Historic Hood River
Shepperd’s Dell and Bridge
3-2-2020
Notes
Here’s another great color plate from a book collected by Bus Gibson showing the newly constructed Columbia River Highway. I’ll borrow the book’s text, since it is no longer under copyright:
The rendezvous of the fairies. Four basalt domes stand to the east, beautiful in their gigantic proportions. The concrete bridge spans a chasm 150 feet across and 140 feet high. Around the bend is beautiful Bridal Veil, the falls rich in the legendary lore of the Indians.
This is another example of how different the views are today with much denser growth of forest.
JKG
I’m pretty amazed at the difference in vegetation here. I wonder what this can tell us about the historic climate/fire regime/industry of the area?
ArthurB
The highway was built just a couple of years after the Yacolt burns. Also, they would have done significant clearing of the corridor for construction. That said, all the picture I have of Hood River city show we have far more trees in the urban environment than in any of the historic pictures.
Kenn
I understand Shepperd donated the ROW across his property where some other locations were bargained for.
L.E.
I suspect in the early 1900’s, if you were going to build a scenic highway, there were no qualms about cutting down trees so you could view the scenery.
I also suspect with trees being used for forest fires, firewood, steam engines and lumber mills, there may have been less trees.
ArthurB
An ODOT contractor just completed a major vegetation cleanup to open up some of these views again. I think I’ll make a trip to check it out– instead of waiting for Google to reshoot it.