The Hood River News, Hood River, OR., December 30, 1949, page 8
CAPT. COE TOD OF WINTER IN '61-'61 WHICH HE TERMED "WORST IN HISTORY"
Winters in Hood River can be rugged -- that many an oldtimer
knows, as well as those who have been here the past 30 years or so.
What is believed to have been one of the most severe
winters in the history of the white man came in 1862.
Capt. H.C. Coe who, with his brother, Eugene Coe, once
owned the townsite of Hood River, wrote an article for the Hood River News
in 1909 that tells of that rugged winter in a yarn work relating again.
Capt. Coe, a resident of the Hood River area since 1854,
wrote:
The winter of 1861-62 was the most severe in my experience.
In the long and glorious summer as we enjoy, many people are apt to forget
the cold and deep snowfalls of some of our winters. There is no use, however,
in dwelling on the other winters as compared to '61-'62.
What has happened in the past may happen again. One in
Hood River never knows what kind of a winter he is going to have until it
is past and my advice is to always prepare for and expect the worst, and
be glad if you are disappointed. There was a legend that the Indians were
very fond of repeating to us by way of consolation of a winter many years
previous to '62, when so much snow fell that it did not melt off the ensuing
summer. Then horses died, and many of the Indians succumbed. Had it not been
for a very plentiful run of salmon in the spring all would have perished
for want of food.
Our first winter in Hood River (1854), then known as
Dog River, was a delightful one: A little snow and freezing weather in December.
Early in February we made a garden and there was not a frost after that to
do any damage. The year 1858 was the record breaker for deep snows, five
feet and one inch on the level -- and not drifted. The weather was notable
for the quantity of snow on the ground at one time, rather than for its cold
or duration, for by the middle of February the ground was bare.
But '62 was a record smasher of note. Snow fell on the
19th day of November, 1861, and from that time until the 22nd day of April
the ground was never entirely clear of snow. November was a month of disaster.
Fifteen days of rain and three of snow is the record. From the fourth until
the tenth, five days, the rain came down in torrents. Hood river was full
from bank to bank, four or five feet higher than has ever been since. The
Willamette valley above Oregon city was transformed into a great lake. Steamboats
navigated the country roads, miles away from the main channel, rescuing farmers
who had taken refuge on house-tops and on barns. Buildings of all descriptions
came down the river and over the Oregon City falls intact and on down past
Portland to the Columbia river.
The entire flat on the east Portland side of the river
up to what is now known as Union avenue was covered with wreckage and drift
many feet deep. Some 18 inches of snow fell during the month.
In December we had 10 days of rain and three of snow,
19 inches of snow during the month. On the 19th, the mercury went down to
22 degrees and never got above the freezing point but once until February
15. On January 16 the thermometer registered 24 degrees below zero and the
general mean was only 10.45 degrees for the month. Seven feet of snow fell
and there was four feet, two inches on the level at one time. The river closed
January 1 and navigation was not resumed until March 12.
This was the year of mining excitement in the Boise and
Northern Idaho countries and the casualties were many. Some six or eight
persons were frozen to death between the John Day's river and The Dalles.
Several people lost their lives between The Dalles and Portland. And report
had it that every house between these points had from one or two more or
less badly frozen. But the craze was on. Miners had made their way up from
California and were not to be deterred by a snowstorm and a little cold weather.
Men but ill prepared to withstand the rigors of an ordinary winter, some
without money and but a single pair of blankets, rushed headlong into the
awful gorge of the Columbia, without a vestige of a road or even a trail
to guide them, facing the fierce gales that drove the blinding snow in clouds
into their faces.
It was my fortune -- or misfortune to have to make a
trip to Portland at the very commencement of winter.
The steamer Idaho when down to the Cascades on New Year's
day, her last trip. The lower river was closed, so Wells Fargo's messenger,
Jones, and myself took a small boat at the Cascades and made our way through
the drift ice to the mouth of the Sandy river and went on foot to Portland,
reaching that place at about eight o'clock that night. On the sixth I was
ready to return, and in company with Lew Day, a well-known express manager,
noted for his pluck and endurance, left Portland in a two-horse hack for
the Sandy river, to which point there was a fair wagon road.
We drove across the Willamette on the ice and reached
Joe Latourelle's in good season. On our way to Sandy we met Geo. H. Knaggs,
a well-known middle river steamboat man with several others, on their way
to Portland. They were badly used up and tried to dissuade us from attempting
the trip. At Latourelle we found 28 miners on their way to the Boise mines.
That night it commenced to snow and snow was about 12 inches deep by morning.
A bitter east wind was howling down the river. Day and I soon left the miners
behind and broke the trail the entire distance to the middle Cascades.
There we were cordially greeted by John Barzee, the genial
manager of the portage road, then operated on the south, or Oregon side of
the river. Snow fell that night and was over two feet deep by morning. A
few miles above the Cascades we met Captains E.W. Baughman and E.F. Coe and
Engineer John Girty, of the upper Columbia river, bound for Portland, then
as now the mecca of the Northwest.
We had some hard falls making our way around Shell rock
mountain, which was then noted far and near as the worst place on the route.
We reached Mitchell's point that night completely done up. Day gave out about
a mile from our destination and I thought it was all over with him, but he
finally got on his feet again and made our stopping place. The wind had blown
a living gale all day, drifting and driving the snow in our faces and adding
greatly to the difficulty of the trip. We reached Hood River early the next
morning, the snow then measuring three feet deep.
In March, we ran out of provisions and I made two trips
on the ice to The Dalles, hauling back flour on a hand sled.
Stock of all kinds suffered and it was said that east
of the Cascade mountains not a hoof of range stock was left. A good many
cattle died here in the valley. Jenkins and Benson lost in the neighborhood
of 100 head, and Pierce and Weathereaux, north of Belmont, lost nearly that
many. None of our cattle died for want of food, though we lost several of
our best cows from feeding on pine leaves.
The ice in the Columbia froze to a great depth. At the
foot of the rapids at Cascades, Captain John McNulty of the steamer Idaho
told me that it piled up fully 80 feet high. At The Dalles I saw a 16-foot
pole run down a crack its full length without touching water.
On the 21st of March we cut a trail through the snow
and ice across Hood River and drove our cattle to the bare hills west of
Mosier, where an abundance of grass remained, and our troubles were practically
over for the winter.
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© Jeffrey L. Elmer