Historic Hood River
Rowena Crest
2-26-2021
Notes
This undated Alva Day image shows the Columbia River Highway at Rowena Crest. You can see the beautiful Dry Creek Bridge, which has recently been restored, as well as the majestic loops which bring the road back down to river level. You can also see the Klickitat River at Lyle, and the road to the Lyle Ferry crossing.
Category: default
Tags: Alva Day, bridge, Columbia River Highway, Klickitat River, Lyle, railroad, Rowena
Tags: Alva Day, bridge, Columbia River Highway, Klickitat River, Lyle, railroad, Rowena
L.E.
You can also see Memaloose Island.
nels
Anyone know what the flowers in the foreground are?
ArthurB
The focus isn’t good enough to identify the flowers, but I definitely see the leaves of balsamroot at the far left.
AndyB
Probably balsamroot, they are amazing in this area- in about a month they will explode at Memaloose trail which is near here.
Any guesses on the date?
L.E.
Columbia River Images has this quote from the September 26, 1920 Oregonian. It seems a fitting description for what Alva Day captured.
"There is something about the Columbia river highway that seems to make artists of all men who have anything to do with the building of any part of it. … It has been so in the construction of this section of the highway. Between Mosier and Rowena, nine miles west of The Dalles, where the road drops to the lowlands and follows at the foot of bordering bluffs into The Dalles — between these two points, its course lies over and around cliffs, across chasms, along the brink of deep precipices, on ledges hewn out of the rock. It looks and curves and turns on a beautifully descending grade to the lowlands from the heights of the Rowena bluffs. This part of the new highway is not merely a highway. It is a work of art. Only men with the souls of artists could have conceived and built a road like this."
L.E.
I assume this is pre-Bonneville Dam so between years 1922 and 1937?
nels
This is quite high up if you’re looking down on Tom McCall Park. Is this site
still open to hiking up?
ArthurB
This negative has no date, so I can just after 1922, before I-84 for sure. The Klickitat River delta looks pre-dam, but it could also be low water.
i think this photo is from Tom McCall Point, which is the high point of the trail which leaves the viewpoint loop on the old highway. Lots of poison oak, snakes, and slippery spots when wet, but good views last time I hiked it.
Harold
This picture is taken quite a bit east of Tom McCall Point, and higher. Here is a similar modern photo: https://www.pbase.com/greglief/image/155507043