Oregon and Washington have used prison labor for various projects throughout their history.  Convicts have been working on a variety of projects from laundry to license plates to agriculture.  They also worked on convict road projects, though that only arose in the early 20^th century.  Penitentiaries hoped to relieve overcrowding in the prisons while at the same time providing employment not conflicting with free labor.  They saw the employment also as a form of reward to their better behaving prisoners.  Prisoners had marks of degradation such as stripes, chains and shaven heads done away with.  Here, they gained a certain amount of freedom.  The work, done in the public good, was also seen as reformative.

ROAD WORK AND CONVICT LABOR

Road work began in the late 19^th century as the move for better roads came about as a result of first the bicycle and later, the automobile.  “Good road” movements really flourished as more automobiles came into the hands of the wealthy and influential.  People like Samuel Hill.

There were objections to convicts working on roads from the beginning.  Road work needed to be done in out of the way areas, then prisoners would not have to be chained and heavily guarded.  The men then would not be further degraded by being placed on public view.  Some convicts simply could not do such hard outdoor work.  Some convicts would use the opportunity to escape.  The problem of winter weather presented itself on some potential road projects. This was not the case necessarily here in the Gorge.  Other, more serious problems would arise in Washington as road work projects worked on by convicts developed.

Interestingly, contemporary surveys showed the work on roads done in northern and western States indicated the efficiency of each convict to be about 49% of a free laborer.  In the southeast, where convicts were predominantly African American, convicts outperformed free labor by 5%.  The work done at Lyle would prove to be an exception to the rule. According to Washington State Highway Engineer Henry Bowlby, however. Bowlby thought the work done by one of his honor men equaled that of one or more free labor workers.

HONOR SYSTEM

The ”Honor System” arose in the early 20^th century.  In this system, only certain convicts became involved in the work projects.  These convicts had served enough time for authorities to make a character determination. While guards were not done away with completely, the convicts, themselves, helped regulate their own conduct in camps. They realized their liberties and freedoms were dependent on all of those in the camp. 

In return for good work and behavior, sentences reduced – i.e. 5 to 10 days a month – in Oregon it was two days for each day of work; sports introduced; relative freedom given in the vicinity of the camps after hours given; better food; mail privileges; and sometimes cash – as was the case in Washington.  Convicts with indeterminate sentences could gain parole at the expiration of the minimum of their sentence.  Punishment was simply the immediate return of the prisoner to the penitentiary.

In Washington, the honor system opened only to conditionally paroled convicts.  Contracts – “honor agreements” written between the governor and the convicts. They promised faithful work and good conditions until the time of final release.  With the relative freedom allowed, Washington suffered only a 3.5% escapee problem from their various road camps.  Those who did escape were considered less dangerous since only certain prisoners were eligible to work on the road projects.

The Bulletin 414, US Department of Agriculture 1916 book on Convict Labor For Road Work – the book can be found online – notes Washington utilized foods and amounts based in part upon garrison rations for the US army.  The average cost of camp rations spent was 42 cents – in Oregon, it was 50 cents.  

GOOD ROADS

1899 saw Sam Hill invited 100 men to a meeting in Spokane on the topic of “Good Roads”.  While only 13 showed up, they were influential men. By 1905, a state highway department began with an engineer and three commissioners.  Hill specially had an exhibition building built during the1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle to house the First American Congress of Road Builders. The building displayed current roadbuilding technology, as well as information about the Good Roads movement in general.  That same year, with the help of Sam Lancaster and Henry Bowlby, Hill had the Maryhill Loops built. The Loops demonstrated seven different surfacing techniques – the first paved roads in Washington.

Hill pushed convict labor – a practice started in Washington in 1907 – to help build state highways.  Governor Marion Hay, in 1911, allowed one of five such programs to center here at Lyle. This was the beginning of highway along the north shore of the Columbia River. Hill’s potential town of Maryhill connected, of course.

PADDY THE PIG

At one of the 1910 road projects using convict labor – a road project built over Samish and Chuckanut Bays to Bellingham with $25,000 appropriated by the state legislature in 1909 – prisoner Clarence Cyphert, aka Paddy the Pig, escaped.  Quickly recaptured in Bellingham, a letter he wrote made it to the governor.

Cyphert was not punished for his escape probably because of the contents of his letter.  Hay wondering why there so much criticism was being directed at his highway commission initiated a commission to investigate costs of state roads.  State Road No. 6 – the convict road project Cyphert worked on – was found to have been started on the worst end where $25,000 had been spent to cut through a hill of solid rock.  With convicts working for 200 days with an average of 51 men, only 4,000 feet of road completed in that time.

The road, the Chuckanut Drive – State Highway 11 today – finally completed in 1916, but only after $135,000 spent.

END OF CONVICT ROADS

In the face of such exorbitant costs – the Lyle project was similar. One of the most expensive areas along the Columbia that could been chosen to begin. Hay pulled the convicts off all of the projects in late 1911.  Hay’s election as a proponent of “Good Roads” came with Sam Hill’s backing in 1908.  With the scuppering of the Lyle project, Hay fell into the bad graces of Hill. Sam responded by throwing his backing behind Ernest Lister who succeeded Hay in the 1912 election.

Competition with free labor work on the roads was a real problem besides picking the wrong places to begin the road projects from.  The labor movement picked up on the potential problem. A statewide ballot was voted on which the public voted, in 1914, against using convict labor on roads.  The use of convict labor finally ended in 1917 in Washington.

THE LYLE ROAD

THE ENGINEER

A digitized edition of Engineering and Contracting 26 June 1912 – the article can be found online though not through a direct link – includes a story about the convict construction process on the Lyle Road in 1911.  The article comes from the supervising engineer in charge, Frank A. Kittredge.  Kittredge came from a family which moved to Seattle in 1902 from Minnesota – not unlike Sam Hill’s personal journey.  Frank was 18 and attended the local University of Washington.  His father was one of the pushing forces behind the A-Y-P exposition in 1909 as well as a proponent for the development of the city’s University District.

While Frank became an engineer, he still found time to write an article for the Washington historical society quarterly magazine about Washington Territory in War Between the States.  He must have matriculated out of the Highway Engineering department at the University as he was closely associated with both Samuel Lancaster – the full professor – and Henry Bowlby – an instructor.  Both Lancaster and Bowlby main cogs in the incipient program. 

For this particular road section, the path would connect Lyle to the ferry to The Dalles.  When complete, instead of a 14-mile journey involving 1,500 feet of elevation gain, the gain would be not much more than a couple hundred feet over 8 miles.

THE WORK

The actual work took place in one season from 1910 until late in 1911. Then the appropriations as advanced from the legislature ran out – secondary to Governor Hay calling a halt to convict road works.  The work was complete over 1.64 miles to within a couple hundred yards of a proposed tunnel.  The masonry walls supported the road and to caught debris dynamited off the slopes above.

Like the 1912 convict road in Oregon around Shellrock Mountain, retaining walls, if built, on the upper cliffside failed with time.  No mention made of retaining walls on the upper sides.  Many of the retaining walls on the downhill side still survive except for one large slide around the corner from the trail up Cherry Orchard.

In one section, another retaining wall was built below the retaining walls of 1910-11.  This one appears possibly erected at a later date, either by the railway or when the current Highway 14 finally completed – still State Route 8 then – below the old roadbed several decades later.

Many of the retaining walls were built on a curve.  Kittredge notes the hardest part of the project occurred to the east where loose rock was the rule. This, similar to what was encountered at Shellrock Mountain in Oregon.  Today, this section can be inferred by the faint line along the cliffs. Little in the remains on this section look like the road found to the west of the Cherry Orchard trail.

THE COST

The convict camp was located on the same level as the road on a plateau. It lay just to the east of the town of Lyle.  This gave the men easy access to the work.  Three men were reported to have escaped from the project here.

The cost of the not quite two miles of road was almost $40,000. The Shellrock Mountain project, in contrast came to only $10,000.  Neither project came to any lasting finish. The remains here in Lyle make for a nice hike though. The Shellrock project was consumed by later road projects.

KITTREDGE’S FUTURE

Kittredge followed Bowlby to Oregon when Bowlby became State Highway Engineer there in 1913 .  Kittredge would become an assistant engineer and given charge of work on the Pacific Highway in southern Oregon. 

He went on to the Bureau of Public Roads. Here he caught the eye of Stephen Mather, the National Park Service director, while completing a survey for the Going-to-the-Sun Highway in Glacier Park in 9124.  Mather hired Kittredge to become the National Park Service chief road engineer. He served until 1937at that post before becoming the regional director of the NPS for the western US.

A VISIT

To visit the former road project, follow State highway 14 east from Lyle through the first tunnel.  Just past the tunnel, turn left into the gravel parking lot for the Cherry Orchard trailhead – not signed.  Head up on the trail to gain the level of the old road.  Where the Cherry Orchard trail goes off above climbing to the right, stay on the same level walking straight ahead.

The roadbed is obvious in parts and only a boot path in others where slides have taken what was away.  You encounter a large slide after passing around the first rock pinnacle coming out of the canyon mouth of the Cherry Orchard trail.  For about a hundred yards, you pick your way through the rocks to regain the roadbed on the other side.’

Next comes some of the best-preserved masonry walls on the downside of the road.  Peer off over the side straight down on the present highway and the tracks of the BN&SF railroad – formerly the Seattle, Portland & Spokane railroad. 

Bits of road continue further west with masonry walls still present on downhill sides.  Slides have come down in areas to confuse matters at times.  The proposed tunnel appears to be closer to the Lyle end. But the corgi was not enjoying the rock walks, so we called it about halfway through.

All in all, a fascinating venture involving history, engineering and nature.  You have a great morning view to the west of the later road works on Rowena Point across the river.  Some poison oak down low and there can always be ticks.  Best time is October through May before it gets too hot to be comfortable.