History of the Mid Columbia, Central Oregon,
and The Dalles in Wasco County
The Dalles, Oregon, located in Wasco County, is rich in history. The Dalles was incorporated as Dalles City by act of the Oregon Territorial Legislature on January 26, 1857. The Dalles is the fourth oldest incorporated city in Oregon. At the time, The Dalles was one of the largest population centers in the Pacific Northwest, and played a major role in terms of commerce, politics, military presence and inland navigation. The city was the center of navigation on the middle river, between the Cascades rapids and Celilo Falls. It also served as the end of the overland Oregon Trail beginning in 1843. Lewis & Clark camped at The Dalles twice, in 1805 and 1806. The site of the city was a major trade center for Native Americans for at least 10,000 years, and the surrounding area (Horsethief Lake, Wakemap Mound, Atlatl Valley, Roadcut) comprise one of the most significant archaeological regions in North America.
• Timeline of significant events in Oregon's History
Missoula Floods
The Columbia River Gorge was carved years ago by the Missoula Floods during the ice age. The Missoula Floods happened 15,000 to 13,000 years ago when the ice dam forming Glacial Lake Missoula broke, sending forth a 400 ft. wall of water traveling 65 mph, carving the Columbia River Gorge. Some estimates say the flood of water was at ten times the flow of all current rivers combined. This catastrophic event repeated several times.
(For a Timeline of Oregon History, click here.) The Columbia Gorge Discovery Center, 5000 W. Discovery Drive (take Hwy 30 west of The Dalles), has wonderful exhibits on the Ice Age, Missoula Floods, Lewis and Clark Expedition, and Native American life.
Ten thousand years of human history
Ten thousand years of Native American trade took place annually in the Mid Columbia Basin as tribes from across the Northwest came together peacefully to fish, trade, and socialize. In the 1800s they were joined by the mountain men fur traders and French-Canadian boatmen of the Hudson's Bay Company who called this type of large gathering “rendezvous.”
The area began as an Indian home thousands of years before white men came. The area was once known as Win-quatt, a Native American name meaning 'surrounded by rock cliffs'. The original inhabitants, members of the Wasco-pam tribe, are now part of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.
Thirteen miles to the east is Celilo Village, which was where the thundering waters of Celilo Falls on the Columbia once roared. The region's most important trading area was between Celilo Falls and modern-day The Dalles, where tribes from both sides of the Cascades, and even farther east, met for commerce. The waters of the falls were buried in 1957 under a lake created by The Dalles Dam.
Columbia Hills State Park in Washington (Hwy 14, across the Bridge Junction, approx. 15 minutes from The Dalles) has a public display of Petroglyph and Pictographs. The Temani Pesh-wa (Written on Rock) Trail is a short interpretive trail and the site of the iconic Tsagaglalal, or "She Who Watches." (You must make reservations to see Tsagaglalal; all other petroglyphs may be seen during normal park hours.)
Celio Falls
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Celilo Falls, circ. 1900 |
The Celilo Falls on the Columbia River, approximately 13 miles east of The Dalles, served as a gathering place and major trading center for many Indians, including the Wasco, Paiute, and Warm Springs tribes, for thousands of years.
Here the river cut into basalt rock to create a constriction of the river with a twenty-foot falls followed by a mile of narrow, channeled rapids with a drop of eight feet in river elevation. These rapids came to be named “The Great Falls of the Columbia” by the French Canadian fur traders.
The Celilo Village is all that remains of the historic location of Celilo Falls, which for centuries had been the location of a sacred regional Indian fishing ground. Here people gathered, fished and traded.
There are several suggested meanings for the aboriginal origin of “Celilo”; one is “floating sand cloud,” from the sand storms that occur when high winds sweep through the Columbia River Gorge. The Celilo Canal was completed in 1915, creating a short-lived steamboat waterway to Lewiston, Idaho. Lake Celilo behind The Dalles Dam, which was built in 1956-57, has inundated the falls. The flooding also eliminated important fishing grounds for many Indian tribes that relied upon the salmon caught at the falls.
The Dalles had served initially as a way station on the emigrant road to the Willamette Valley. The construction of a pioneer road over the Cascades in 1845 and the Donation Land Act of 1850 brought families to the area to settle. Wasco County became a major transportation hub for both river traffic and inland traffic. River traffic on the Columbia River was profoundly affected in 1935 by the building of Bonneville Dam in Multnomah County and by The Dalles Dam in 1957 in Wasco County. The two dams were created to facilitate river traffic through some of the most treacherous and dangerous rapids on the Columbia river, and to provide hydro-electric power for the region. The construction of Dalles Dam was responsible for the flooding and destruction of Celilo Falls in March of 1957.The incalculable cultural loss of Celilo Falls continues to be a source of mourning and great sorrow to regional Indian tribes to this day.
The recent re-development of Celilo Village as been listed on the National Lewis & Clark Project List and will be overseen by the Confederated Tribes of The Warm Springs, BIA, and the Confederated Tribes of The Umatilla. The program includes, but is not limited to, waste/water treatment, new housing, and a new longhouse, as well as interpretive signage.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition
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Rock Fort |
A key chapter of inland exploration opened in 1805 with arrival of the "Corps of Discovery." Captains Meriweather Lewis and William Clark came to the Columbia Gorge after descending the western slopes of the Rockies, then following the Snake River to its confluence with the Columbia. They camped at several different locations along the Mid-Columbia, traveling westward toward the Pacific Ocean in the fall of 1805, then eastward on their return journey the following spring. (They spent a wet, miserable winter on the Oregon coast near present-day Astoria.) Lewis and Clark were the first white men in the area when they camped at The Dalles in October 1805 near the creek the local Indians referred to as Quenett, now known as Mill Creek. They called the site they camped at "Rock Fort Camp." It is one of only two sites in the country where the exact campspot of Lewis and Clark Expedition is known and has been the source of recent archeological study.
The Dalles served twice as campsite for the Lewis & Clark expedition - in October 1805 and April 1806 - before developing into a key regional center for the fur trade, supporting a Hudson's Bay Company outpost in 1829. Fur traders came through in the 1810s and 1820s. Trappers, explorers, other military expeditions and immigrants soon followed, with important centers of influence developing at Fort Vancouver (under English control), and Fort Dalles (established by the US Army). Explorers, botanists, artists, writers, and adventurers all came to the "grand dalles of the Columbia."
The name The Dalles is derived from the French word dalle, meaning flagstone, and was applied to the narrows of the Columbia River, above the present city of The Dalles, by French-Canadian employees of the fur companies. Among other things, dalle meant a stone used to flag gutters, and the peculiar basalt formations along the narrows doubtless suggested gutters. The word dalles signified to the voyageurs, the river rapids flowing swiftly through a narrow channel over flat, basaltic rocks. The first use of the name Dalles in Oregon was in 1814. The name La Grande Dalle de la Columbia became established. Although the city is officially Dalles City, the post office, and common usage is The Dalles. It has had several names since incorporation: Dalles, 1851; Wascopum, 1853; The Dalles, 1860. The Indians in the area called the area near Mill Creek, in present day The Dalles, Quenett, which was also their word for trout. Lewis and Clark camped here in 1806 and named it Rockfort Camp. Another Indian name in use was Win-quatt, signifying a place encircled by rock cliffs.
Source: Oregon Geographic Names, 6th Edition by Lewis L. McArthur, p.594
The Dalles of the Columbia River
The Hudson's Bay boatmen and the French Canadian fur traders called the greatest rapids on the Columbia River “Le Grand Dalles de la Columbia.” These rapids became known as the “Long Narrows,” and their companion, “les petites dalles” as the “Short Narrows.” The word dalle is French for flagstone or slab, and referred to the flat and columnar basalt rock cut by the turbulent waters of the Columbia River. At the Long Narrows, the entire flow of the Columbia River was compressed through a natural basalt rock chute, thundering through a channel 200 feet deep by 200 feet wide. This torrent of water created a series of treacherous rapids.
The Indian name in use for the area was Win-quatt, signifying a place encircled by rock cliffs. The Dalles was incorporated in 1857, making it one of the oldest incorporated cities in Oregon. The military first referred to the location as Fort Drum, and eventually changing the name to Fort Dalles. The first use of the name Dalles for the town was in 1814. The post office was established in 1851 with William R. Gibson as first postmaster. The town has had several names since incorporation: Dalles, 1851; Wascopum, 1853; The Dalles, 1860. On September 3, 1853, the town's name was changed to Wascopum. In March, 1860 the name was changed to The Dalles. In 1966, the name City of The Dalles was officially adopted by city ordinance to conform with popular usage.
Early Missionaries
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Pulpit Rock |
WASCOPAM MISSION - Methodist Episcopal missionaries, Rev. Daniel Lee and Rev. Henry K.W. Perkins, arrived at the Dalles of the Columbia on March 21, 1838. They had traveled upriver in six canoes, accompanied by an Indian chief named Marnicoon who acted as their guide. They were greeted by about 50 members of the area Wasco tribe. They spent the next several months erecting the Wascopam Mission building, where they began their work to bring the word of God to the natives of the mid-Columbia.
PULPIT ROCK - Marking the area near where Rev. Daniel Lee, along with Rev. Henry K.W. Perkins, established the Wascopam Mission in 1838 is Pulpit Rock. Daniel Lee's uncle, Rev. Jason Lee was head of the Oregon Missions, and was said to have preached from the natural rock formation now known as "Pulpit Rock". After establishing the Oregon missions in the Willamette Valley, Jason Lee traveled extensively to the east coast to preach about the wonders of the Oregon Territory and the need to bring Christianity to the native population. His speeches were responsible, in large part, for the interest in Oregon that exploded a few years later into the western emigration of the Oregon Trail. In ten short years, between 1850 and 1860, the sparsely populated outpost of Fort Dalles exploded into the booming western town of Dalles City with a swollen "floating tent" population of 10,000, filled with soldiers, god-fearing missionaries, goldminers, tavern owners, bordellos, immigrants, adventurers, gamblers and scallywags. The mission along with Marcus Whitman's museum at Waililatpu near Walla Walla gave help to starving, ill, and deserate emigrants of the Oregon Trail. Pulpit Rock still stands in The Dalles, at East 12th and Court Streets.
Establishment of Fort Dalles
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Fort Dalles Surgeon's Quarters |
Volunteer militia provided by the Provisional Territorial Government occupied the abandoned mission in early 1848, calling it Fort Wascopam or Fort Lee after their commander, immediately after the Whitman Massacre. In 1849 the first U.S. army troops stopped briefly on their way from Ft. leavenworth to Ft. vancouver. Some returned to establish a small post. On March 30, 1850, Colonel William W. Loring, established a post at The Dalles. With the help of hired Oregon trail emigrants they built a log barracks and several frame buildings. Most had dirt floors and no ceilings and were drafty, leaky, and uncomfortable. The post was always undermanned, usually a few dozen men. Two U.S. army companies officially established Camp Drum in May 20, 1850. Army policy was to patrol the Emigrant Road and to send settlers on their way to the Willamette Valley as quick as possible either down the Columbia or south around Mt Hood on the Barlow Road. There was a shortage of rations for the troops and priests at the Catholic mission at The Dalles helped furnish food for them. There were 10 square miles at the camp that later became Fort Drum, and eventually Fort Dalles in 1853. At that time only a one square mile military reservation was created. Under the direction of Capt Thomas Jordan, Louis Scholl designed several new buildings for Fort Dalles.
The city later became a major outfitting center for gold mining in Eastern Oregon, and a key operational base for the U.S. Army through its local garrison, of which the Fort Dalles Surgeon's Quarters survives today as the home of Fort Dalles Museum.
The county had jurisdiction over a territory reaching from the Cascades to the modern-day states of Montana and Wyoming. When gold was discovered near Colville, it brought more traffic through. Violence increased. Major Granville O. Haller, using regular and volunteer troops, captured and killed some Indians defending their territory from the encroachment of the emmigrants and wagon trains, but the military was greatly outnumbered east of the mountains. In 1855 attempts were made to sign treaties near Walla Walla and The Dalles.
The period that Colonel George Wright was stationed at Fort Dalles with the reorganized 9th Infantry Regiment was its busiest era. They came to force compliance to the treaties. The fort was headquarters for the regiment and the main military supply depot for the development of Fort Simcoe, Fort Walla Walla, and Colville.
The fort buildings formed an octagon with a grassy parade ground in the center. Timbers were cut nearby and sawed in the fort's own mill on Mill Creek and at 3 other nearby civilian mills. Sandstone was quarried on the nearby bluff for foundations and chimneys, some of which was hauled to Ft. Simcoe. The Surgeon's Quarters was the smallest and least expensive of the four officer's houses, costing a little less than $5,000 in 1856. Col Wright's house cost $22,000 but was referred to by amazed emigrants as the "$100,000 house."
Government inspectors were not impressed with the Fort's distinctive buildings even though Wright and Jordan upheld that all construction on the frontier was costly and that much of the expense had maintained posts at the Cascades, Ft. Simcoe. and Ft. Walla Walla. But additional funding was denied. Unfortunately Jordan had neglected to construct a water system and the funding was denied for a pumper for fighting fires.
By the late 1850s the Indian frontier had moved east and after temporary use in 1867-68 there was no further function. There was no longer a need for a fort at this location. By the end of 1867, a flaw that seemed to be a faulty mortar in the chimneys caused the three largest houses to burn to the ground. Only the surgeon's quarters remain today. Though the fort was abandoned after 1867 the town was well on its way to growth. The fort supplied the first sawmill, first newspaper, first school other than the mission school, military band, makeshift theater. The army kept a caretaker at the fort until 1880s when the remaining buildings were left to squatters and the elements.
The Oregon Trail (1841 - 1866)
For twenty five years, half a million people pulled up stakes and headed for the farms and gold fields of the West. Oregon was the destination for about a third of the emigrants . This was the last of the so-called Great Migrations. For three years The Dalles was the end of the Oregon Trail as an overland route. The Dalles became a critical stop for pioneers following the Oregon Trail. Emigrants had to portage their freight one and a half miles around ‘les dalles’ over a rough, rocky trail. It was here, just past The Dalles, that the wagons were loaded on rafts or bateaux and floated west to Fort Vancouver and Oregon City. From 1843 until 1845, wagons could reach The Dalles, but from there if the emigrants wished to press on westward, they had little choice but to make a raft of pine logs, buy a raft from enterprising Indians, or rent a bateaux from the Hudson’s Bay Company for around $80. Many lives were lost on the rapids of the Columbia River, the relentless winds overturned many a raft, and there was a stretch of impassable rapids that had to be portaged.
Eventually an alternate route was built, and pioneers were able to choose between the water route or the rugged Barlow Road route around Mt. Hood. Museums and historic mural displays in The Dalles tell of the difficult “Decision at The Dalles.”
Barlow Road (1846-1919)
Sam Barlow devised a plan to build a road from The Dalles to the Willamette Valley, avoiding the Columbia altogether. Just one obstacle stood in his way: Mt. Hood. Barlow obtained official permission to build the Mount Hood Toll Road in early 1846. The Provisional Government allowed him to charge $5 a wagon and 10¢ a head for livestock to use the Road.In 1845 Barlow and 40 men, including his friend Joel Palmer, began hacking a narrow road through the forests of Mt. Hood from The Dalles to Oregon City—a distance of about 150 miles. By 1846, the Barlow Road was finished. Reuban Gant is recorded to have driven the first wagon across the new road in 1846; Barlow reported to the Oregon Spectator — the first newspaper published west of the Rockies — that 145 wagons and nearly 1600 head of livestock made it over the Road that first year. Take Hwy. 197 south to Dufur, Tygh Valley, Wamic and around Mt. Hood. Visit the Pioneer Woman’s Grave near Government Camp, where several hiking trails lead to historic sites. A replica of the original tollgate is located in Rhododenron. Finally, reach Wildwood and view the ruts left by pioneers near the Sandy River.
Wasco County
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The Original Wasco County Courthouse |
Wasco County is named for the Wascopam tribe of Indians that lived on the south shore of the Columbia River, near The Dalles, Oregon.
Dalles City (now known as The Dalles) was designated the county seat when Wasco County was created on January 11, 1854 and was the second largest county in the country at the time. Wasco County was created from portions of Clackamas, Marion, Linn, and Lane Counties and consisted of all of Oregon Territory between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains and from latitude 42deg. (the California border) to latitude 46deg. (the Washington border). This was one of the largest counties ever formed in the United States, originally consisting of 130,000 square miles.
Courthouses were built in 1859, 1884, and in 1914. All three buildings are standing today and the 1914 building is still in use as the county courthouse. The Sheriff's department still operates a mounted patrol.
Over the years, seventeen other counties in eastern Oregon were created from Wasco County, which now consists of 2,387 square miles. It is bordered by two rivers, the Columbia to the north and the Deschutes to the east, and by the Warm Springs Indian Reservation on the south and Mt. Hood National Forest on the west. Wasco Wasco County shares political boundaries with Sherman, Wheeler, Jefferson, Clackamas, and Hood River Counties.
When Wasco County was created, Jan. 11, 1854, it comprised all the area of the Oregon Territory between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains, an empire in itself. By successive takings for other states and counties, the area of Wasco County has been reduced to 2408 square miles. Wasco is the modern name for a tribe of Indians. Early writers used the name in many forms. Woss in "Fur Hunters of the Far West, v.1, p. 186," speaks of the Wiss-co-pam tribe. Lee and Frost in "Ten Years in Oregon, p. 176," give Was-co-pam. For references to various spellings, see "Handbook of American Indians, v.2, p. 918." About the time of the immigrations white people shortened the name to Wasco. The Wasco Indians were a Chinook tribe, formerly living on the south side of the Columbia River, in the vicinity of The Dalles. The name Wasco is said to be derived from the Wasco word wacq-o, meaning a cup or small bowl made of horn. "The Handbook of American Indians, v.2, p. 917", says this referred to a cup-shaped rock near the main village of the tribe, but Dr. William C. McKay, in an article in The Dalles Mountaineer, May 28, 1869, said that the name Wasco meant makers of basins, and that the literal meaning of the word was horn basin. Some of these basins were fantastically carved. Both of the explanations may be correct. Dr. McKay said that the locality of the city of The Dalles was called Winquatt, signifying a place surrounded by bold cliffs.
-- Source: Oregon Geographic Names, Sixth Edition, 1992, Lewis L. McArthur, Oregon Historical Society Press, ISBN O-87595-237-2.
The Treaty of 1855 and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs
The Indians of the region were forceably relocated by the US Military to the Warm Springs Reservation in 1855. There was great unrest at the time from all quarters of the Indian population as the tribes fought for their homeland. Fort Dalles became a central military headquarters for dispatching troops to combat the unrest.
Treaty Oak
The site of the signing of the Treaty is commonly believed to have been at a massive oak tree on Mill Creek, later known as the Treaty Oak. A plaque on its remaining eight-foot stump commemorates the event. The tree became diseased and was cut down. The actual story of the Council Oak is interesting; it marked a place important to the Indians, just not the Treaty site. While the Treaty Oak is commonly believed to be the site of the signing of the Treaty of 1855, other accounts say the 1855 Treaty was not signed at the Treaty Oak site on Mill Creek, but at the "Crossing" on 3-Mile. There are at least 3 first-hand accounts placing it "east of The Dalles." Two references to the 3-Mile location are made by Mary Pigott Cushing in her memoirs "Mary's Story," and a third account was made by Daniel Webster Butler. The late historian, Anita Drake, wrote several detailed letters to the Chronicle explaining the true story, but so much misinformation has been written that the facts have remained buried under the myth.
Under the terms of the 1855 Treaty, the Indians of the region were relocated to the Warm Springs Reservation, retaining certain "off reservation rights". The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs include the Warm Springs, Wasco and Paiute Native American Tribes, and the area of their nation stretches from the summit of the Cascade Mountains to the cliffs of the Deschutes River in Central Oregon. . The Museum at Warm Springs provides a historic perspective on tribal culture of our region, and Kah-Nee-ta High Desert Resort and Casino offers a luxurious and enjoyable hot springs spa, dining, golf and vacation get-away.
The Dalles, Oregon today
The Dalles is still the trading hub for the Mid Columbia, with easy access to many recreational opportunities: rafting, boating, swimming, skiing, hiking, windsurfing, fishing and rock climbing. Historical ghost towns, Native American petroglyphs, museums, and sites of interest abound. The region's development was closely linked with transportation, beginning with river commerce and the need to portage around large rapids at Cascade Locks and east of The Dalles, as well as Celilo Falls. Today The Dalles has a population of 12,000, the county seat of Wasco County. Primary agricultural crops are cereal grains, sweet cherries and apples. Ranching is also common. Wheat is the dominant field crop with 190,000 acres. Durable goods, wood products, and Mid Columbia Medical Center are also top employers. Google located a facility in The Dalles in 2006, taking advantage of the hydro-electric power and fibre-optic network available. Columbia Gorge Community College is working closely with renewable resources, training workers to work on the wind farms in the area.
Visitors who would like to learn more about this region's history have a variety of opportunities, with local museums in all of the major Columbia Gorge communities and many smaller towns.
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