Historic Hood River
Pictorial Map of Hood River Valley Oregon
12-23-2020
Notes
This stylized map of the Hood River Valley is signed “Fred A (or H) Routledge, 1922”. It’s likely this was given to visitors on the newly completed Columbia River Highway. It’s probably the first map with the Hood River Country Club and the Columbia Gorge Hotel.
Category: Downtown Hood River
Tags: 1920s, Hood River Country Club, Hood River Valley, maps, Routledge
Tags: 1920s, Hood River Country Club, Hood River Valley, maps, Routledge
Dale Nicol
What a great map!
Charlott
Fred A. Routledge was a very well known artist, who put together these lovely area scenes of many towns and cities. He also did many old buildings, which the works are valued now due to the fact that many of those structures do not exist at present. He worked for some time with the Morning Oregonian in Portland where he resided, but was known to work all over the Pacific Northwest. He was a native of Kansas and eventually resided in Rock Island, Illinois prior to heading west. He died in Portland in 1936.
I remember that in the insurance office that Bill Pattison worked in they had a HUGE one of these on their wall.
A few things that jumped out at me. First, Billy Sunday was the big name at the time and his ranch (or Ma Sunday's) is shown off Hwy. 35. Also notice Mohr Rd. Not called that now. Also this map shows the location of Mt. Hood Lodge that has been discussed.
JKG
This map is a wonderful nugget of history! Note the lack of the Interstate Bridge which would be built in two years, as well as some of the landmarks up the valley that are noted and must have served as attractions for tourists wanting to get off of the road: Long Prairie, Eden Park, Elk Meadows.
Arlen L Sheldrake
GREAT map…love the train and the MHRR switchback….
L.E.
Wow!! Another artistic treasure. I need to bookmark this so I can instantly pull it up for reference to HHR photos.
It would be so much fun to work on something like this, but, I can't draw.
I think I like it better without the Bridge.
Harold
Very interesting that Middle Mountain was not called that or Gilhouley, but rather Booth Hill, which is now on the other (east) side of Hwy 35.
kmb
I can only echo the comments here, great map. This is what I have been looking for to make sense of the local references and neighborhoods from back in the day, complete with a geographic layout. Someone needs to find a way to reprint this map full size from the original and put it on the market. I will place my order ASAP!!
LWH
Duke's Valley! Can someone tell me who, or what, is Duke?!?! I've been wondering for may years as I ride bike bike through there. I would order one of these as well!
Jeffrey W Bryant
The Hood River News, Hood River, OR., July 9, 1913, page 3
JOHN H. DUKES
Grief and sorrow came to the citizens of Hood River Sunday when it was learned that Captain J.H. Dukes had passed away. Mr. Dukes was one of the Hood River’s pioneers and most respected citizens. Mr. Dukes moved from Illinois to Hood River with his family in the year 1886 where he has since resided. The deceased was a charter member of the Riverside Congregational church and for many years held the position of deacon and trustee. He was elected as city councilman and served the city for several years.
Mr. Dukes enlisted in the civil war from Jefferson county, Ill., on the 24th day of June, 1861, and was mustered into the United States service in July, 1861, as a private of Capt. Robert D. Noleman’s Company H. 1st Regiment Illinois volunteer cavalry, Col. Thomas A. Marshall commanding. He was promoted to corporal of Company H., 1st Illinois Cavalry, to 1st Lieutenant Company B 110th regiment and to Captain of Company A consolidated. He was constantly with his commands during their service. He was also in charge of General Davis’ mounted escort on the march to the sea. Among some of the more important battles in which Mr. Dukes was engaged are the battles of Stone River, Woodbury, Chickamuga, Missionary Ridge, Siege of Atlanta, Campaign of the Carolinas and was present at the surrender of General Johnson’s army and participated in the Grand Review at Washington.
The deceased was an honored member of the local G.A.R. of which he was a Past Commander. The funeral services were held Monday afternoon under the auspices of the G.A.R. and W.R.C. Rev. J.L. Hershner officiated.
The deceased leaves besides a wife, two children, Helen A. and Henry M. Dukes.
another Hukari
I'm surprised that Kenwood Drive is listed on this map in the legend- (#14). Such a small L shaped road, and I spent so much of my youth living on it, and having to explain to folks where it was and how to get to that out of the way part of HR.
ArthurB
kmb, the good news is this map is out of copyright so we could reproduce it. The bad news is I'm not sure where this is in our collection. This post is from a copy negative made long ago by photographing the map. To get a good reproduction I would want to scan the actual map. I'll ask our collections folks if they can find the original!
kmb
@Jeffrey Bryant: I have wondered if there was some link between Captain Dukes and the Dukes Valley area. In my looking through the HR Glacier for research on the Dukes family, it appears that Captain Dukes and his family lived in HR proper, certainly from about 1900 going forward. I don't think I ever found a reference that linked Captain Dukes to the Dukes Valley area. Even the obit you posted indicates he lived in HR the entire time he was in the area. I have some vague recollection of reading that the Dukes Valley area was named after another family with the same name, but I am not sure about that. If you know the answer, I would love to hear it.
Nelllie
Duke's Valley School shown on the map is where Central Valley School was prior to it burning down.
L.E.
kmb….I asked the same question in photo #859
http://historichoodriver.com/index.php?showimage=859
and came to the conclusion there was no connection.
However, John H. Dukes did receive a land patent for 120 acres in 1908 for Township 2 Range 10 Section 30 which I think is over in the Dee area. Not really Dukes Valley, but he was invested in land outside of downtown HR.
Ed walston
I have a original map that came from a house west of Wal-Mart.Contact me Arthur B we can talk about making copies of it.
Jeffrey W Bryant
I checked the BLM GLO site. As stated above, John H. Dukes had a 1908 land patent in Twp 2 Range 10, Section 30. Dukes Valley is roughly in Twp 2, Range 10, Section 34 & 35. No Dukes were listed for patents there.
Of course, features on Mt. Hood are named after pioneers that did not own the associated land, so it is possible that the valley was named after him, even though he did not own the land.
Jeffrey W Bryant
The first reference I found to Dukes' Valley in the Hood River Glacier was from March 18, 1893. John Dukes came to the Hood River valley in 1886, so at least his presence predated the name recorded in the local paper, which was first published in 1889.
ArthurB
“Oregon Geographic Names,” the definitive source, says there is no definitive explanation of the name Dukes Valley. It offers three theories: a man named Duke who lived there in the 1860s, an ox named Duke owned by Peter Neal for his logging operations nearby who preferred to wander into the valley to avoid logging, or named in honor of J.H. Dukes who never lived there.
ArthurB
According to the museum database software we have a nice clean copy of this map in unit 2A, drawer 9. Fingers crossed it hasn't moved since it was out there in 2001.
L.E.
I vote for Duke the Ox avoiding his logging job.
JEC
Also. notice Crockett road (#24) which no longer exists.
Judy
There used to be a similar map at the courthouse. I think it might be in the Sheriff’s office someplace now. It was in the Assessor’s office at one time, or maybe for all I know, it might still be there.
kmb
I don't know that this will be the last word on the origins of the naming of Dukes Valley, but…..in the HR Glacier, Aug. 22, 1902, Page 2, upper left corner, there is a write-up on the Dukes Valley area that states:
“Dukes Valley lies at the head of Odell creek. The little valley takes its name from a man named Dukes, who was the first settler. None of the present inhabitants know anything about him.”
If this is true, it suggests the valley was not named after the contemporary Captain Dukes who was still in the HR area at this time, but some other Dukes who settled there, likely well before Captain Dukes showed up on the scene in the HR valley.
I do like the Duke the Ox theory.
kmb
I should also add that it occurred to me that perhaps it was a relative of Captain Dukes that preceded him in coming to the HR area and that Dukes Valley could be named after. I checked the Dukes family tree on Ancestry and I could not find any evidence that any family relation of his had come to Oregon prior to Captain Duke's arrival.
kmb
Further research shows that a Martin Dukes, born 1801 in North Carolina, came from Missouri to Oregon in 1853 with his wife (Harriet, nee Dawson) and 10 children (5 boys and 5 girls), presumably by wagon train via the Oregon Trail. Martin Dukes settled in the Rock Creek area of Clackamas County, north of the Clackamas River, and he died there in 1881. The area where his land was located is in Damascus, Oregon today. They had two more girls after they moved to Oregon. His eldest son, Sampson Dukes, was about 26 when they came across to Oregon, and later settled in Yamhill County, Oregon.
Their tenth child, Yancey Dukes, was born in 1852 in Missouri and only a year old when they made the trip out west to Oregon. Yancey Dukes married Minnie Belle Rains in 1884 in Oregon City. Their third child, Georgie Dukes, was born in Oct. 1887. In 1893, the Yancey Dukes family was living in the Cherryville area, near the Sandy river, on the west side of Mt. Hood. In early April of 1893, Georgie, at 5 years of age, drowned in a rain swollen Badger Creek near where the family lived (as reported in the Oregon City Enterprise, Cherryville News, Apr. 14, 1893). Georgie is buried in Cherryville. At some point after this the family moved to central Oregon near Prineville, and later to northern California.
So we do know that the Martin Dukes family arrived in northwest Oregon about 35 years before Captain Dukes arrived. I have found no direct evidence that anyone from Martin Dukes' family ever spent time in the Hood River valley area, but we do know they were not too far away. We cannot say for sure whether the name of Dukes Valley has any connection to the Martin Dukes family.
ArthurB
It's pretty common to have competing plausible stories about place names. There are several states in the US with ambiguous name origins, so I have no trouble accepting that whoever first applied the common name “Duke” in a very sparsely populated area might have been forgotten long ago. People love to guess about this sort of thing, and guesses quickly become “I heard” and then confirmed in multiple authoritative written accounts all based on the same unauthoritative sources. If the HR Glacier couldn't do better than “a man named Duke” in 1902, we're not going to get a better answer– though not to say we won't learn something from the research!
Caitlin
Did anyone find a way to reproduce this map? I would very much like a copy if so.