"... Lancaster and the Multnomah County engineers laid out the highway route between the Sandy River and the county line, east of Bonneville, in September 1913. Dangling from the cliffs with ropes and standing waist-deep in ferns, Lancaster aimed "to find the beauty spots, or those points where the most beautiful things along the line might be seen to the best advan- tage, and if possible to locate the road in such a way as to reach them."

Construction began the following month and continued for two years. Millionaire lumberman and realtor John B. Yeon volunteered to supervise construction as County Roadmaster, assisted by Amos Benson. C. Lester Horn recalls that Yeon wore out "two automobiles and dozens of tires" on the job. Other volunteers from Portland formed weekend road crews to speed the effort. Local pride and responsibility for the project were so great that the county declined state funds when they became available in 1917, telling the highway department to spend the money on construction in less-developed counties.

While Multnomah County proceeded on its section of the Columbia River Highway in the west, the Oregon State Highway Department assumed much of the construction responsibility in Hood River and Wasco counties to the east. In October 1913 the county court at Hood River urged the highway department to make an initial survey to coordinate its building effort with Multnomah County's.

The state survey crew worked through the winter of 1913-14, losing only one day to bad weather when the snow was too heavy to clear from the telescope for a sighting. Construction of the highway between Cascade Locks and Hood River, mostly following the route of the old wagon road, began in 1914 after Simon Benson purchased the entire $75,000 bond issue voted to fund the project.

On July 6, 1915 the Columbia River Highway officially opened from Portland to Hood River. A month later the continuation of the route west from Portland to Astoria and the sea was open as well. In 1915 and 1916, after a quick campaign by highway supporters passed a $1,250,000 county bond, the highway was surfaced with asphaltic Warrenite, making it the first major paved road in the Northwest. From 1916 to 1920 highway construction proceeded in sections east from Hood River to The Dalles, delayed by a right-of-way problem Wtth the railroad between Hood River and Mosier. The highway eventually ran inland away from the riverbank alignment of the railroad, becoming the most expensive road work yet undertaken because of the need to build the Mosier Twin Tunnels. When the last pavement was finally laid in The Dalles in 1922, the Columbia River Highway opened an era of gracious and convenient auto travel through the gorge. ..."


Source:    "Columbia River Highway, Options for Conservation and Reuse", 1981, Columbia River Highway Project

Only in 1882 was the Gorge accessible with a continuous overland route when the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company (ORN) constructed a water-level track from Portland to The Dalles. ... For the next thirty years, the line provided the only real alternative to steamboats for travel along the river. ..."


Source:    USDI/NPS National Register for Historic Places Registration Form, Columbia River Highway, 2000

President Wilson will touch a button at his office in Washington, D.C. This will set the instrument in motion out at Crown Point. The touch of the button will drop a heavy weight with a knife on the under side. The weighted knife will fall on a rope stretched under the knife. The cutting of this rope will drop other weights and the flag will be unfurled. It will be operated by President Wilson, more than 3000 miles away. ...

Provision for Autos Made.

Provision will be made for parking automobiles on the highway itself at Crown Point, so that those who do not go to Multnomah Falls and those who return before the exercises there are completed will be enabled to enjoy the impressive ceremonies marking the beginning of construction of Vista House.

Among the other dedicatory features which will keep the highway in a stir Wednesday afternoon, will be the dedication of Fort Rock, Angel's Rest, which will be taken up by the pageanten route for Portland after the ceremony at Multnomah Falls.

Samuel C. Lancaster will give the dedicatory address and H.L. Pittock will touch the button which will unfurl the flag on the pinnacle following the dedication."


Source:    The Sunday Oregonian, June 4, 1916, courtesy University of Oregon Historic Newspaper Archives, 2015.

Falls Picturesque Background.

The weather was just right for pciture taking and the camera men had a background to their liking. What could be mroe picturesque than the majestic altitude of Multnomah Falls?

The dedicatory ceremonies took place on a platform erected in the natural amphitheater just below and a little to one side of the falls.

The photographic batteries were arranged in a series of "trenches" beyond the platform so that the cameras could hit the figures on the stage and the falls all in the same shot. ...

The event had been widely heralded and it attracted people from all over the Northwest. In fact, it took on a National significance inasmuch as the final act in the more or less elaborate ceremony was performed by President Wilson himself, when, at his desk in Washington, D.C., he touched an electric button that released a large American flag at the pinnacle of Crown Point, which marks the highest elevation on the route.

Thousands Visit Falls.

But the main event was the ceremony at Multnomah Falls. There it was that the great crowd had gathered to do honor to the highway builders. A special train brought thousands of people from Portland, and long lines of automobiles carried toerh thousands from the city, as well as from neighboring towns in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. More than 100 machines came from The Dalles alone. ..."


Source:    The Morning Oregonian, June 8, 1916, courtesy University of Oregon Historic Newspaper Archives, 2015.

"... Near LINDSAY CREEK, 134.7 m., is a bronze plaque commemorating the commencement in 1912 the building of the first section of the Columbia River Highway. ..."

"... The greatest scenic roadway in America is the Columbia River Highway which is the key to the treasure box of beauties and of the impelling grandeur of the gorge of the Columbia River. Portland, Oregon, is world-famed for its climate, its roses, as a residential city, and for being the threshold of enjoyment in outdoor life at its best --- fishing, hunting, boating, mountain climbing, skiing, snowshoeing and general camping. Oregon's star attraction, however, is an auto tour of a few hours over fifty miles of hardsurfaced road east to Hood River --- the home of the famous Spitzbergen Apple. The cost is very low. The highway follows the shoreline of the mighty Columbia River and along the base of tremendous cliffs over which fall the milky waters of many streams from the glaciers of Mt. Hood. Scenically this trip is without a peer in America and bears a marked resemblance to the Alps, the Rhine, and Italy with the added charm of the wild grandeur of the American Rockies. Another feature alone would make this highway famous for it is the most remarkable road-engineering feat extant. Into this land of Thanatopsis is a fifty-mile perfectly paved road, with quaint retaining walls of dry masonry, winding up over cliffs and down into meadowy valleys and crossing a dozen tubulant, milky streams from the hinterland.

Fifteen bridges, each of a different design, are crossed in ten miles of travel. Among the eleven spell-binding waterfalls are Latourell, whose waters drop 124 feet to its pool and Latourell Bridge with three 80-foot arches; Sheppard's Dell covered with white concrete arches over a chasm 140 feet high and 150 feet deep; Waukeena which is a spectacular fall of 400 feet over a tortuous course; and the climax is Multnomah with its 700-foot fall silently dropping into a picturesque moss-encircled basin, and then follows another cascade 70 feet farther on its way to the Columbia. Multnomah is the second highest cascade in the United States.

At Crown Point, 700 feet above the river is Vista House dedicated to the early pioneers and from which the auto road doubles itself five times in a space of 40 acres, describing a triple figure of eight to maintain its 5 per cent grade. At Booneville is the largest fish hatchery in the world where eggs are developed up to five or six months, when they are planted in the river to return years later to add their quota to the hundred million dollars worth of Royal Chinook which have been the yield of this food to man. We pass the fabled Bridge of the Gods and the 380-foot tunnel at Mitchell's Point where five great windows open to a vista of the river. This is destined to be even more famous than the Axenstrasse of Switzerland. A return from Hood River by steamboat gives one a more general idea of this remarkable mountain and river topography and emphasizes that this scenery is unsurpassed in grandeur and charm and that man's handiwork has here excelled in his accommodations that Americans may see it all quickly and without discomfort. ..."

Source:    Claude P. Fordyce, 1922, "America's Great Outdoors", published in "The Rotarian", May 1922

"Mileposts were established along the CRH at the time of construction. According to a "Mile Posting Data" log of the entire highway that the Oregon State Highway Department (OSHD) prepared in 1924, HMP 0.00 was established as the intersection of SW Washington Street and SW Broadway in downtown Portland. The route leading to the beginning of the CRH and nominated district, followed Portland's arterial system for about six miles before picking up the Base Line Road (also known as Stark Street) or the Sandy Road (later known as Sandy Bouelevard). Stark Street intersected the CRH on the Sandy River (Stark Street) Bridge, at HMP 16.7. The Sandy Road crossed the Sandy River two miles downstream over the Sandy River Bridge at Troutdale before heading into the county's road system. The roadway between the Sandy River Bridge at Troutdale and the Sandy River (Stark Street) Bridge was added as a second access route to the CRH, a few years after work originally began on the highway. The Sandy River Bridge at Troutdale is 2.5 miles northwest of the Stark Street structure, so its HMP has been calculated as 14.2. For puposes of this nomination for the CRH, and the 1983 NR nomination for the CRH Historic District, HMP 14.2 was determined as the westernmost point of the nominated property."


Source:    National Historic Landmark Nomination form, 1996, Columbia River Highway.

However, within just a few years advancing technology in transportation began to make the highway obsolete. Trucks and cars became bigger and faster making travel on the narrow, winding roadbed increasingly difficult and dangerous. By 1931 plans were already underway to make another road, but this one would be wider, have fewer curves and be closer to river bed.

Public enthusiasm for this replacement highway was tempered by a lack of funds. Aside from a new tunnel being constructed through Tooth Rock near Bonneville Dam in 1935, little more was done. Nevertheless, interest in the new highway remained strong and a portion of it was built from Troutdale to Dodson in the summer of 1949.

By 1954 the new "water-level" freeway finally reached The Dalles, but not without significant damage to the original highway."


Source:    Ken Manske, 2003, "A Travelers Guild to The Historic Columbia River Highway, M&A Tour Books, Gresham.

Acreage: 259.9


Source:    Oregon State Parks and Recreation website, 2015.