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.

Now, a book from 2007 was written on this subject as well.  It seems to be out of print, but your library might have a copy – Multnomah County had more than a dozen.  If you can find a copy, then this should be your starting point information and inspiration.  An excellent internet website with some more recent information serves as an excellent adjunct.

The history of the LCRH is like its better-known upriver brother.  Samuel Hill always seemed to continue his idea of a Columbia River highway all the way to the sea.  After his hopes of building a road along the north bank of the river through the Columbia Gorge were dashed – mostly because of cost – he came south to Oregon bringing Samuel Lancaster and Henry Bowlby with him.

THE MEN

Lancaster had a history of building roads from Tennessee before coming out to Washington to answer the siren call of Sam Hill and “Good Roads”.  Hill brought him out first to help get legislators in Olympia to write a series of laws to standardize the new road system to come.  Hill then convinced the University of Washington to create a Department of Highway Engineering using Lancaster as the professor.  Coming out from Nebraska was one Henry Bowlby to help as an instructor.

The professor went on to design and oversee the creation of the HCRH in Multnomah County.  At the same time (actually, a little before), his instructor became the first Chief Highway Engineer for the state of Oregon.  He had spent a couple years in the same position in Washington State (there, he was the second to hold that position).  As top man in the incipient Oregon Highway Commission, he was responsible for overseeing all road building in the state. Road standards, as well as bridge standards, were drawn up by the State and not a responsibility of each community, whether town or county.

At the time, while the state had some money, most funding for roads was a county affair. 

PROBLEMS IN COLUMBIA COUNTY

Clatsop County had no problem finding funding for the new highway, recognizing the importance the road could have. Columbia County was different. First off, the county did not have a lot of funds to spread around to begin with. Second, they wanted most, if not all, of the communities along the lower Columbia to be connected by the new road. State Highway engineer Henry Bowlby decided against that option because it would have meant at least nine railroad crossings and many extra miles. As a result, the main part of the county seat of St Helens, Columbia City and all of Mayger were not included along the route.

It took a bit of convincing, but even after the county seemed to agree, a local judge began taking bids for construction of a road designed to include the missing towns. A recall and an appearance in the Oregon Supreme Court were in order to finally determine a final right-of-way through Columbia County.

The victory for Bowlby was pyrrhic in nature, however, as contractors here, as in other Oregon counties, put forward bills way over contracted prices. The contracting companies were able to get Bowlby dismissed by the new incoming governor, James Withycombe, in February 1915. Shoddy work on the part of some contractors played a part in his dismissal, too.

finally

The road unofficially opened in August of that year, though the road was still far from one to be traveled quickly. A speed record for the time was set at a little over five hours – Portland to Astoria. Today, it takes slightly less than two hours – depending upon the traffic lights. The road was paved by the early 1920’s. The route underwent widening and straightening through the years especially in the 1950’s and beyond.

As a child – child of Eisenhower as Billy Joel puts it – I remember my mother not wanting to go to Astoria on the Lower Columbia River Highway because of all of the curves. The route today is reasonably straight with many people bypassing half of the Columbia County section of the road using I-5 north to Longview. From Longview, one crosses over the river on the Lewis & Clark Bridge to rejoin US 30 on the west edge of Rainier.

LOWER COLUMBIA RIVER HIGHWAY TODAY

Both the LCRH and the UCRH started in downtown Portland – Northwest Vaughn and Nicolai, the former site of the 1905 Lewis & Clark Exposition to be exact.  The roads then went west (though the LCRH spends a good half of its life moving north initially) and east.  Unlike the HCRH, there is little relived history or preservation found along the LCRH.  Like the UCRH, the LCRH was designed to take into account the natural beauty through which the road traverses.  There are wide-ranging vistas, waterfalls and splendid engineering loops tackling steep mountain sides like found further upriver.  It is simply a matter of degree.

Also, the LCRH spends a lot of time moving through agricultural land or at least on the fringes.  It is a more ‘settled’ landscape – even more so today.  But there were, and are, still areas good enough to make the postcard scene.

MCCARTHY CREEK

Much of the older road was demolished by the newer road.  Look closely and you can still see many stretches where the old highway exists as a frontage road to the new highway.  There are a couple of places where even old bridges can be seen in juxtaposition to new bridges.  One such place is on the north border of Multnomah County immediately south of the intersection with Cornelius Pass Road (OR highway 127 newly transferred to the State from both Multnomah and Washington Counties).

Turning off US 30, just south of the traffic light at the Cornelius Pass intersection, park to the side of the entrance to the NARA – Native American Rehabilitation Association – Adult Residential Addictions Treatment Center.  Look to the right (north). The old road still lurks hidden more and more each year by the onslaught of Himalayan blackberry vines.  A hundred yards farther, the road goes across McCarthy Creek on a bridge still intact.  Wintertime is a good time to visit most of the sites along the LCRH because of the widespread blackberries.  Of course, mud and water can be a problem instead.

OLD AND NEW

Note both old and new highway bridges cross McCarthy Creek fifty yards from each other. But one does not carry traffic anymore with both ends blocked off.  The LCRH highway bridge dates to 1920, the time the State bridge designer was Oregon’s most famous, Conde McCullough.  McCullough designed masterpieces on the Coast but also many more simpler bridges like this stringer bridge across McCarthy Creek.

The present highway bridge to the east dates to 1968. By 1938, the old bridge was already abandoned being too small for the increased traffic it needed to bear.

TIDE CREEK

Driving further north (‘west’ on US 30) through the towns of Scappoose, St Helens, Columbia City and Deer Island gives another chance to see old and new standing side-by-side as the two bridges cross Tide Creek.  A rail bridge makes it a triple treat.  Like the McCarthy Creek bridge, this one is a stringer bridge dating from 1920, another McCullough-era bridge.

PRESCOTT POINT AND LITTLE JACK FALLS

There were four vertical high points along the LCRH.  Here, near the community of Prescott, just north of the former Trojan nuclear power plant, is the first.  This section of the road rose to Prescott Point close to three hundred feet high.  The limit on grade to the highway was 5%.  To achieve the slow rise in the road, the route followed the nooks and crannies of the landscape.  Climbing up from the maze of bayous along the river below, the road gained ground dipping in and out of little canyons as it ascended.

You can supposedly find the lower end of the old highway section across from the intersection on US 30 leading off the opposite side to Prescott.  From the new highway, you need to fight through blackberry bushes until you can find the old pavement.  The way then becomes slightly easier as you climb through the woods.

PRESCOTT POINT

Prescott Point is much easier to find from the north end of this section of old highway.  Going north a little further on US 30, climbing at a grade slightly higher than the former 5% requirement (car motors are stronger now, roads wider).  At the top, look for the Little Jack Falls Road going hard to the left.  Following this lane, a short way, just past the first house on the left is the abandoned highway.  It is blocked off by a log barrier.  There is room for one or two cars to park.

The beauty of the old highway becomes obvious as you slowly wind down the east side of the steep slopes.  Concrete barriers with their guard rails still intact on a section near the top where a viaduct was used.  The Highway Commission photo from the road’s earlier days is still recognizable in the still forest.

Continue past an area where the road punched through some rock features on the east side. You can recognize you walk on the section of the road described as Prescott Point in early period postcards.

LITTLE JACK FALLS

Now, the road becomes a little trickier.  Drainage from the hillside above takes the easiest course downhill, the roadbed.  One short section featured mud about six inches deep definitely not designed for tennis shoes.

Persevere and your reward is a section of stone arched guarded rails, still protecting the east side of the road.  Finally, after maybe a third of a mile, you come to Little Jack Falls.  The highway here used a culvert to cross the creek.  There is a postcard view showing a little wayside for motorists to get out and enjoy the falls up close.  The wayside and culvert are long gone down the steep forested hillside.  One suggestion I read was a viaduct, like higher up would have been more permanent. 

In any case, with a rambunctious corgi on leash, this is where I stopped.  Supposedly, Jack Falls is another 20-30 yards to the south. It probably around the point where you can see the old roadbed continuing.  I have read Jack Falls is not as interesting as Little Jack.  The ground being wet and unstable.  The path down to the creek is sketchy, especially if you have to carry a corgi.  So, I backtracked to my car from here.

THE RATING

Little Jack Falls is listed as 86 feet high – Jack is 70 – by the Northwest Waterfall Survey. Subjectively, Jack Falls is rated at 18.06 on a scale of 0-100 (Multnomah Falls, for comparison, rates at 89.92) and while no figure is given for Little Jack, a slightly higher number (maybe 19) seems in order.  Both falls drain a fairly small area, so late in the season they become mere trickles.

Recent moves to restore easy access to the Prescott Point and Little Jack Falls areas are being considered. The main question mark is to gain acceptance of the people living along Little Jack Falls Road. Possibly, the lower section of the road could give public access and leave the upper end closed off.

RAINIER LOOPS

From the town of Rainier, the highway ascended over 600 feet high to the plateau above to the west. Again, using a maximum of five percent grade, the road stuck to crenulations along the steep hillside to climb an area referred to many as the “Rainier Loops”. The older road was replaced in the 1950’s when the newer and straighter route to Clatskanie was built below.

You can still drive the old road today. At the west end of Rainier, follow B Street which will lead directly to the “Old Rainier Road”. There used to be a State Wayside near the summit of the road on land gifted to the State by a local physician – Ditto – but little evidence remains today. The views from the older road are possibly a little better than the new highway – 7% grade on the new, straight road – but because so much more attention goes to the curves, you do not have much time to enjoy. Besides, the many curves, trees have grown up obscuring the vistas. as well.

The Lewis & Clark Bridge going across the Columbia to Longview dates to 1930. Originally, the Oregon side of the bridge wound back to link up with the old highway in the west end of Rainier. When the newer road was built to Rainier summit, direct access to US 30 west was gained without needing a detour back into Rainier.

After reaching the crest on the old road, you drop down past Rainier school buildings into the upper areas of Beaver Valley.

BEAVER VALLEY

Crossing Beaver Creek, the old highway used twelve little bridges.  The uppermost bridge is crossed just after ascending the Rainier Loops.  That bridge is one of three remaining bridges of twelve constructed over the creek in 1918 according to the bridgehunter.com site.  Michael Taylor in his book attributes the bridge date to 1920 making it one of Conde McCullough’s.  This seems to be corroborated by a recent news article in a local St Helens newspaper quoting a county road engineer who puts this bridge by Hudson-Parcher Park as being newer than the originals further downstream.   

TWIN FALLS aka upper beaver falls

Old Rainier Road runs into US 30 at the community of Alston.  It does continue through Alston but rejoins US 30 again a short way to the west.  Back of US 30, you quickly turn off to the right onto Beaver Falls Road, a long stretch of the former LCRH using the Beaver Creek canyon to drop down to Clatskanie over a ten-mile course.  The Beaver Creek section was replaced in 1953 by the steeper and straighter stretch of seven miles dropping down from the upper Beaver Valley directly to Clatskanie, without the bridges, twists and turns.

After getting on the former LCRH section as it drops down through the forested Beaver Creek canyon, you cross over the two bridges definitely dating to 1918.  Those two are the first bridges you cross the stream on after leaving US 30.  Others downstream are later remodels, and the 1918 bridges are also planned for replacement soon.  The uppermost bridge – the 1920 bridge by Hudson-Parcher Park – is also scheduled for replacement being rated as being too narrow for the log trucks rumbling across.

Farther down into the narrow, forested canyon of Beaver Valley, you come to Twin Falls, also known as Upper Beaver Falls.  The waterfall drops 11 feet in the bottom of two steep cascades – the upper section drops 4 feet.  Northwest Waterfall Survey rates the falls at 28.03.  The falls is 1.5 miles off US 30 on Beaver Falls Road.  Going downstream, it can be easy to miss or dismiss as you only have a fleeting glance.  Going upstream gives you a better look.  There is also a small pullout next to the falls, large enough for one or maybe two cars, if they are small enough.

The area at the bottom of the falls is probably popular in summer for swimming and partying.  I have read a bit of trash can mar the scene, though in midwinter, the waters seem to have washed the trash downstream on my visit.

BEAVER FALLS

At the time of road construction, Beaver Valley was mostly logged off.  The forest has made a magnificent recovery in the succeeding century.  It was an area dear to Simon Benson, a Norwegian immigrant who made his home here for awhile as he slowly built a logging empire. He was one of the main pushes behind the Multnomah County efforts at building the Gorge section of the HCRH.  Benson also used $20,000 of his own money to help Columbia County build the road through the valley.

Beaver Falls is the highest rated waterfall in Columbia County on the Northwest Waterfall Survey at 32.85 – the falls drops 48 feet in a beautiful curtain.  Your only view of this falls from the road is seen by the passenger – again only seen when traveling upstream – from high above briefly.  Fences try to block access to the area atop the falls. Formerly the only spot you could see the falls from was up here because of the steep and wet nature of the ground.

A large pullout further down today, offers access to a trail descending to the base of the gorgeous falls.  Find the trail on the uphill side of the parking area.  The path drops through the forested canyon in about a third of a mile and is fairly easy except for the last section where a fallen tree made for a low bridge.  The final drop is also a bit slippery due to the wet nature from the water spray.  Again, like its upstream brother, Beaver Falls looks like it would be a fun place to spend a hot summer afternoon.  Pictures show the power of the waterfall.

SPLASH DAMS AND FLUMES

There used to be a sawmill atop the falls.  Logs were first placed in a pool above the falls. A splash dam was used to get the logs downstream when there was deemed enough waterflow. The temporary dams would be opened up then and logs gathered in the ponds behind would push over the falls and hopefully downstream to a waiting lumber mill. 

Simon Benson used such a dam the 1880’s.  The problem was the hoped-for water surge was not sufficient to get the logs very far downstream.  Benson ran out of money on this venture leaving the cut logs along the stream. He regrouped in the years ahead over on the Washington side of the Columbia and later up the valleys south from nearby Clatskanie.

In the years after Benson’s attempt along Beaver Creek, the Oregon-American Lumber Company used a log flume which led four miles to a lumber mill at the community of Inglis at the level of the Columbia River.  Children were allowed to walk up the flume when the flume was turned off on Sundays to gather at the bottom of the falls.

The rest of Beaver Falls Road is bucolic.  Notice the names of roads branching off reflecting the early Finnish nature of many of the people who settled in the valley.  Reaching the bottom of the valley, the road turns west as the views open up in this section of the lower Columbia.  You return to US 30 in the small town of Clatskanie.

BUGBY LOOPS AND BROADLEY WAYSIDE

Continuing west from Clatskanie, the old highway route is followed by the new version of US 30 except where the older road hugs closer to the mountain edge of the valley – Coulter and Taylorsville Roads.  US 30, thanks to bigger machinery with later times, makes a much straighter beeline past cottonwood plantations and pastures paralleling the Portland-Astoria railway.

You are now in Clatsop County as you pass the little town of Westport.  US 30 uses the little original bridge as it crosses over Plympton Creek.  The highway next powers its way straight up Bugby Mountain to the west, high above the large pulp mill at Wauna.  The top of the hill is the high point for the highway on the Lower Columbia is Clatsop Crest – 656 feet high.  It is the northern ridge coming off Nicolai Mountain, a basaltic formation undercut by the ice age Missoula floods.

BUGBY LOOPS

The highway rose in a series of loops like those used further east on the Columbia at Rowena and Crown Point.  Here, four loops brought the road up to the top looping around what is today, Bradley State Wayside.  The loops used nine huge dry masonry walls to hold the road in place, the largest use of such walls on the lower highway.

In 1955, the new straight route was opened, and the Bugby Loops were abandoned.  In the winter, a quick glance uphill as you race up to the crest will show you the base Loop Two.  The highway bashes through the loops.  On the west side of the road, there is a small clearing visible that seems part of the east end of the former road.

BRADLEY WAYSIDE

The road crested at the Bradley Wayside.  Eighteen acres were donated in 1921 – first to Clatsop County which donated the area to the State a year later – by the Bradley family for the park. The viewpoint features a great view over Puget Island and the section of the lower Columbia River upstream past Clatskanie.  There used to be a caretaker’s home and concession here, but they are long gone.  Evidence of the road here is not clearly evident with the amount of fill used, probably from the cut in the mountain when the straightened highway bypassed the little park.

“There’ll be plenty of folks who, after driving over this lower highway, ascending the scenic Widby Loops on an easy grade and perfect roadbed to the summit of Clatsop Crest, 700 feet over the Columbia, and there witnessing the view unfolded, will swear that not even Crown Point, on the Upper Columbia River Highway, can surpass it.” Sunday Oregonian June 30, 1918.

ONWARD

One last feature about the LCRH to mention is the former bridge over the John Day River near Astoria.  Built in 1918 by the Portland Bridge Company, two Howe trusses were used along with a 40-foot draw span to allow fishing boats past.  Because of WW1, a steel shortage determined the bridge to be made of wood.  To help protect the bridge, it was covered.  Covered bridges cost more with here no exception.  The bridge was replaced after only fifteen years.