"Finch was born in England and came to the U.S. in 1882. He resided in Oregon in 1891, and was a government inspector in Chehalis in 1900, and then worked in the Assessor's office in Grays Harbor County. In 1905 Finch Archer was appointed as the Special Allotting Agent for the Quinault Indian Reservation, his job ending in 1913 when Woodrow Wilson became President. He performed many allotment surveys under the jurisdiction of the Office of Indian Affairs to create tracts for Indians to receive a patent.

There are no notes or plats of the surveys of Finch, but maps of the allotments created exist at the BIA archives. Since the sections had already been surveyed, he was just subdividing the sections into aliquot parts. When Democrat Woodrow Wilson took office, his partisan appointee for BIA charged Archer with abuse of his office by using employees for his own personal projects, and he was fired. Later he was proposed by Republican Senator Pointdexter, and appointed by President Harding, to be Warden at McNeil Island Penitentiary from 1922-1934. During that tenure, Finch achieved notariety for his acceptance and handling of members of the Al Capone crime family at McNeil Island. He had obtained a patent in 1901 to a homestead of 178 acres west of Beacon Rock, just beneath Archer Mountain, Archer Falls and next to Archer Creek."


Source:    Jerry Olson, 2012, GLO Surveyor Personal Notes, July 9, 2012, "Olson Engineering Inc." website, 2015;

The basic geologic framework of the Columbia River Gorge has been known for over a century. In the western gorge, the package of Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) flood-basalt flows unconformably overlies volcanogenic rocks of ancestral Cascade volcanic arc. Vigorous and widespread volcanism characterized the arc from its inception 40 Ma until ca. 18 Ma, when activity greatly declines. The arc must have been relatively quiescent during emplacement of the most voluminous CRBG flows, because interflow volcanic sediments are sparse. The larger flows passed through a 50-km-wide ancestral Columbia River valley on their way to the ocean. Owing to late Cenozoic uplift of the Cascade Range and resultant incision by the Columbia River, CRBG flows are now spectacularly exposed in the cliffs and waterfalls of the Columbia River Gorge. The modern gorge roughly follows the northern margin of the broad Miocene valley. Grande Ronde flows clearly abut the northern paleovalley wall formed by early Miocene volcaniclastic rocks of the 19 Ma Eagle Creek Formation. ...

The slight southward dip of the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) section and the underlying Eagle Creek Formation gives the western gorge an asymmetric physiographic cross section. In Washington, failure of weakly lithified Eagle Creek strata that dip toward the river under the load of superincumbent basalt has produced huge landslide complexes composed largely of CRBG debris. In Oregon, where strata dip away from the river, undercutting of the Eagle Creek Formation instead creates towering cliffs. As a result, the CRBG section south of the river consists of continuous cliffs, whereas to the north the CRBG forms scattered peaks (Greenleaf Peak, Table Mountain, Hamilton Mountain, and Archer Mountain) separated by low-lying terrain underlain by the Eagle Creek Formation or landslide debris. Each of these peaks is actually the southern end of a N-S ridge of CRBG, marking sites where basalt flows backfilled south-flowing tributaries of ancestral Columbia River."


Source:    Wells, R.E., Niem, A.R., Evarts, R.C., and Hagstrum, J.T., 2010, "The Columbia River Basalt Group -- From the gorge to the sea", IN: Geologic Society of America Field Guild 15, 2009.

The mountain takes its name form F.R. Archer, whose land runs upon the mountain side. He has a picutresque a cottage as any artists could wish to see, set in a tangle of honeysuckle, wild cherries, apple and plum trees, with trellised grape vines sending out long tendrils toward every passer-by. Here blankets, luncheon and other baggage may be unloaded and safely left behind. A short and easy clumb brings one to the Indian mounds, about half way up the southern slope to the summit. This is the dumping ground of the mountain. A huge cliff, bare and bleak, towers up in a straight line several hundred feet toward the sky. Acres of loose, rolling rocks and pebbles lie at its base. Here the frowning mountain, in grim humor, throws stones at itself. But it is easy to see that the hand of man has also had a part in the wild play. The whole place looks like the ancient cemetery of some forgotten race. The mounds face toward the river. They are arranged in set rows, trenches, and winnows. Here and there, square and round hillocks of stones are thrown up without regard to the points of the compass. Altogether there are between 20 and 30 mounds, but farther on around a spur of the mountain are other groups of these mounds. The order and regularity with which they are placed, leave a profound impression upon the observer, and this is deepened when one is told that directly across the river a neighboring mountain has a similar collection of mounds, which also face toward the river. The idea that the place is a great graveyard is hardly acceptable, owing to the fact that nothing has ever been found buried under any of these hillocks; neither human bones, nor bow and arrow, nor any other relics of a bygone age.

Another theory is that this was at one time a great battle ground of the Indians, the trenches and breastworks being thrown up as a cover behind which they could shoot poinsoned arrows at their foes. Still another explanation is that the place was a hunting-ground, the mounds being used as places of concealment for shooting at the elk and bear that used to abound in that region.

After leaving the mounds it is something of a hard pull up the latter half of the mountain. Skirting the cliff one keeps well to the left, making the ascent by the middle ravine of the eastern slope. The dense brush, which was waist-high, happened to be very wet at the time the Regulator exploring party made the climb, which resulted in drenched clothing. In some places the only way one could get past a precipitous rock was to be pulled up strong leather straps. But these difficult spots may easily be avoided, by a little care in selecting the path of ascent. There is no real trail.

After the white buckberries, hazel and dog-wood, have been left behind, the golden rod makes its appearance, acre after acre of yellow bloom flooding the entire mountain top with its glory. The summit was reached by 10 o'clock. It broadens out into far-reaching meadows which end abruptly on the south, in two dangerous cliffs overhanging the Indian hunting grounds, a dizzy distance below. These two cliffs are far removed, one from another, and give the mountain a savage and threatening aspect, wholly different from the gentle curves presentled to the eye on the side toward the river. After enjoying the splendid panorama of mountain range and river gorge, streatched out before him, the climber may slake his thirst at a spring of sparkling water on the summit. Nor should he neglect on the way down to find the warm mineral spring discovered by C.J. Church. The outjutting rock that forms the apex of the mountain is pierced in very curious fashion by a circular hole that is said to be about 8 or 10 feet in diameter. It is in an inaccessible spot, but may be viewed from below."


Source:    "Morning Oregonian", September 16, 1901, courtesy Historic Oregon Newspapers Archives, Univeristy of Oregon Libraries, 2016.