badroads.html

The Mt. Adams Sun, Bingen, WA. February 25, 1938, page 1

PIONEERS SAW OUR BAD ROADS

On looking back of the many pioneer stories of the great Mt. Adams Area, one point stands out above all others...that recent years this section has developed its roads. It seem a truth that the Mt. Adams area only the past twenty years has honestly been fully developed and understood for its potential resources and chances of development to a countryside known far and wide. It still has that to do.

THE "LOST MOUNTAIN"

The second highest peak in the northwest is our own Mt. Adams. Only some 30 or 40 miles from the Evergreen highway thru Bingen, and through the easiest type of countryside to build new roads. Only until last year has it been noticed by the State that no road of any consequence leads to that mountain. Then a secondary highway was decided on to lead to Trout Lake valley. It is not completed yet, but once it is then our MT. ADAMS AREA WILL BE TOUCHED. In all the pioneer stories submitted to our readers, it has been pointed out that very poor road condition was always prevalent in this section. Mt. Adams was the "lost mountain" because no roads led to it. It was never advertised in a nationally important magazine or metropolitan newspaper as a possible automobile tour, because it had no available roads. It was "lost." Soon we shall see roads...then watch this develop. Pioneers have all said the country practically inaccessible. This was so up to recent years. A.B. Groshong in an article last year...said, "the only access to the outside world was to take the trail down the bluff at White Salmon and row across the river to Hood River." In 1900 Coty Chapman, pioneer, had to walk through many miles of snow from the Gilmer valley to get a doctor. Rudolf Heyting in 1877 here could remember Indian trouble. Few blockhouses were available...and all those along the river. Roads were trails. Charolotte Stump said roads were bad, even to late years, as did the late Rufus Byrkett report. He stated, "Bald Mountain was an extremely narrow road. In fact two wagons couldn't pass on the narrow strip." A report from Ira Rowland, early-day resident here shows that roads then were not built for automobiles. The first car to come here, a one cylinder roadster, was driven to Trout Lake. A stump protruding from the ground in the center of the road caught on the bottom of the car knocking out the crank case. It was left there. The car was brought from Hood River on the ferry Mr. Rowland operated at that time. John Weyers reported, "all roads were trails then. The road leading to Trout Lake from White Salmon left the latter north of town via the old Grange park road, and was not changed to leave west from White Salmon until after 1900. Then it was only a trail." Wagons with four-horse teams had to be used exclusively to drag them through two and three feet of mud. Usually the horses had to be "winded" before taking one some of the deepest mud holes on the weekly trek to the back country. It has all boiled down to the fact that this section, because of sparse population, has few good roads, even up to recent years. Yes, good enough for our own travel, but very poor to invite tourists and outside business interests. Our roads are yet to be developed to compare with the fine roads of other sections that have less to offer from the standpoint of land to develop. Rich land in our Mt. Adams Area, with its thousands of acres of grassy slopes and wooded areas. It is a land with a future second to none in America today, for beauty, for pioneering development and for advertising copy to "tell the world."