Bridging a Great Divide: The Battle for the Columbia River Gorge

Chapter 20: Rebuilding a Historic Route

247 Chapter 20 Rebuilding a Historic Route Few Pacific Northwest legacies are more treasured than Sam Lancaster’s historic Columbia River Highway. Yet “progress” began nibbling away at the 73-mile-long route between Troutdale and The Dalles barely more than a decade after the scenic roadway was completed in 1922. In 1933 the Army Corps of Engineers began construction of Bonneville Dam on the Lower Columbia. When completed, the dam raised the level of the river upstream to a mile east of The Dalles, And when The Dalles Dam was completed in 1957, it submerged Celilo Falls, obliterating the most important Indian fishery on the river, and flooded hundreds of tribal artifacts. The raising of the river level also required a realignment of the highway between the dam and Cascade Locks. By the late 1940s, the postwar economic boom was driving increased demand for a faster, wider, and more modern highway to connect Portland to The Dalles and points east. By 1949, construction of a new water-level highway by the Oregon Department of Transportation was underway. Alas, the road builders of the postwar period had little respect for the craft and artistry that had gone into construction of the nation’s first scenic highway . The historic Columbia River Highway had been hailed as one of the engineering marvels of the age. Its soaring loops and its leisurely route, designed to showcase the most spectacular views from the Oregon side, remained wildly popular. Local boosters called it “The King of Roads.” But the trucks and cars of the postwar period were larger and faster, making travel on the narrow, winding road more difficult, even dangerous . State highway engineers deemed it ill-equipped to handle the growing commerce. A highway more muscular and utilitarian was required. What would happen to the beloved historic highway? Little consideration was given to that question at the time. 248 RESTORING A LEGACY By the summer of 1949, a section of the new highway from Troutdale to Dodson, initially named U.S. 80, was completed. By 1954, the new highway reached The Dalles. Its construction inflicted significant damage on the original highway. Nearly 26 miles of the old highway between Dodson and Hood River were destroyed or abandoned. In 1966, the world-famous Mitchell Point Tunnel, west of Hood River, was dynamited to allow for widening a section of the new highway from two lanes to four. Its guardrails, modeled on the Axenstrasse Tunnel in Switzerland, were demolished, breaking promises politicians had made to preserve them. Many of the original bridges, stone guardrails, and observatories , including Vista House at Crown Point, fell into disrepair. Towns and businesses bypassed by the new highway suffered decline. Many of the wealthy benefactors who had donated land along the Columbia Highway were distressed to see the fine handiwork of the Italian stonemasons destroyed. “Lancaster would have been heartbroken had he lived to see the result,” Marilyn Wheeler, a reporter for the Associated Press, wrote in 1988. “Parts of the scenic highway were bypassed, but other features—including six bridges and the distinctive Mitchell Point Tunnel—were blasted away.” “To bureaucrats, the Columbia River Highway was just another road,” Wheeler wrote. “Once the new freeway was complete, the state vacated its right of way and part of the old highway reverted to local ownership. In Hood River County, the highway was used for a garbage dump, gravel pits, and a public firing range. By 1980, only one-third of the highway remained intact. The rest had been abandoned or destroyed.” By then, however, support was building for a restoration project to save what could be saved and restore what could still be redeemed. In 1980, the National Park Service undertook a survey of the historic highway in connection with its study of threats facing the Columbia River Gorge. In 1983, as Congress was debating federal protection for the gorge, the Oregon Department of Transportation nominated the surviving highway sections for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The Historic Preservation League of Oregon led the effort to create an advisory committee to oversee restoration. Supporters channeled money and influence through Friends of the Columbia Gorge. The 1986 Scenic Area Act committed the state of Oregon to restore, preserve , and interpret the Historic Columbia River Highway and authorized REBUILDING A HISTORIC ROUTE 249 $2.8 million towards the restoration work—a pittance, as it would turn out. The...