Historic Hood River
???
9-30-2020
Notes
This image from a group of construction scenes from Cascade Locks has me scratching my head. It seems like six men have made an extraordinary effort to dump a well-shaped cube of stone into the Columbia River. In any case, the image demonstrates the ingenuous lift deck on their cart.
L.E.
Looks like rip rap to keep the bank from washing away.
L.E.
This photo makes me think of the expression "hydraulics are man’s best friend". One small machine with hydraulics could do the work of these 6 men.
Kyle
Yeah, why so square? Perhaps they dismantled something else, and used the pieces to block erosion? Otherwise I can’t imagine why it’s so nicely cubed.
L.E.
Maybe this is why they didn’t get the south wall of the canal finished until later. They dumped all the blocks in the river.
Would this be the 1894 flood?
kmb
I cannot tell exactly what the "cube" is in this picture, but it must be heavy so I assume the "cube" is filled with rocks. What I do know is that putting rocks into a steel mesh basket, and then stacking these baskets or "cubes" along the river bank to protect against bank erosion is a method still used today. There are several places along the river and creek near where I live that had these installed after a major flood in 2013. You can google the term "Gabion Wall river bank" to see examples.
Charlott
I don’t understand what is going on or why, but I did notice the first man. To me that looks like some sort of uniform he has on and that hat is much different than any others in the photo. Could that be saying something?
L.E.
I have been looking at photos of the Locks, to see if we are possibly looking upstream at the entrance of the Locks at flood stage.
https://www.hoodriverhistorymuseum.org?showimage=953
Is there a possibility this could be on the Washington side at Fort Lugenbeel where the Cascades Portage railroad ended and the steam boats landed.
https://digitalcollections.ohs.org/fort-lugenbeel-wash
Notice in some of Carl Watkins’ 1867 photos, you can tell the Oregon hills have suffered a previous forest fire.
nels
It looks like MAYBE 2 actions going on here. The man dumping the rock appears to be in a hard hat. And the others look to be passing something along, maybe smaller rocks? Water in the foreground looks to be pretty active. I keep trying to figure out if they are not in a row or maybe in a row passing along a rock?