visiting the various remnants, you gain an idea of the difficulties road users encountered.

toll booth

Over the course of seventy years, the toll booth for the Barlow Road was located at one of five places along the route.  The first site from where Sam, himself, collected tolls for the first two years of the road’s existence was in Wamic, a couple miles west from the little town of Tygh Valley.

From 1853 until 1865, the tollgate was at Francis Revenue’s farm on the Sandy River just east of the city of Sandy.  Here at today’s Revenue Bridge, the Lower Crossing tollgate operated.

A third tollgate operated from 1866 to 1871 at Summit Meadows, east and south of the town of Government Camp.  A fourth tollgate ran from 1871 until 1883 just west of Laurel Hill.  The last tollgate ran from 1883 to 1918 next to Rhododendron along US 26.  A replica of the old tollgate can be visited.  “… It looked like any farm gate … but it was locked and there was no way around it. Thick logs and brush barricated it on both sides … We paid the 25 cents to pass through … Lottie Maybee Morris, 1900 …”

On the sides of the replica gate, two large bigleaf maple trees believed planted by the tollgate keeper, Daniel Parker (who worked here from 1883 until 1902), rise up.  One of the trees remain today.

LAUREL HILL

trail up

Moving further up US 26, the old road ran along the new highway. The old route lost when the new highway widened.  About six miles east of the tollgate, passing Road 39 – Kiwanis Camp Road, which is an older version of US 26 – is a small turnout on the south side of the highway with a large sign noting “Laurel Hill”.  A trail takes off from here going up steps leading to a old, abandoned version of US 26.  Follow the road to the right. you soon come to where one of the five wagon chutes coming off the top of Laurel Hill cut across the road.

This chute was third of five chutes used over time.  To get wagons down from the top of Laurel Hill, ropes and chains were tied around tree stumps and lowered down the steep – up to 60% grade – slope.  Some wagons wrapped tree logs behind them to help slow as anchors the downward progress.  The ropes and chains were only about 100 feet long. So the process of lowering the wagon needed to be done in stages.

The old highway – dating to the 1920’s – cuts bisects the wagon chute.  This chute served from 1854 to 1856, some of the heaviest years of use for the road.  A chute would last a few years. Then erosion from rain and snow melt made it necessary to move further along to develop a new chute.

top of chute #3

The stumps on top used to wrap ropes and chains have been removed to museums or private collections today.

ON EASTWARD

Moving further backwards on the Barlow Road – most traffic was from east-to-west until 1866 – the route moves up to Government Camp.  A detachment of the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen called to come west in 1849 to help quiet the area subsequent to the events following the Whitman Massacre of December 1847 and the ensuing Cayuse War.

Most of the regiment floated down the Columbia. Ones detachment came around Mt Hood on the Barlow Road.  Beset by bad weather, half of their livestock gone and soldiers near exhaustion, 45 cavalry wagons were abandoned before the men descended Laurel Hill.  The abandoned wagons seen by other road users coming later inspired the name “Government Camp”.

PIONEER WOMAN

Driving east down from Government Camp on US 26, turn right onto Oregon Highway 35 – direction Hood River – and again right on the first road – signed Pioneer Woman’s Grave.  This little road was the original Highway 35 which, in 1924, became the eastern section of the Mount Hoop Loop Highway.  The emigrant grave – marked by a wagon tongue with a coffin made from wagon sideboards – was uncovered by road workers and reburied alongside the new road.  During the 1930’s the Daughters of the American Revolution placed a bronze plaque on the grave and the Forest Service added an information sign. 

BARLOW PASS

Continue on the old highway as it returns to Oregon 35 at Barlow Pass – 4,157 feet high, the highest point along the road.  The actual Barlow Road Pass is just off Oregon 35 on the old highway – officially Forest Service Road #3531.  A sign dating to 1935 notes the high point and distances emigrants encountered.  Rutted FS Road #3550 leaves from the pass to the right travelling down the route of the Barlow Road – though on the opposite side of Barlow Creek from the original road. Six miles, the road stops because of a washed-out bridge.  The road is a bit rough, as well.

To head in the general direction of the Barlow Road, get onto Oregon 35, turn right, and cross the White River – magnificent view up the canyon to the glacier and mountain above.  On the other side of the river, turn right onto Forest Service #48. 

DETOUR

This road was closed at the time of my visit forcing me to continue north, past the Mt Hood Meadows Ski Area and down the East Fork of the Hood River to cross over the north slopes of Lookout Mountain – wonderful views from up there at an abandoned lookout site – and drive all the way to Dufur on Forest Service #44, a pretty road, but not the Barlow. (Note: for the sake of completeness, I re-did the route on Forest Highway 48 with a nine-mile one-lane detour around the burn area. The route is almost as fast as Oregon 35 or US 26 except for the detour lane which has a speed of 35 mph posted).

Dufur was on the original road south from The Dalles to Tygh Valley.  A sign at the bridge across Fifteenmile Creek – so-named because the creek was fifteen miles south of The Dalles along the pioneer road – notes Dufur being on the east end of the Barlow Road.  The road south from The Dalles followed a Native American route and featured a relatively easy crossing of the Deschutes River near the confluence with the Columbia.

From Dufur, you head south on either US Highway 197 – The Dalles-California Highway – or turn off to the right onto the Dufur Gap Road which runs closer to the pioneer route – to Tygh Valley.  To follow the Barlow Road back up to Mt Hood, drive into Tygh Valley turning right at a stop sign towards Wamic.  This road leads to Rock Creek Reservoir and Forest Service #48 – closed again at my visit because of fire damage.

SOUTH FORK

mcdonald crossing of the john day

But the sign in Dufur also mentioned a “South Fork” from the John Day crossing of the Oregon Trail.  This route saved emigrants about a week of travel by not having to go all the way to The Dalles but making a beeline straight across what is now Sherman County.  The payment was a difficult crossing of the Deschutes just downriver of what is now Sherar’s Falls. 

on to the deschutes

The descent into the Deschutes canyon was also an ordeal.  Riley Root described his journey in 1848 as “almost as difficult of descent and ascent, as the valley of Sinbad the sailor, with nearly precipitous rocks, from 1000 to 1500 feet high on every side….”  The wagons had to tie juniper trees to the back of their wagons to help with braking – good practice for Laurel Hill to come.

The crossing required wagons to be caulked up enough to make them watertight.  Ropes thrown across the river helped to ferry them across.  Of course, someone had to swim across the swift current to catch the ropes on the other side to pull the wagons across.

TODAY

To replicate the Barlow Road using the short cut from McDonald Ferry on the John Day River over to Tygh Valley and then onto Oregon City today takes 4 hours 51 minutes covering 167 miles. This journey includes smaller roads closely running along the old route – i.e. Marmot Road and North Brightwood along the Sandy; Oregon 211 to Estacada.

The shortest route is to take the river level freeway along the Columbia River to Portland and drive south – 157 miles, but only 2 hours 31 minutes (if traffic in Portland allows). It is 3 hours 31 minutes if you drive down the Columbia to The Dalles, heading south to Dufur before going around the south side of Hood – see above. Going further south to Tygh Valley and going up through Wamic and Forest Road 48 adds ten more minutes coming to 182 miles.

THEN

The old Barlow Road extended for 80+ miles from The Dalles to Oregon City – 110 if you used the ‘short cut’ across Sherman County (it is about 45 miles from the John Day crossing on the Oregon Trail to The Dalles). The first year of operation, almost 25% of emigrants used the road – about 150 wagons and over 1,000 people. The road was rated as “rough to barely passable”. The five hours it takes today is equivalent to a week or more, still less than the month it took to get through the Gorge.