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The Enterprise, White Salmon, WA., February 14, 1952, page 6

SCENIC BINGEN DESCRIBED by SEATTLE WRITER

The following article appeared in the Seattle Sunday Times about two weeks ago... It is interesting to note the "errors" of a writer unfamiliar with her subject--- It's amusing too, no doubt, to Chamber of Commerce people.

OUR WASHINGTON NAMES
By Ida Wilcox Howell

Bingen, in Klickitat County, was named by P.J. Suksdorf after Bingen-on-the-Rhine. Its location, on the Columbia River, is similar in many respects to that of the Rhenish city from which its name was taken.
From the beginning of history in the West, the spot where Bingen now stands has been strategic. Here passed the Indians from the interior, on the way to the land west of the Cascades which they knew as Oyer-un-gun, the Place of Plenty, where water was abundant and game, fish and fruit were plentiful. From the Yakima Valley, across the Satus Pass, they reached the Columbia River above Bingen; down the sharply descending valley of the White Salmon river they reached the intersection of the two rivers at Bingen.
They first white rivermen and trappers and voyageurs passed on their way through the turbulent, almost impassable Columbia gorge. The famous Great Migration of 1843, under leadership of Jesse Applegate, passed here. The sick and weak ones were transported by skilled rivermen in boats sent to meet them by Dr. McLoughlin Hudson's Bay Factor at Vancouver. Only the strong, able bodied immigrants were left to fashion rafts and push out into the river current on their perilous journey through the Gorge to Fort Vancouver.
The site where Bingen now stands was taken up by Mr. Suksdorf, but the town was not laid out until 1892, and the post office was established two or three years later. It is unusually scenic. Visible to the north is the snowy crown of Mt. Adams, second highest peak in the Northwest; to the south looms Oregon's towering Mt. Hood; and the mighty Columbia washes past its doorways. Here a toll bridge crosses to Hood River, linking Washington and Oregon at this point.
On the outskirts of the town green meadows support rich dairy farms, and the loamy river silt produces unusually fine truck gardens. Fruit growing and lumbering are important in the town's prosperity.
Bingen is a packing and shipping point for orchardists; along the river sawmills are located. A disastrous fire a couple of years ago destroyed one of the large mills and threatened destruction of the town.