Willamette Landings was a book I originally read in the sixth or seventh grade a long time ago. The book details the little settlements growing along the Willamette River in the mid to late 19th century when the river served to connect the Valley to each other and the outside world. The book impressed me so much I was able to convince my parents to take a trip visiting some of the old sites, including rides on the three ferries remaining – still, today, as well – in operation crossing the river. The key to being able to use the river as a transportation artery was the development of the Willamette Falls Locks in 1873.
THE RIVER
Before railroads, rivers made up a very important link connecting commerce, travel, and communication within the Willamette Valley and beyond. Like the Columbia, river transportation on the Willamette faced a major challenge at the site of Willamette Falls. The 40-foot drop presented a break between lower and upper river avenues.
Fur trappers pushed over the Falls in 1812 to establish a small trading post at Champoeg with another further south at Wallace House just north of Salem. Willamette Falls began seeing development from 1829 onward, both as a transshipment point and as a center of local industry utilizing the power of the waterfall.
ENTER THE STEAMBOAT
With the emigrant push of the 1840’s, steamboats began to show up on the scene. The boats shipped in pieces from the eastern U.S. and reassembled locally. The Lot Whitcomb – 160-foot-long – became the first steamboat launched on the Willamette in late 1850 captained by John C. Ainsworth. She served on the lower Willamette and Columbia Rivers able to run for Astoria to Oregon City in ten hours. Two early steamboats already operated on the lower Columbia by that time – the Hudson’s Bay Company Beaver – 1836 – and the Columbia launched six months before the Lot Whitcomb.
In August 1851, the Multnomah – again built in the east and reassembled in Oregon, this time at Canemah just upstream of the Falls – became the first steamboat to paddle in the upper Willamette and Yamhill Rivers. With a draft of only 18 inches, the Multnomah still was only able to make it upriver to where the Wheatland Ferry is today, about 25 miles upriver. The territorial legislature funded dredging in the river such that by September 1851 a four foot deep channel extended as far south as Salem.
CONNECTING DOWNRIVER
Using Canemah as its downriver terminus, the Multnomah regularly ran south to Salem, occasionally taking a side trip up the Yamhill to Dayton. Besides passengers, wheat became an important cargo carried by the little 108-foot-long steamboat. Low water levels still plagued the boat and in May 1852, she was lined over highwater at the Falls and spent the next twelve years running on the lower Willamette and Columbia Rivers. The Multnomah briefly formed into the first steamboat merger on the river running in association with the 90-foot Portland put into service in 1853. Former governor of the Provisional Government of Oregon, George Abernathy, acted as the agent for the Multnomah in Oregon City.
The association broke up a year later with the Multnomah shifting to the Portland-Astoria mail run. Her former partner, the Portland, is best known for its destruction, carried over the Falls on 17 March 1857 after transferred to the upper river the preceding October to run between Dayton and Canemah. Rudder problems left the boat uncontrollable, and she went over the Falls stern first with two men dying.
Another boat launched about the same time as the Multnomah, the Canemah. Her steam engines shipped over from New Orleans in 1850. She was designed to draft only 17 inches fully loaded. At 135 feet long, the Canemah operated carrying mail and wheat between Canemah, Salem, and as far upriver as Corvallis – then, Marysville, considered the head of navigation on the upper Willamette at the time. She also served on the Yamhill River as far as Lafayette.
CANEMAH
Just above the Falls today as you drive south on Oregon Highway 99E, the community of Canemah flashes by inconspicuously. Little more than a part of Oregon City now, Canemah has a long history as a transshipment port. Canemah roughly translates in Chinook to “the canoe place”. A place well known by Native Americans long before Absalom F. Hedges, a former steamboat captain on the Ohio River, came west on the Oregon Trail in 1844. Staking a donation land claim here, he platted a townsite for Falls City – the name did not stick – in 1849 before heading back east to buy machinery to assemble his own steamboat which turned out to be the Canemah.
Canemah, set within a hollow among the basalt cliffs rising behind, became a shipbuilding center with more than thirty steamboats outfitted for river traffic. As well, Canemah served as a point of transshipment around the Falls. A portage road leading around the Falls on the east bank into Oregon City was blasted from the cliffs to connect to lower river traffic.
The little town enjoyed good times until a flood in 1861 wiped out most of the town. Rebuilt afterwards, with the addition of a portage railroad. The town became the center for the People’s Transportation Company, organized in 1862.
PEOPLE’S TRANSPORTION COMPANY MONOPOLY
Initially, the P.T. Company ran boats on both the Willamette and Columbia Rivers. Competition from the older Oregon Steam Navigation Company working out of Vancouver, Washington, led to an agreement between the two concerns. P.T. Company got traffic on the Willamette while O.S.N. stayed on the Columbia.
In the late summer of 1865, the P.T. Company built a 14-inch timber framed dam secured by iron bolts and covered with three-inch wooden planks extending for 1,000 feet rising about 12 feet high. This created a boat basin on the east bank atop the Falls. The basin was some six to eight feet deep, 500 feet long and 300feet wide. Included in the construction work was a weir running around the Falls atop to raise the river level during the summer-fall low water levels – a forerunner of today’s Portland General Electric – PGE – dam in place at the Falls. The basin, finished in November 1866, was large enough to allow four of the company’s boats to dock at the same time.
There were plans for a warehouse at the basin to include an inclined railway to speed transshipment of cargoes between the upper and lower river. A drydock was added to the left of the basin. This sat on the site later occupied by Willamette Falls Electric Company – PGE, today.
MONOPOLY BROKEN
The P.T. Company also had plans in place to build a lock system on the east bank and even starting blasting work through the cliffs during the summer of 1869. In opposition to P.T. Company’s monopoly over the portage business, another company arose, the Willamette Falls Canal and Locks Company. P.T. Company’s corner over transportation on the Willamette encouraged enemies. Main shareholders were also the main forces in the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, the competitor to the P.T. Company. The WFC&L incorporated by a special act of the State legislature in 1868 for the purpose of constructing a canal on the west side of the Falls. A subsidy of $150,000 was granted paid out over six installments of $25,000 started following the canal’s completion.
On the west side below the Falls was the site of the former town of Linn City. Like Canemah, Linn City washed away in the 1861 flood. Unlike Canemah, Linn City never recovered. A strip of land became condemned to make way for the new canal at the same time. The State’s deadline for construction of the lock system proved too optimistic and new legislation needed approval in 1870 increasing the State subsidy to $200,000. Maximum toll charges were set in place with a completion deadline set for the start of 1873.
NEW LOCKS AND CANAL SYSTEM
The actual cost of the canal and locks came to $284,000 with another $35,000 spent on acquiring rights-of-way and $20,000 for “political extras”. The canal originally designed extended for 2,500 feet with a width of 40 feet including three 200 foot long locks. Those original 1869 plans changed extending the canal to 2,900 feet and four locks of 160 feet in length. A wood wall encased the canal while the locks were to be built of masonry. A problem with costs and lack of rock quality near the works led the chief designer to use timber walls within the locks, as well.
One problem with the project involved finding enough men, especially stonemasons, to build the system. Employed on the project were 300-500 men. Excavation and construction ran from 1871 through 1872. The first ship entering the newly completed locks on 1 January 1873. Maria Watkins transited through the locks – each lock raising the boat ten feet – from the lower to upper Willamette. On board were company officials and Governor La Fayette Grover. Passage through the locks took an hour and forty-five minutes while the return trip slimmed down to an hour. The eventual transit time aimed for thirty minutes.
LOCK DESIGN
Lock walls rested upon solid rock foundations. Masonry walls developed at the lock gates while the first two locks – farthest downstream – used natural rock to form the lock walls. The third lock also cut part way through solid rock, but featured walls extending above the surface. The fourth lock arose entirely above the surface with masonry walls on either side. Each lock lifted 10 feet totaling 40 feet. A guard lock was built upstream of the lifting locks next to the Falls itself. This lock was built to prevent floods from flowing over lower canal walls. The gates of this lock normally were left open to expedite transit time. The riverside wall of this lock was timber built frames filled in with stone.
Lock gates swung on suspension rods mounted in iron brackets set into masonry. The gates easily workable by one man. Locks were flooded and drained by eight wickets set near the bottom of each gate. Two men worked each gate opening and closing the wickets as needed. The 22-foot-long by 20-foot-high gates opened and closed by cranks. Water depth maximum was three feet within the lock. The water depth normally set at seven feet at the upstream head of the entrance canal dropping to four and a half feet during low water. Boat transit accommodated water levels up to 15 feet of water against the upper guard lock gates. During extreme flood conditions, the guard lock remained closed, with navigation temporaily halted.
DEMISE OF THE P.T. COMPANY AND CANEMAH
With the impending lock system opening on the opposite side of the river from P.T. Company’s portage railway, P.T. Company sold out to the Oregon and Central Railroad of Ben Holladay. Holladay wanted P.T. Company to reduce competition with his new railway. River traffic on the east bank abruptly ended with the completion of the Willamette Falls Locks. Canemah became somewhat of a retirement center and retreated into history becoming part of Oregon City in 1929. Much of the town remains obscured by today’s enlarged highway. The surviving community making up the Canemah Historic District is one of the few remaining riverboat towns.
ENTER PROGENITORS OF PGE
In 1888, the Willamette Falls Electric Company formed to create a small hydropower station on the east bank where the earlier P.T. Company drydock had been. Following the flood of 1890, their efforts switched to the other side of the river with the establishment of Station B next to the entrance canal to the locks. In 1892, now reorganized as the Portland Railway, Light and Power Company – PRLPC – purchased the canal and locks from the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company which evolved from the Oregon Steam Navigation Company earlier.
CANAL AND LOCKS BECOMES PUBLIC
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tried to buy the locks and canal in 1899. The price offered proved far less than asking price. In 1912, the Corps drew up plans to build a competing canal and locks on the Oregon City side. Those plans fell through when the successor company, the Portland Light and Power – PGE, today – sold the system for $375,000 maintaining ownership of the dam which provided power to their Station B. The lock system underwent improvements following more subsidies from both the State and federal governments each on the block for $300,000. Reconstruction was complete by the fall of 1917.
By that time, rail dominated the river. River traffic consisted more and more of giant log rafts which needed dissembling to get through the locks. There was a move to replace the four locks with one lock able to lift loads 47 feet, but WW2 and design problems intervened. As of 1964, the average number of lockages was 8,100 with an average tonnage of 1,100,000 tons.
THE LOCK SYSTEM AWAITS REINCARNATION
That changed dramatically by the end of the 1970’s as timber shipments dried up almost completely. By 2000, the number of vessels locking through dwindled to only 1,480. The Corps shifted the locks to seasonal operations closing even that in 2005 due to budget shortfalls. Local subsidies gained more federal monies and the locks again opened five days a week though only 667 vessels locked through in 2007.
The locks closed again in 2008 for structural inspections and repair operations proceeded in 2009 to repair lock gates. Seasonal operations in 2010 saw 492 vessels moving through the locks. But in 2011, the Corps put the locks in non-operational state due to suspected deterioration of the lock gate anchors. Finally, in 2021, the Oregon legislature established the Willamette Falls Locks Authority which will assume ownership of the locks after the Corps completes seismic retrofitting for the locks. The hope is for the locks to reopen in 2026.