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.
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.
Continue readingFort 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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