The Hood River News, Hood River, OR., May 28, 1943, page 1
RECORDS REVEAL DEVELOPMENT OF SOME EARLIER ROADS IN MID-COLUMBIA AREA
By Arline Winchell Moore
Frequently, during the past decade, someone has asked
me if I have any knowledge of an early-day military road through this section
of the mid-Columbia. I do not think such a road ever existed in this area
and offer the following data from the Oregon Historical Records Survey, No.
33, which is an inventory of the County Archives of Wasco County, from
pre-territorial days to February, 1941. This work is one of "a number of
guides to historical materials prepared throughout United States by workers
on Historical Records Survey Program of the Works Projects Administration,"
and is as authentic as the records in our county files could make it. The
only thing it would not cover would be the records in the files of our Army
Engineers. However, I am of the opinion that had a road or even a trail existed,
constructed and maintained by military funds, that some mention would surely
in our state and county files. I offer these excerpts, which substantiate
my theory.
On page 50 of this Historical Sketch, I find: "The present
day highway system of Wasco county was evolved from the primitive roads laid
out by the emigrants on their way to the Willamette Valley in the 1840's
and 1850's. The earliest route of wagon travel to The Dalles region was the
Oregon Trail
the emigrant route from the Missouri river to the Willamette
valley
From The Dalles westward the river provided the means of
transportation until 1845.
"In 1845, some effort was made to find an all-land wagon
road to the Willamette Valley. Several parties made attempts to find a suitable
route over the Cascade Range. The successful builder of the first road into
the Willamette Valley was Samuel Kimbrough Barlow, who, as captain of an
Oregon party in 1845, determined to find means of bringing his wagons over
the Cascades.
"Barlow decided to develop the steep, torturous Indian
trail south of Mount Hood into a wagon trail. September 24, 1845, Barlow,
with the party of about 19 persons, seven wagons and livestock, left The
Dalles. As the party did not reach the summit of the Cascade Range before
winter snows set in, they were forced to leave their wagons and part of their
goods at a place called Fort Deposit to the lonely vigil of William Berry,
while the remainder of the company, using their oxen and horses as pack animals,
moved ahead.
"Barlow, early in December, 1845, applied to the Provisional
Legislature then in session in Oregon City, for a charter to open a road
across the Cascade Range
May 18, 1846, Barlow formed a partnership
with Phillip Foster
for purposes of construction and operation of
a toll road. With the aid of 40 men, the road was completed in 1846
in time to capture some of the emigrant trade of that year
from 1846
to 1862, Barlow leased the road to various operators
who did little
to improve the route, merely collecting the tolls. Consequently the road
fell into disrepair. In 1862, the Mount Hood Wagon Road Company was organized,
presumably for the purpose of improving the Barlow Road, but was a failure.
The Cascade Road and Bridge Company was formed in May, 1864, and made extensive
improvements in the route
.Until the railroad was constructed along
the Columbia, the Barlow Road was a much-used route. In fact, this road continued
to be operated as a toll road until 1919, when it was opened for travel without
toll as a part of the State Highway System. Today, part of the course is
followed by the Mount Hood Loop Highway.
"The second important land route from Wasco County to
the Willamette Valley is today in the scenic Columbia River highway, opened
in 1915. This modern highway was preceded by a number of attempts to open
a road along this route, financed in part by private initiative, in part
by county funds, in part by state appropriations. The earliest wagon road
along the Columbia River followed the north bank, reached by ferry from The
Dalles.
"Early interest in a road on the south side of the Columbia
is evident in a petition by C.W. Shung for a road from the Cascades to The
Dalles, placed before the Wasco County Commissioners, September 17, 1855
viewers were appointed
but it is probable that the county did little
to improve this route.
"County road building facilities did not prove at all
adequate to care for the traffic resulting from the gold rush in the 1860's.
A proposal in 1861, for a pack-train trail between Portland and The Dalles
lead to the incorporation at Portland, October 16, 1862, of the Columbia
Road Company, with Joel Palmer as president. This company opened at toll
trail to pack trains and cattle early in 1863. Ferries were operated at Sandy
and Hood River (then called Dog River). The section of The Dalles-Portland
road east of Hood River was declared by Wasco County commissioners to be
a public highway in 1867, thenceforth maintained by county funds.
"After the decline of the gold rush activities, small
profits discouraged the use of private capital in building toll roads
Efforts resulted in the Oregon Legislature appropriated, October 23, 1872,
$50,000, and again, October 21, 1876, another $50,000
toward the
construction of a crude wagon road up the Columbia River."
This, I believe, covers the data contained in this work
on early roads along the Columbia. Further, I believe possibly the idea of
an early military road may have originated from the fact that in 1853, the
Army Engineers made a preliminary survey of a route through the Cascades
by General George B. McClellan, under the supervision of Isaac by Stevens,
Governor of the Washington Territory. General McClellan reported as his estimate
for a railroad along this route a cost of $117,121,000. No action was ever
taken on this report. This survey was made in answer to extensive agitation
for something besides the river route from The Dalles to the Willamette Valley.
Added to this recorded data is the more or less well-known
fact that the Oregon Rangers and other troops stationed in this area for
the protection of immigrants from forays of hostile Indians, frequently used
the old Indian trail that traversed Hood River valley from the Mosier hills,
and crossed the mountains in the vicinity of the present Lolo Pass trail.
Somewhere, not at the moment clear in my mind, mention is made of troops
from Fort Vancouver been camped at Government Camp on the southeast slope
of Mount Hood for the purpose of improving that route. The date has eluded
me at this time, but I have added this vague item as another possible source
of the idea of a military road. There is, also, the possibility that, like
the route of the railroad survey by General McClellan, a survey was made
by the Army Engineers for an all-land wagon route, and that it was never
constructed. I do not have any data on such a project, and believed that
it also would have appeared in the county records as the railroad survey
did.
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