Historic Hood River
Rowena Loops, 1920
10-21-2022
Notes
This 1920 view of the Rowena Loops on the Columbia River Highway (courtesy our friends at ODOT) shows the view before the rock work railings and paving. You can see the plateau at the top which now has a scenic overlook. Note the wagon being pulled by two horses. It looks like it might be a construction vehicle.
Don’t forget the commemoration of the highway centennial tomorrow, 2-4PM at Old St. Peters Landmark in the Dalles. It will be a good excuse to check out the new murals downtown.
Bill Seaton
In 1956 when I was in high school taking Driver Education, our teacher, Ocean Beach Patton,would have us go to Rowena to practice driving on curves.
kmb
I recently visited HR and The Dalles and was up at the Rowena lookout on Sept 14 – I have a picture taken from the lookout parking lot looking south back at the loops on the approaching road, basically the opposite direction of this photo. It looks very different, but I think these are the same loops.
Will
I wonder if that is the photographer's shadow on top of the larger shadow in the lower left.
nels
That's an awful lot of fill
That's an awful lot of fill on each of those curves. And it had to be done by either blasting or hauled in by horses. But it made a spectacular roadway for all these decades and even today.
Stever
I spy the mouth of the Klickitat River to the right along with one bridge.
Arlen L Sheldrake
another amazing construction project that is preserved.
L.E.
It is an amazing construction project. Scary but impressive.
I see the sandbar at the mouth of the Klickitat has trees on it.
nels
Is there any information on the building process of places like this and the bridges that were constructed up above and just west of there?
nels
Based on rock color, it looks like a considerable amount of blasting took place to create enough rock base for the road. Very imaginative engineering.