The Klickitat County Agriculturist, Goldendale, WA., July 23, 1926, page 1
WISHRAM MOVED EIGHT MILES TO THE EASTWARD JULY 20
The location of an historical spot, endeared to Oregon and Washington pioneers,
through Indian legends and made famous in the works of great authors, has been
moved 8 miles east on the Columbia river, as stated in the Agri. recently, to
please the whims of a great corporation. This new location was formerly known
as a Fallbridge -- now Wishram.
So on Tuesday of this week a great gathering of
Washington and Oregon parties assembled, and dedicated a monument to the new
name, Wishram, and Fallbridge is no more!
Our correspondent at Fallbridge, Wishram henceforth,
writes to the Agri.: Months ago the Great Northern railroad, following its plan
to name its stations, so far as possible, after the old Indian titles, struck
Fallbridge from its maps and substituted Wishram, the native name for a point of
land situated at the narrows of the Columbia about four miles above The Dalles
and eight miles west of Fallbridge.
Now come the pioneers with the plaint that a wrong has
been done. The name Wishram, or, Nech-loi-deth, was interpreted in the Yakima
tongue, as stationary-people-who-never-move; significant of painted figures and
pictographs on the rocks at this point. The word Wishram was probably first
written by Washington Irving in his “Astoria” and was a misspelling of the
Indian pronunciation Wish-cum.
With the name applicable only to this particular spot,
obviously, the pioneers argue, it could not rightfully be moved away and applied
to another location merely because a train stops there. When the Great Northern
dedicates its monument at “Wishram” late this month for the benefit of the
cross-continent tour of the eastern group making up the Columbia Historical
expedition, the old-timers who have revered the painted rocks at Wishram for
decades will sadly watch the official fading away of the old name.