An isolated mansion which resembles a palace and blends strangely with the setting of the wild gorge. Construction began in 1914 but was not fully completed until 1940, built by the late multimillionaire, Samuel Hill, advocate of good roads, international peace promoter, royalty’s friend, and the son-in-law of “Empire Builder” James J. Hill. It was originally selected as the site for a Quaker colony, but the younger Hill discovered that...

Mile: 99

The gorge drops sharply toward the river below, where sand dunes form a large island, Miller Island. A stone farmhouse, built sturdily to resist the unrelenting winds, stands on a sheep ranch. Rocks are strewn in profusion on both sides of the road, and steep hills rise from the highway. Farther west the gorge widens. Visible across the Columbia is the rolling plateau of north central Oregon.

Mile: 97

The precipitous slopes of the gorge afford a sweeping view of the river, a railroad bridge, and Wishram. A short distance west are farmhouses surrounded by yellow poplars. Then, as the gorge widens, pasture lands come into view at various points alongside the road. Adjacent to a steeply terraced, brown, rocky cliff are velvety hills speckled with green trees. This park was once known as Horsethief Lake Park and Horsethief...

Points of Interest

Wishram Indian Village Site

Homesteads of the Dalles Mountain Ranch Historic District

Mile: 86

Some distance west of the junction, the backwash of Bonneville Dam widens the Columbia River. Paralleling the highway, the Paha Cliffs, perpendicular walls of lava rock, are not remarkable for height, but are of such regularity and symmetry as to seem fashioned by human hands. Indian legends state that Speelyia, the coyote god, created the many pillars of stone by turning mortals and beasts into rock. Geologists explain that seismic...

Mile: 77

Marked by a few houses along the highway, this was a railroad shipping point for a farm and orchard district. Below the road, on a sloping hill, was the business section of the town, near which is a boxwood mill. There is no longer a boxwood mill in town. Trains pass through Lyle but no longer stop here. An early name was Klickitat Landing. In 1880, it was changed to...

Points of Interest

Lyle Hotel

Balch Cemetery

The tour crosses the Klickitat River, which has its source in Klickitat Glacier on Mount Adams. Through a high plateau, the winding river has cut a deep gorge to its mouth at Lyle. Near the mouth of the river, along the western bluffs, are strange round depressions surrounded by stones that seemingly form a wall.

Memaloose (Ind. “place of the dead”) Island a desolate basalt isle a few hundred feet out in the river. For centuries, the Indians built platforms here and placed the dead and their possessions upon them. On the island, facing the south, the large white Trevitt Monument commemorates Vic Trevitt, a pioneer of The Dalles, who chose to be buried on the island sacred to his Indian friends. Many years ago...

Mile: 74

George and Louisa Aggers built this Craftsman-style farmhouse in 1910. It and its 8.6-acre parcel are all that remain of the original farm complex. Aggers, originally from Philadelphia, lived in Denver for a time where he served one term on the city council. He came to Seattle in 1895 and retired to Overlook to develop a cherry orchard. The farm stayed in the family for many years. The surrounding area...

Mile: 64

A collection of small homes and fruit warehouses along the river and the railroad tracks, and a junction point of rivers, railroads, and highways. It was named for Andoniram Judson Underwood, a veteran of the Yakima Indian wars, who settled in the region in 1875 and platted the town site in the fall of 1881. The town as of 1941 consisted of a railroad station, a few houses along the...

Mile: 63

The tour extends beneath the now extinct volcanic cone of Mount Underwood, along a seven-mile section of highway opened in May 1937. Construction here lent itself to the most modern highway engineering, including heavy rock work, riprap, tunnels, grade separation structure, drainage culverts, and a major bridge. The first construction was an overhead crossing above the railroad tracks. Right of the highway was a combination sawmill and shingle mill unit,...

Mile: 61

In the days of stern wheeler steamers on the river, this was a busy landing. The name is for Charles A. and Johan Cook, who homesteaded where the town was later built. It was once composed of a schoolhouse, a general store, and a few other buildings, all sitting on a steep hill; today Cook consists of only a few private homes. The town looks down on the Columbia, flowing...

Mile: 57

A solitary rounded hill, looms in bold relief. Wooded slopes cover the east side of the mountain; on its west side are jagged peaks. The mountain has a peculiar slant, caused by the river that sawed through the rising mountain barrier. Climatic differences between the arid and desolate region east of the Cascades and the green lushness of the western slope become increasingly evident in this area.

Mile: 51

Passing Wind Mountain, just before reaching the mouth of the Wind River, the highway enters this once-modern farming community, with a post office, cabins, a schoolhouse, and a few dwellings. In the forested hills nearby were logging operations. The town was settled primarily by Norwegian immigrants and originally called Heim Dal in 1893 by John Kanekberg, which postal authorities translated to “Home Valley.” Now it is strictly a residential community.

Mile: 50

The seat of Skamania County, located on low bluffs above the river, spreads back against rolling hills. A beautiful town square once slanted up a hill, on top of which was a three-story hotel with a glassed-in porch. The town was founded by the Stevenson family, who came from Missouri in 1880 to settle in the old town of Cascades nearby. Driven from there by a flood in 1894, they...

Mile: 44

Scientists believe that about 1,000 years ago, a giant landslide from the north shore of the Columbia River blocked the Gorge and stopped the river’s flow. This natural dam created an inland sea in eastern Oregon, Washington, and into Idaho. Over time, water eroded the dam and created a natural stone bridge. Eventually, this bridge fell, creating the Cascade rapids. Local Native American legend also speaks of the creation and...

Mile: 42

Rebuilt by the Skamania County Historical Society in 1927 partly from old timbers that formed the structure erected by Major Gabriel Rains after the Indian Wars of 1856 and the Cascades Massacre. A band of Yakima, Klickitat, and Cascade tribe members made raids on two white settlements near Bradford Island, March 26, 1856. The besieged settlers withstood attacks for two days, until two forces from The Dalles, Oregon, commanded by...

Authorized September 30, 1933, under the National Recovery Act, construction was begun immediately on Bonneville Dam by the Army Engineer Corps. It was opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on September 28, 1937. Smaller than the Grand Coulee Dam farther up the river, the project provides flood control for the lower Columbia River, creates electric power for northern Oregon and southern Washington, and, by its locks, aids water transportation through...

Mile: 40

Named for Captain Benjamin Louis Eulalie Bonneville, who experienced amazing adventures in the Rocky Mountains, California, and the Northwest as early as the year 1832. His journal, amplified by Washington Irving, was published under the title, Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West. The town marks the Washington side of Bonneville Dam and was born of an influx of workers on the project. It...

Mile: 38

With fluted, almost perpendicular sides of columnar lava that rise about 900 feet from the edge of the river, is the second largest monolith in the world. Its summit is strewn with great blocks of red cinder and cloaked with stunted, deformed trees. From the entrance, a trail winds upward in zigzag fashion, leading over precarious-looking wooden bridges to the top of the conical-shaped rock. A defiant challenge to climbers,...

Mile: 35

An early name for this settlement was Butler. The Indian name, which applies to parts of the Columbia River, means swift water or swift river. The town consisted of a gas station, a general store, and a post office. Up the hill a short distance from the highway were once the three gray buildings of an attractive grade school with a large playground. In the hills in the background logging...

Mile: 33

The tour skirts the great frowning cliffs of Archer Mountain. Of the many legends and folk tales that have grown up around these conspicuous cliffs, the leading ones deal with the “Hermit of Archer Mountain,” who lived on top of a 2,000-foot cliff in a house built of materials salvaged from a wrecked river boat.

Mile: 31

This highway overlook is fed by the backwaters of the Columbia River. Fishermen once told of an enormous sturgeon here, weighing perhaps 1,000 pounds, which eluded the juiciest baits and the most ingenious nets. The road winds up and down through beautiful green country and wooded hills, and affords a view of silvery Multnomah Falls, on the Oregon side.

Mile: 29

A small, rocky peninsula projecting into the river. Here, years ago, Indian mothers brought their babies in the springtime for the ceremony of uncradling, which included hiding the cradles to keep away evil spirits. Bindings, used by the Indians on the heads of their infants to make the skull slope back from the forehead, were also hidden in a cave as a part of the ceremony.

A roadside stopping place composed of a store and a few scattered houses. The town was named for its first settler, a German sailor who planted an orchard and garden to supply the soldiers at Cascades in 1851. Many persons of Polish origin remained after construction of the Union Pacific Railroad in the 1870s to form a community of small farms. Older residents conversed in Polish. Robert Prindle, son of...

Mile: 28

A steep, jagged promontory with steep cliffs, on the north bank of the Columbia River. In 1826, John Work, an official of Hudson’s Bay Company, named this feature Cape Heron for the water birds in the vicinity. The present name is a distortion of the name given by Mr. Work, who was father-in-law to both William F. Tolmie and Edward Huggins of Fort Nisqually fame. A local name was Bell’s...

Mile: 25

When it grew up around the Seattle Portland and Spokane Railway station, the name was selected because of a sweeping view of nearby hills and mountains. The first name of the place was Staggerweed Mountain for the wild larkspur that grew there which, when eaten by animals, “made the livestock stagger.” The place was named by John Tompkins, the first settler, A post office was established in May of 1890...

The town is at the mouth of Washougal River, the name an Indian word for “rushing water.”  Shady trees line the road into town, the main street of which was bordered by a mix of frame and brick buildings. Houses were scattered over a wide area on both sides of the river. The town was settled on part of the donation claim of Betsy Ough, wife of Richard Ough, a...

Points of Interest

Washougal Woolen Mills

It was named for Solomon W. Fisher who filed a Donation Land Claim there in the early 1850s—160 acres on the mainland and 160 acres on Government Island. The first name was Fisher, and later was changed to Fishers Landing, but eventually became Fisher again. Mr. Fisher was born in Virginia in 1827 and came to Clark County, Washington as a young man; for a time he lived and worked...

Biddle Lake and Biddle Butte are on the north bank of the Columbia River in the river’s flood plain north of Government Island. It was once owned by Henry J. Biddle, a financier from Portland, Oregon, who owned a considerable amount of land in and around Vancouver—including Beacon Rock to save it from being demolished. A Biddlewood Park nearby was also financed by Mr. Biddle, who was a botanist. The...

The town was founded in 1886 by families from St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Omaha, Nebraska. It was named for Elmer Ellsworth, who organized the colonists but was killed before they moved to Clark County. In 1957, there was an attempt to change the name of the main road in a county street numbering scheme, but the local citizenry “petitioned successfully to keep a name they said had a...

The John Stanger House is perhaps the oldest home on its original site in Clark County. It was built by John Stanger, who came to the area from Scotland in 1838 as a millwright for the Hudson’s Bay Company. He settled on this land in the 1840s and received his donation land claim in the 1860s. This original two-room cabin was built about 1867 and is significant for its use...