Jason Pierce

The Winds of Change

The Decline of Extractive Industries and the Rise of Tourism in Hood River County, Oregon

THE STORY OF THE CITY AND county of Hood River is the story of much of the rural Pacific Northwest. Originally built around the logging and horticulture industries, the town in the 1970s increasingly became identified with tourism and recreation. Older residents, often with roots in the traditional extractive industries, saw Hood River transformed before their eyes, and they were left wondering if the new town would remain true to their memories. The rise of tourism also brought new people to the region, often with outside money, while many long-time residents saw their employment opportunities shrink and housing prices escalate. Tourism, especially the sport of windsurfing, also helped change the relationship between people and nature, as work in extractive industries gave way to participation in a variety of recreational pastimes that seemed more natural. In a little more than twenty-five years, Hood River changed dramatically, but the changes have not always been easy or welcomed.

Logging and horticulture rose to prominence in Hood River's economy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although logging employment was a significant part of the economy, it was horticulture that put Hood River on the map. The county — created out of nearby Wasco County in 1908 — was fifth in horticultural production by 1910. By 1940, it led the state with a fruit harvest valued at $2.2 million, nearly double the second-place showing of $1.4 million for Jackson County.¹ Rising upward toward Mount Hood, past the towns of Hood River and Parkdale, orchards enlivened the landscape, often appearing in the wake of lumber companies that had cleared the land of massive old-growth timber. Together, these industries were the most tangible sign of the transformation brought to the area by white settlement.² By 1910, Hood River boasted 744 farms and orchards and since then has remained Oregon's premier fruit-growing region.³ As fresh fruit replaced canned fruit, as crops shifted from strawberries to apples and finally pears, and as Hispanic farmworkers became the region's primary labor force, the industry adapted to changes caused by fluctuations in the market and consumer tastes. Increasingly, growers faced pressures from developers and from the challenges thrown up by international competition. Still, the orchards endured, adapting even to the rise of the tourist economy. Hood River's logging industry was not so resilient. Mills suffered throughout the last half of the twentieth century as the loss of old-growth trees, changing technology, the export of unmilled logs, environmental restrictions, and international competition decimated the industry. By 2000, the logging industry was a shadow of what it had once been.

This May 25, 1930, photograph shows the scenic beauty and direct access to the river that has brought tourists, including windsurfers, to Hood River for decades. Development has come with those new people and industries, and a marina and hotels now line the riverbank.

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Historian Bernard DeVoto once famously declared that the West was a "plundered province," an economic colony of the industrial East whose sole purpose was to feed raw materials to the eastern industrial machine.⁴ He believed that this exploitative relationship forced westerners into a politically and economically subservient position. In many ways, he was correct; but, despite their shortcomings, farming, ranching, logging, and mining also provided the region with employment and gave the rural West a solid place in the American economy. The West's place in the global economy, however, is still uncertain. The fluidity of capital and competition from other nations and regions, aided by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other trade pacts, has weakened and in many cases destroyed the West's oldest and most important industries. In 1994, only seven Oregon and Washington interior counties — those east of the Cascade Mountains — had more than 35 percent of their population employed in extractive industries. Hood River County was not one of them.⁵ The economic purpose of the rural Northwest had become uncertain. In some places, Hood River among them, tourism was poised to fill in the vacuum.

The decline of the extractive economy began in the mid-1970s as a result of the national oil crisis, what economists labeled "stagflation," and the general economic "malaise" of the decade. The Hood River News reported in late 1974 that the sharp decline in apple and pear sales "undoubtedly reflect the economic slowdown around the country." During recessionary times, people watched their expenses and, therefore, purchased less fresh fruit. Logging began its slide at the same time, as inflation and rising housing and energy costs took their toll on the national economy. In November 1974, the Hood River News reported that "virtually a complete shutdown has hit several mills on the Washington side of the Columbia," and Hood River mills soon followed suit.⁶

The late 1970s and early 1980s were hard times for Oregon, and Hood River County was no exception. High interest rates smothered the demand for home loans, creating a weak housing market that drove lumber sales down dramatically. Jobs in the wood products sector of the Oregon economy declined in June 1980 by more than 7,200, and 24,200 wood products jobs were lost as twenty-two Oregon mills closed during the first six months of 1980. Unemployment in Oregon reached 8.6 percent in June 1980, well above the U.S. average of 7.8 percent.⁷

Hood River's lumber workers shared in the hardship. By 1981, Hood River's unemployment rate was 12.4 percent, and losses in the horticulture and logging industries were responsible for much of it. Other areas of the economy, most notably services, showed gains in 1980 and 1981; but with six of the county's top seven employers in food products and logging, the gains were much less impressive than the losses.⁸ Champion Lumber, one of the area's largest employers, closed its mill in the upper Hood River valley community of Odell (which once employed 120 people) in December 1980. Ownership of the Neal Creek mill returned to Champion after the purchaser, U.S. Fir, was unable to come up with the money to buy it. Bob Leick, a partner in U.S. Fir, lamented that "we could have made the mill work," but a sudden drop in the already low lumber prices in the summer of 1982 forced the company into bankruptcy.⁹ The mill lay dormant until Hanel Lumber, a fixture in Hood River since 1943, purchased it in 1983. Employment conditions in the county seemed to be improving. Hanel Lumber added 35 employees, doubling their workforce, in anticipation of an improved housing market. Sterling Hanel said, with some relief, "I think we are on the rebound."¹⁰

Pacific Northwest lumber mills — such as Hood River's Oregon Lumber Mill, shown here in 1950 — helped feed a post-WWII housing boom. By the 1980s, however, mills were facing a variety of challenges that led to the loss of thousands of jobs.

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The lumber industry did rebound in the mid-1980s in the Pacific Northwest, including Hood River County, which experienced its peak year of harvest in 1988. Despite appearances, however, the logging industry was in deep trouble.¹¹ By 1990, the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest was in chaos, and foresters, politicians, and loggers were looking for something to blame. Loggers believed the culprit was a reclusive, six-inch bird — the northern spotted owl.¹² According to biologists, the spotted owl required large tracts of undisturbed, old-growth forest in which to breed; and under the Endangered Species Act, the few remaining stands of old-growth timber would be effectively "locked-up." The Pacific Logging Journal, in its Winter 1990 issue, railed against environmentalists and the management requirements for the spotted owl and two other endangered species, the pileated woodpecker and the pine marten: "Anyone with a reasonably objective point of view needs only to look at changes in forest management policies to find the true reasons for mill closures." At stake, the editorial continued, was not an industry, but a way of life: "Today the battle is not over protection of old-growth, wilderness, or wildlife, it's over logging as a legitimate use of our national forests."¹³ In this assessment, at least, both loggers and environmentalists could agree.

The debate may have centered on the habitat requirements of the spotted owl, but causes deeper than environmental policy brought about the decline of the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest. Extra-regional competition, the lack of large trees, and outdated sawmills that were unable to cut smaller logs were all factors that affected the entire logging industry, but smaller producers were especially hard hit because they lacked the large, private landholdings of larger companies.¹⁴ Most of the region's old-growth forest was already gone, and loggers were harvesting smaller, second-growth logs. In short, the Pacific Northwest, the land of endless trees, was running out of good timber, and preserving the last remaining tracts of old growth for spotted owls only exacerbated that deeper problem.

Smaller timber and its relatively high expense meant lower profits for mill owners. The practice of "oral auction bidding over the years," the company history of Hanel Lumber complained, had required it "to pay more and more and sometimes too much for logs."¹⁵ Unlike large companies such as Weyerhaeuser, which relied on private landholdings, smaller producers needed access to the national forests, and they invariably competed with one another for those logs, driving the costs higher. Soon after World War II, small sawmills became entirely dependent on public lands for their lumber.¹⁶ Hanel, for example, relied completely on those lands by 1976.

The need to retool sawmills to cut smaller logs also made it difficult for smaller operators to keep up. Sterling Hanel explained the problem to the Hood River News in 1983. The company had purchased the Neal Creek mill but had to make half a million dollars in equipment changes in order to process smaller logs. The previous owners of the mill, Hanel said, were "depending on large, long logs up to 40 feet. Although, we'll have the potential to cut big timbers, there just aren't that many three foot by forty foot timbers out there anymore. We have been cutting more small timber in the last few years, cleaning up the forests because the prime old growth timber just isn't as prevalent any more."¹⁷ Ultimately, the equipment changes were too costly, and Hanel decided to use the Neal Creek mill as a site to increase the storage and drying of lumber. Nevertheless, the company increased its capacity and by 1985 was employing 270 people.¹⁸

The lack of old-growth timber and the cost of second-growth logs were problematic for Pacific Northwest mill owners, but it was the practice of exporting unmilled logs to Asia that cut mills entirely out of the market.¹⁹ Canadian softwood imports also took their toll on American lumber producers. In 1996, the U.S.-Canada Softwood Lumber Agreement set the amount of lumber Canada could export duty-free to the United States at 14.7 billion board feet, a quota that allowed Canadian timber producers to saturate the American market with less expensive Canadian lumber.²⁰

In Hood River, Hanel endured the caprices of the lumber market until 1995, when the company sold out to the Morgan Company of Linn County, Oregon.²¹ The old mill was sold again a year later to Quality Veneer and Lumber. QVL was financially unsound, however, and in September 2000, with little warning, the company sawed its last log and locked its doors. All 120 employees were left without jobs, and the Hanel mill joined the ranks of the 144 other sawmills and veneer and plywood plants that folded in Oregon between 1989 and 2000.²² By December 2000, the lumber sector of the Hood River economy employed only ninety people, a steep decline from the five hundred people employed only seven years earlier.²³ The Hanel Mill, however, was not yet dead. When word reached the Hood River News in early 2004 that the Upper Hanel Mill would reopen, the paper called it "rare news during a severe decline in Oregon's timber industry." The mill reopened in late 2004, employing thirty people. The lower Hanel mill site, formerly the drying and shipping facility, was also resurrected, but as a manufacturing site of windows. Cardinal Glass opened in 2004, employing over one hundred people.²⁴ It appears that the logging industry will remain a part of Hood River's future economy, but it is unlikely that it will ever be a major employer.

The horticulture industry fared better that the logging industry during the 1980s and 1990s, but there were nevertheless threats to its viability in Hood River County. Every year, orchardists felt increasing pressure from the development of new homes in the valley and from global competitors. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, strawberries were the first commercially viable crop in the valley, but the plants fell victim to predation by root weevils and farmers began to lose money.²⁵ Growers turned to apples, whose durability made them easy to ship by railcar or boat. Hood River's dominance of the apple categories at the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland made the region synonymous with the fruit. Following the completion of rail lines in 1882 and the Panama Canal in 1914, Hood River's horticulture industry entered first the national and then the global marketplace, and Hood River fruit appeared on tables as far away as Europe.²⁶

This Apple Growers Association cold storage building, shown here in photograph taken by Benjamin A. Gifford in about 1917, kept fruit in prime condition until it could be shipped. Water routes and railroads — both of which are visible in the extreme right — enabled Hood River farmers to participate in the emerging global marketplace as their produce found its way to tables throughout the U.S. and Europe.

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Pear production began to increase in Hood River during the first half of the twentieth century until, by 1960, pears supplanted apples. In 1958, Hood River's apple acreage had declined 58 percent to only 4,500 acres — still enough to make it Oregon's top apple-producing area; but 8,000 acres had been given over to pears, an increase of 632 percent since 1920. In 2000, pear and apple production constituted the county's primary economic endeavor, still ahead of tourism.²⁷

Wesley Andrews photographed Mount Hood from this orchard in Dee Flat, in the Hood River valley, in about 1920. Following in the wake of lumber companies, early horticulturalists planted orderly orchards and created a national reputation for Hood River fruit.

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The continued viability of agriculture was uncertain, however, and in 1990 area leaders embarked on an aggressive revitalization plan. Faced with several choices, including encouraging the expansion of tourism, members of Hood River's Regional Strategy Committee on Economic Development, a subcommittee of Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt's Economic Development Committee, focused on revitalization of the tree-fruit industry as the key to future economic development. Key components of the strategy included improving the agricultural research station, modernizing and building more cold-storage buildings, introducing different varieties of apples that were in demand by consumers, and a continued shift from apples to pears. Hood River's horticulture industry weathered the 1980s and prospered in the 1990s. The future is less certain. The 2000 d'Anjou pear crop suffered in a market glutted by South American fruit; and a bin of pears, which cost $120 to produce, fetched only $80. In 2002, two dozen farms were on the market, and the prospect of a new ski resort threatened to accelerate the transformation of the pastoral landscape.²⁸

Skiing on Mount Hood dates to the early twentieth century, but the region has never had a large-scale, Colorado-style destination resort with golf courses, condominiums, restaurants, and shopping facilities. Two day-use ski areas are located on Mount Hood. Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Resort, on the southeast side of the mountain, opened in 1970, and the much smaller Cooper Spur Mountain Resort, not far from Hood River on the north side, opened in the 1940s.²⁹ For several years, Mt. Hood Meadows Development Corp., the operator and owner of Mt. Hood Meadows, has been trying to develop a new resort near Cooper Spur.³⁰ According to Dave Riley, general manager of the corporation, the resort would include a golf course, health spa, condominiums, home sites, stores, and perhaps a vineyard and winery.³¹ With logging in decline and the future of horticulture uncertain, county officials appeared interested in anything that would increase tax revenue of the county, which is comprised of largely nontaxable public lands .³² Many people in the Hood River valley, however, were against the development, and by early 2007 it appeared that a land swap for the lands held by Mt. Hood Meadows in the Hood River valley for land near Government Camp (on Mount Hood's south side) could be completed. The deal, if it goes through, would allow Mt. Hood Meadows to develop 500 houses on the Government Camp site on Mount Hood and preserve the agrarian character of the Hood River valley.³³

Tourism in Hood River is as old as the town, which was founded as Dog River in 1852 as a landing of one of the first ferries on the mid-Columbia.³⁴ Steamships brought tourists to the area; and Cloud Cap Inn, high on Mount Hood, was completed in 1889. The completion of the Columbia River Highway in 1922 brought motorists from Portland into the Gorge, making the area part of Portland's recreational hinterland.³⁵

While Hood River's traditional industries were weathering great changes in the 1970s and 1980s, on the Columbia River a new kind of recreation was being created that would quickly transform the quiet town into an internationally known area for outdoor sports. Tourists came to visit the orchards and wineries, and to ski, snowboard, kayak, and mountain bike — but Hood River became most famous as home to the sport of windsurfing.

The sport of sailboarding was invented in Southern California during the 1970s, but it became entrenched in Europe, Australia, Japan, the Caribbean, and Hawaii — all places with good water and wind conditions. For some time, the lack of an accessible and affordable destination stymied the sport's growth in the continental United States.³⁶ By the early 1980s, the Columbia River Gorge had become that destination. "The interest in the gorge has grown quickly basically because of the consistency of the winds here," said Tom Bissell, one of the organizers of the first Columbia Gorge Pro-Am in 1984. The inaugural Columbia Gorge Pro-Am sailboard race, held in mid-June 1984, was intended to be a regional event, but a series of national articles on Gorge windsurfing (written by local sailboarders Doug Campbell and Jack Betty) had caught the attention of the best professionals in the world.³⁷

Wind, water, and a sailboard combined to create an elemental sailing experience for Rob Warwick, photographed here near Spring Creek Hatchery in July 2007. Windsurfers arrived in Hood River as visitors in the early 1980s, but soon many were staying permanently, bringing much needed revenue as well as significant redevelopment to the area.

Courtesy Trudy Lary, photographer

The 1984 Columbia Gorge Pro-Am also symbolized the beginning of a new era for the town. Hood River, the News had predicted in January, "could well become the focal point of river sailboarding in the West." The days leading up to the event, however, were filled with tension as the celebrated west to east winds failed to blow, and the surface of the Columbia River was nearly as smooth as glass. Many of the competitors were drawn to the event by word-of-mouth and by articles describing the Gorge's strong, predictable winds. An event marred by a lack of wind would effectively ruin the Gorge's reputation. Hood River's businesses, such as Bette's Place diner, were putting up welcome signs, and hotels and campgrounds reported that they were booked solid for the week of the race.³⁸ No one, however, had anticipated a windless, quiescent Columbia River Gorge. For hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years "the constant winds ... have been little more than an irritation," the Hood River News wrote in early 1984.³⁹ Now, however, the winds carried the promise of money blowing into town with the thousands of sailboarders who needed places to sleep and eat during the competition, and economic opportunity, no doubt, made the winds less of an annoyance. Locals John Layson and Ruth Ellsworth went so far as to sell empty cans, packaged with the label "Columbia Gorge Brand Wind."⁴⁰

The winds arrived just as the first races began on the afternoon of June 14, 1984, and sustained winds of 22 knots roared from the west and raged, unabated, throughout the weekend. They were so strong that the final events, scheduled to take place in the expert-only conditions off Washington's Maryhill State Park, were moved closer to Hood River, where they were accessible to spectators. An estimated 15,500 spectators — far more than anticipated and many from as far away as Hawaii, Guam, and West Germany — turned out to watch the 105 competitors navigate the mile-long, slalom course along the river.⁴¹ World-class sailboarding had arrived in Hood River and in North America. The quiet town on the Columbia River would never be the same again.

To "boardheads," the Columbia River Gorge appeared custom-tailored. Tom Bissell explained to the News: "There are other places where they get winds that blow as strong as they do in the gorge, but not all the time."⁴² It was the strength and consistency of the winds that sailboarders found so seductive. As one promotional article put it, with mock incredulity:

Bob must think I was born yesterday. He tried to get me to believe that from late March through May the sailing in the Gorge is some of the most extreme in the world. He has been ranting about these huge green swells and white walls of spray-ripping nuclear winds blasting between the walls of the Gorge all winter. Uh huh. That's not all though — he maintains that from May through August the Gorge turns into the fun and frolicking freesail capital of the Universe. What is this place, some sort of sailing machine? Sounds suspicious to me.⁴³

The combination of wind and lake-like water make the Gorge perfect for windsurfing. During the summer months, the interior air of the continent warms substantially, which causes the hot air to rise. The space left behind is filled by the moist, cool air coming inland off the Pacific Ocean. That air quickly floods through the great sea-level gap in the Cascades — the Columbia River Gorge — and the winds are born. From April through August, the winds come primarily from the west, and July and August each average about twenty-five days a month of westerly winds.⁴⁴ Powerful, sustained winds propel windsurfing boards along, and the summer winds counter the current of the water, enabling sailboarders to sail either up or down the river. This collision of water and wind also generates large waves that appeal to expert surfers, allowing them to perform the difficult jumps and flips of the spin-off sport called freesailing and the increasingly popular kiteboarding. All of this occurs when conditions are the most pleasant for a day on the river.

Before the development of the Columbia River in the late nineteenth century, however, conditions were much different. Three powerful and dangerous obstacles defined the Columbia between present-day Maryhill, Washington, on the east and Cascade Locks, Oregon, on the west — the stretch of river where the most important windsurfing sites are located today. Celilo Falls, The Dalles, and the Cascades frightened even the most daring rivermen. The rapids at the Cascades and The Dalles, sometimes called the Dalles de Morts, were sections of the river where its velocity increased as its channel was constricted. Just upriver, the Columbia tumbled over the broad and steep Celilo Falls, a site of tremendous importance for Native America fishers. For many business interests, however, Celilo Falls was a dangerous impediment to progress.⁴⁵ With the completion of Bonneville Dam in 1937 and The Dalles Dam in 1957, the Cascades, The Dalles, and Celilo Falls were inundated, covered by large lakes of slow-moving water. Several decades later, windsurfers discovered the lake-like surface, and today they skim along the water above the submerged grave of that once-awesome stretch of the river.

Accessibility and services were nearly as important to windsurfers as wind and water, and the Columbia River Gorge offered both. Washington State Route 14 meanders along the northern edge of the river, and Interstate 84 in Oregon parallels the river on the south. Already existing state parks and windsurfing sites that later became state parks — such as Doug's Beach, named for windsurfing pioneer Doug Campbell — provide parking, bathrooms, campgrounds, and access to the river. Towns on both sides of the river offer hotels, restaurants, and evening entertainment. Windsurfers were particularly attracted to Hood River, where a service infrastructure was already in place. The presence of services owed much to the hikers and fishermen who had visited the Gorge and the tourists and travelers who had passed through on the Historic Columbia River Highway and later I-84.

In 1983, Bill Griffith established Wind Synergy, one of the first windsurfing shops in Hood River. The shop, which manufactured much of the equipment that its retail store sold, was located near motels and restaurants not far from the Hood River Marina, where the protected water made teaching sailboarding easiest. Other enterprises soon followed. The Hood River News reported in 1984:

A whole new business has sprouted up in Hood River during the past year, its roots in the water, nurtured by the wind. Last year, sailboard enthusiasts were pretty much on their own ... this year it's different, to say the least ... no fewer than five businesses focus on sailboarding, all of them opening in Hood River for the first time this year.⁴⁶

Selling the windsurfing experience to visiting "boardheads" proved to be an excellent way to live in Hood River year-round. Transplanted sailboarders — who knew how and where to sail and were masters of the sailboarding lingo — had an advantage over long-time residents in selling windsurfing services and products to sailboarding visitors. With the discovery of wind, though, came change, and not everyone welcomed it.

This 1982 photograph shows Hood River before the arrival of windsurfers. Windsurfing promoters often boasted that the city was destined to become the Aspen of windsurfing. For some, this was an unsettling prediction. By the 1990s, real estate prices in the picturesque town had soared to more than most residents could afford.

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"I'll tell you," Gary Efferding told the Hood River News in 1984, "unless something happens, this place is going to see a mass invasion [of sailboarders]."⁴⁷ Efferding, a part-time Florida resident and convert to windsurfing, represented the arrival of sailboarders who, as early as 1984, came not just to visit but to stay. He wanted a summer home now, he explained, before other, more affluent migrants priced him out of the market. These new residents set out to develop the town to suit their needs.

Hood River, one of the nation's "trendiest zip codes," according to the Oregonian in 1990, saw its real-estate prices explode. Houses quickly rose in value above $100,000, far above the $60,000 that was considered affordable for area residents. Only a few years earlier, newcomers could find "fixer uppers" for under $10,000; by 1990, such bargains were gone.⁴⁸ In 1999, the average price of a house in Hood River was $162,348, nearly equal to Portland's.⁴⁹ By 2006, both east and west Hood River saw the median home price climb to over $400,000, and in central Hood River the median price was just under $300,000. In the town of Cascade Locks, several miles west of Hood River, the median price was $184,000 and in The Dalles, to the east of Hood River in Wasco County, the price was only $170,000.⁵⁰

Rising housing prices, however, were only one variable in the equation of development. Wages were falling and gentrification — the process that had transformed many other western towns — seemed inevitable. The problem, according to Michael Benedict, planner for Hood River County, was that "there is quite a disparity between the average wage and the cost of housing in the county. Our housing costs are now as high as Portland, but the average wage is much lower. We need to get the salary base up or we'll have a long-range problem."⁵¹

The decline of logging and the rise of a recreational/service economy had caused a decline in the average wage and in Hood River's economic ranking in Oregon. As one study concluded, the arrival of windsurfing and recreation promised jobs, but "many of the lost timber jobs will never be recovered" and, worse, "many of the newly created jobs in tourism/recreation, and the jobs to be generated by that sector in the future ... will be relatively low-paying positions."⁵² In 1980, Hood River County's per capita personal income was higher, at $9,929, than either Oregon's, at $9,275, or the United States', at $9,483. Driven by horticulture and timber jobs, Hood River fell behind only Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties — the Portland metropolitan area — and Morrow County in the state economic rankings.⁵³ Years of recession, however, took their toll on these industries so that by 1984 Hood River's per capita income of $11,198 put it just behind both Oregon, at $11,613, and the nation, at $12,772. Only a dozen or so years later, in 1997, Hood River's average annual wage of $19,859 dropped it much further behind Oregon's $23,920 and the nation's $25,288.⁵⁴ In fact, Hood River, in 2004, had an average wage of only $24,797, the fourth lowest county average in the state (the leader, Washington County, was over $20,000 higher).⁵⁵

Average wages, however, can be a little misleading. Since 1990, the area has also seen a tremendous growth in the Latino population, who fill the lowest-paying jobs in the horticulture and service industries. The seasonal wages paid to fruit pickers, for example, are extremely low, partly because they are provided housing for which they are not compensated. These conditions tend to drive Hood River's average wage down dramatically. Latino workers also often fill the lowest-paying jobs in the tourist industry — fast-food workers and hotel maids, for example. This reliance on low-wage, often immigrant, labor is typical of recreational areas throughout the West.⁵⁶

Planners in Hood River were aware of the problems of a service-based, tourist economy and sought ways of encouraging businesses to locate in the area. Greg Baker of the Port of Hood River argued that preserving Hood River as a viable and diverse community was important. "Areas that are scenic and have high recreation values tend to become exclusive areas," he warned. "There are many examples of this when we think of the Sun Valleys and Aspens and other areas in the West that have some similarities to Hood River." The problem was that when tourist towns "become exclusive they tend to become somewhat uniform in their demographics." This had not yet occurred in Hood River, he said, and "the community still has a wide variety of people, ethnic backgrounds, and income levels. I think this mix is one of the important things the area should retain."⁵⁷ Preserving the character and diversity of the town, however, was easier said than done.

Hood River was changing, but the development of the area went far beyond the town of Hood River to focus on the Columbia River itself. What boardheads craved more than anything else was improved access to the river and better windsurfing facilities. These demands often caused conflict with other river users, especially Native Americans. The Native peoples of the Columbia plateau were originally promised access to the river at "usual and accustomed" fishing places under treaties signed in the mid-nineteenth century, but in practice Indian fishers were harassed, denied access, and forced to compete with white commercial and recreational fishermen. Beginning with the 1973 decision of Judge George Boldt, in United States v. Washington, Indian fishers were allocated 50 percent of the salmon catch and the court upheld their rights to fish at traditional sites.⁵⁸ A decade later, development and sailboarders posed another threat to those rights, and conflict seemed inevitable. Both windsurfers and fishers wanted access to the same places on the river, and sailboards zooming over the river's surface tended to scare fish. There were reports of angry windsurfers attaching blades to the bottom of their sailboards in order to cut fishermen's nets, which they thought were a nuisance.⁵⁹ In 1994, Native fishermen endured harassment and vandalism of their fishing scaffolds at Lyle Point, Washington, where an expensive housing development was planned. The developer promised that Native fishing rights would not be harmed; but as Margaret Palmer, a Yakama who led a protest against the development, explained, "I call it intimidation when I have to walk through the homes of thirty-two millionaires to gather fish." Palmer and other Indian protestors also reported that they had been threatened and shot at by angry area residents who hoped the development would bring jobs and money to their financially distressed county. The debate over the future of Lyle Point finally ended in May 2007 when the Yakama purchased the land.⁶⁰ Such incidents were the most extreme manifestation of the conflict over access and the shaping of the Gorge, and — the outcome of the Lyle Point debate aside — in many cases the winners were the recreationalists, whose political savvy and economic clout were transforming Hood River and the Columbia River Gorge.

The development of Doug's Beach, a popular windsurfing site east of Hood River on the Washington side of the river, is illustrative of the conflict between the Gorge's oldest users and its newest. In the spring of 1991, the Columbia River Gorge Commission, charged with implementing the federal Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act, heard testimony from windsurfers about the need for increased river access.⁶¹ The Yakama and Warm Springs tribes, however, valued the area as environmentally important wetland and a culturally significant fishing and archaeological site and they wanted the site protected as open space. At issue was whether Doug's Beach should be listed as open-space and, therefore, protected from development or classified as an area appropriate for recreation and limited development (especially better parking and sanitation facilities). It was the commissioners' job to determine the appropriate land-use designation for Doug's Beach and many other sites like it, and they determined that the development of Doug's Beach was congruent with the Scenic Act. Louie Pitt, policy assistant for the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, lamented: "I guess there are more sailboarders than Indians. I didn't realize resource management was a popularity contest."⁶²

As Carl Abbott, Sy Adler, and Margaret Post Abbott explain in Planning a New West, the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area attempts to protect the scenic beauty of the Gorge while allowing for economic development, and "the legislation [creating the scenic area] internalized permanent tensions between competing visions of the gorge."⁶³ In practical terms, this meant that special interest groups such as local chambers of commerce, environmental groups, and recreationalists could shape the landscape of the Gorge in many different ways. Sailboarders formed advocacy groups, such as the Columbia Gorge Boardsailor's Association and Recreation 2020, which have represented sailboarding interests at public meetings that consider proper uses for sites such as Doug's Beach. Recreation 2020, formed in 1995 by local sailboard-related businesses, announced that its goal was to ensure "abundant recreational opportunities for the next 25 years."⁶⁴ Much of the organization's attention focused on Hood River's waterfront, where the town and river meet. Many visitors experience their first sail at the marina, and it is an important area for windsurfing instruction.

In 1998, the increasingly politically adept Columbia Gorge Windsurfing Association (CGWA) joined with U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) to form a coalition dedicated to developing windsurfing sites in the Gorge. The Columbia Gorge Recreation Coalition grew to include the US Windsurfing Association, Washington and Oregon parks, the Army Corps of Engineers, the City of Mosier, and U.S. Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR). On July 20, 1998, the coalition submitted a "Recreation Development Grant Application for Scenic Area recreation construction funds" to the Columbia River Gorge Commission, which provided over $2 million to develop Spring Creek Hatchery State Park (Washington), Viento and West Mayer State Parks (Oregon), the Mosier Waterfront (Oregon), and, at the request of the Columbia River Gorge Commission, Drano Lake in Washington and The Dalles Riverfront Trail.⁶⁵ In this way, organizations took an active role in physically altering the natural and built environments of Hood River, often with aid from politicians and the Columbia River Gorge Commission.

City planners have worked to leave their mark as well, attempting to diversify the local economy to ensure that Hood River is more than just another tourist town. Using amenities and tax incentives to attract large companies and businesses is often seen as a good alternative to tourism, but few businesses seem willing to locate to small towns, where transportation costs are higher and the labor pool is often less skilled than in larger cities. Still, Hood River had some success and attracted a satellite office of Sprint Communications. The company's presence has been both disruptive and helpful, and the story of Sprint in Hood River illustrates some of the problems rural communities face when they court big companies.

In 1986, the Port of Hood River aggressively redeveloped the abandoned Diamond Cooperative's cannery. With the help of a $2.4 million bond issue and other funds, the Port remodeled the 210,000-square-foot Plant H building (formerly a cold storage building) into a multi-use office building called the Waucoma Center.⁶⁶ The city and the Port persuaded Sprint to locate an office in the complex. For a city the size of Hood River, it was something of a coup, but Hood River quickly learned that large corporations may end up investing little in a community and caring little about local history or culture, and that large companies were no more stable to small towns than the older extractive industries had been. Sprint had some capital outlay, for example, but the costs of remodeling the structure fell mostly on the city. Hood River, it turned out, needed Sprint much more than Sprint needed Hood River.

Tyson Poor windsurfs in July 2007 at the Spring Creek Hatchery, one of the sites that was developed for recreational use with funds from the Columbia River Gorge Commission.

Courtesy Trudy Lary, photographer

By 1995, Sprint employed 394 people in Hood River, but there were rumors that the company planned to cut their Hood River workforce. The rumors gained plausibility when Albertson's grocery chain decided against opening a store in the area because they learned that employment at both Sprint and the Hanel mill would decline in the near future.⁶⁷ Albertson's prognostication was accurate. In November 1995, Sprint announced that jobs would be cut as the company restructured, although it promised a reorganization and possible employment for some workers.⁶⁸ As of 2004, Sprint was still the city's second largest employer, with 313 workers. The company continues to operate in Hood River, employing about 200 people under the name Embarq, but there remains a lingering anxiety that it could abandon the city at any time.⁶⁹

Full Sail Brewing, with its labels paying homage to windsurfing, was on the vanguard of the microbrew revolution. The employee-owned company's success suggests that the rural West can have an economic future that is not dependent on either extractive industries or tourism.

Courtesy Full Sail Brewing Company

Hood River has been more successful in attracting small businesses and fostering indigenous businesses. The Full Sail Brewing Company, an early participant in the microbrew revolution in the West and with a name designed to pay tribute to the windsurfing culture, is one of several local companies that have become important to the economic vitality of the community.⁷⁰ With money from family, friends, and the state of Oregon, Irene Firmat and Jerome Chicvara originally wanted to start the company in Portland, but the presence of other microbrewing companies prompted them to look elsewhere. They found the perfect site in Hood River, a place with scenic beauty and a high quality of life. In 1987, Full Sail began making beer. The company garnered numerous awards and an astonishing 40 percent annual growth rate for each of its first nine years. By 1995, Full Sail was shipping beer to thirteen states and Canada, and the company had established a reputation as one of Oregon's top hundred companies to work for. On July 2, 1999, Full Sail Brewing Company became the sole property of its fifty-four employees, making its atmosphere markedly different from the uncertainty that pervades the relationships between employees and management at Sprint.⁷¹

Hood River continues to be a beautiful but contentious place. The old economy, represented by logging and horticulture, remains. The days when logging was dominant seem to be over, but horticulture has effectively made the transition into the twenty-first century. The annual Blossom and Pear and Wine festivals (held in May) are congruent with the area's new recreational identity. Some orchardists have also jumped on the organic bandwagon, and Hood River organic products, such as Gorge Delights apple bars, are found on the shelves of natural foods retailers.⁷² Hood River is also known for the adventure tourism that made the region internationally famous, especially windsurfing. But the problems of tourist-based economies are evident, with high housing prices, low wages, and opposition to attempts to create affordable housing.⁷³ Hood River's future, like that of dozens of other communities in the scenic West, is impossible to tell, but it is likely that the winds of change have not yet abated.

Notes

This paper is based on the author's M.A. thesis at Portland State University under William L. Lang in 2000. The author would like to thank Dr. Lang, Marianne Keddington-Lang, and the anonymous reviewers of the OHQ for their insight and advice.

^1. University of Virginia, Geospatial & Statistical Data Center, Historical Census Browser and City and County Data, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu (accessed July 7, 2007) [hereafter UVA Center City and County Data].

^2. The arduous work of clearing the fields of stumps, left by the lumber companies, was usually performed by Japanese immigrants, who often became farmers themselves. See Lauren Kessler, Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family (New York: Random House, 1993); Linda Tamura, The Hood River Issei: An Oral History of Japanese Settlers in Oregon's Hood River Valley (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993); Jason Pierce, "A Place Worth Having: Nature, Economics, and Culture in Hood River County, Oregon" (M.A. thesis, Portland State University, 2000); and Robert Bunting, The Pacific Raincoast: Environment and Culture in an American Eden, 1778–1900 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1997).

^3. UVA Center City and County Data. In 1997, there were still over 537 farms and orchards, proving that the industry remained vital to the county.

^4. See Bernard DeVoto, "The West: A Plundered Province," Harper's Magazine vol. 169 (August 1934).

^5. William Riebsame, ed., The Atlas of the New West: Portrait of a Changing Region (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997), 108.

^6. Hood River News, December 19, 1974, November 19, 1974.

^7. The First National Bank of Oregon, "Oregon Economic Indicators," June 1980, Oregon Historical Society Research Library, Portland.

^8. Oregon Economic Development Department, "Oregon Community Profiles: Hood River County," 1983.

^9. Hood River News, December 22, 1982.

^10. Ibid., March 30, 1983.

^11. Thomas Michael Power, Lost Landscapes and Failed Economies: The Search for a Value of Place (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1996), 141.

^12. William Dietrich, The Final Forest: the Battle for the Last Great Trees of the Pacific Northwest (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 27.

^13. Pacific Logging Congress, The Pacific Logging Journal (Winter 1990): 8, 9.

^14. Dietrich, The Final Forest, 122; and Richard A. Rajala, Clearcutting the Pacific Rain Forest: Production, Science and Regulation (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1998), xix.

^15. Hood River County Historical Society, History of Hood River County, vol. 2, 1852–1987 (Dallas, Ore.: Taylor Publishing Company, 1987), 498–500.

^16. Dietrich, The Final Forest, 121.

^17. Hood River News, March 30, 1983.

^18. Historical Society, History, 498–500.

^19. Dietrich, The Final Forest, 122.

^20. High Country News, March 26, 2001.

^21. Hanel Lumber Co., Inc.: "Forty-four Years of Change and Growth," in Historical Society, History, 498–500; Hood River News, November 11, 1995; and Dietrich, The Final Forest, 122–23.

^22. Hood River News, September 23, and 27, 2000.

^23. "Manufacturing Highs and Wows: 1985 to Present," Oregon Labor and Market Information System, December 8, 2000, http://lomis.emp.state.or.us/olmis (accessed March 12, 2003).

^24. Hood River News, January 17, 2004. See also Hood River News, November 16, 2004, February 1, 2003, January 10, 2004, and May 29, 2004.

^25. Hood River Experiment Station and Extension Service of the Oregon Agricultural Service, "Report of the Hood River Agricultural Economic Conference," (Corvallis: Oregon Agricultural College, 1924), 20–22.

^26. Historical Society, History, 12, 14, and 15.

^27. Warren J. Green, Arthur E. Irish, and D. Curtis Mumford, Cost of Producing Apples and Pears in the Hood River Valley, Agriculture Experiment Station, Oregon State College, Corvallis (Station Bulletin 573, May 1960), 7–8; and Mike Doke (Hood River County Chamber of Commerce), interview by author, Hood River, Oregon, June 16, 2000. In 1998, Hood River County produced over 60 percent of Oregon's multimillion-dollar Bartlett pear crop and half of the state's apple crop. See Oregon State University, "Fruits of Change," Oregon Agricultural Progress (Spring/Summer 1998).

^28. Hood River News, April 18, 1990; and High Country News, June 24, 2002.

^29. J. Patricia Krussow, ed., Aakki-Daakki to Zoomorphic: An Encyclopedia About Hood River County (Hood River: Friends of the Hood River Library, 1994), 124.

^30. High Country News, June 24, 2002.

^31. Hood River News, December 15, 2004.

^32. High Country News, June 24, 2002.

^33. Hood River News, February 17, 2007.

^34. The city of Hood River is the largest in Hood River County, a county with a population of just over 20,000 people in 2000. Parkdale and Cascade Locks are the only other towns in the county. Hood River County is Oregon's second smallest county.

^35. See Carlos A. Schwantes, "No Aid and No Comfort: Early Transportation and the Origins of Tourism in the Northern West" in Seeing and Being Seen: Tourism in the American West, ed. David M. Wrobel and Patrick Long (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2001), 125–41; and Pierce, "A Paradise of One's Construction," 104–105.

^36. Clive Boden and Angus Chater, The Windsurfing Funboard Handbook (London: QED Publishing, 1984), 8–9.

^37. Hood River News, June 13, 1984.

^38. Ibid., and January 18, 1984.

^39. Ibid., January 18, 1984. Captain William Clark griped somewhere near what is now Hood River that "the wind rose and we were obliged to lie by all day." He noted, however, that the local Indians had no trouble canoeing with the winds. See Gary Moulton, The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, July 28–November 1, 1805, Vol. V (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988), 347.

^40. Hood River News, July 11, 1984.

^41. Ibid., June 20, and 13, 1984.

^42. Ibid., June 13, 1984.

^43. Lars Bergstrom, "Windsurfing in the Gorge an Urban Myth?", in 1999 Gorge Guide: The Official Columbia River Gorge Visitor and Recreation Guide, ed. Carol York (Hood River: Gorge Publishing, 1999), 68–70.

^44. Hood River News, June 13, 1984. The channelling of wind stops only when a heat wave hits both sides of the Cascades, because the temperature and pressure on both sides of the mountain range are the same.

^45. Richard White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 10–11.

^46. Hood River News, June 13, 1984.

^47. Ibid., July 25, 1984.

^48. The Sunday Oregonian, June 24, 1990, Section H.

^49. "Cost of Living," Columbia Gorge Economic Development Association (CGEDA), www.gorge.net/cgeda (accessed April 2004).

^50. "Housing Information," CGEDA, www.cgeda.com (accessed July 15, 2007).

^51. "Cost of Living," CGEDA.

^52. Business and Employment Outlook: JTPA District 9, Hood River County, Sherman County, Wasco County (Salem: State of Oregon Employment Division, 1989), 3.

^53. Mike Mahan, Economic Survey Analysis: JTPA District 9, Hood River County, Sherman County, Wasco County (Salem: State of Oregon Employment Division, Research and Statistics, 1983).

^54. Business and Employment Outlook, section 5, p. 4; Oregon Employment Department, "2000 Regional Economic Profile: Region 9," 68.

^55. "Economic Overviews," Oregon Economic and Community Development Department, http://www.oregon4biz.com/p/AveWageORoverview (accessed July 22, 2007).

^56. Hal K. Rothman, Devil's Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1998), 350–52. Thomas Michael Power agrees that massive tourist development generally leads to the rise of low-wage jobs, but he believes an "alternative tourism" can mitigate these problems. See Lost Landscapes, 213–34.

^57. "Hood River Port Director Speaks on Economic Issues," Columbia Gorge Economic Development Association News, http://www.gorge.net/cgeda (accessed September 23, 1999).

^58. White, Organic Machine, 39; Colin G. Calloway, First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History (New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 1999), 489; and Gordon Dodds, The American Northwest: A History of Oregon and Washington (Wheeling, Ill.: Forum Press, 1986), 283–84.

^59. Carl Abbott, Sy Adler, and Margery Post Abbott, Planning a New West: The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1997), 182.

^60. High Country News, July 25, 1994, and June 11, 2007.

^61. On the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area, see Abbott et al., Planning a New West.

^62. Hood River News, April 13, 1991. Other sites have ignited similar debates over whether places should be preserved or developed for recreation. See Abbott et. al, Planning a New West, 131 and 137.

^63. Abbott et al., Planning a New West, 7.

^64. Hood River News, April 19, 1995.

^65. "Columbia Gorge Recreation Coalition," http://www.cgrc.mediaforte.com/(accessed August 6, 2001); and Historical Society, History, 495.

^66. Hood River News, April 19, 1995. Wal-Mart did open a store in Hood River in October 1992. See Hood River News, December 16, 1992.

^67. Ibid., November 18, 1995.

^68. Oregon Economic and Community Development Department, "Hood River Community Profile," http://info.econ.state.or.us (accessed April 2004).

^69. Hood River News, January 14, 2004; Bill Fashing (economic development coordinator, Hood River County), e-mail to author, August 6, 2007; and Doke interview.

^70. Hood River News, April 17, 2004.

^71. Full Sail Brewing Company, "Full Sail Brewing Company Background," http://www.fullsailbrewing.com/fsbcpres4.htm; and Full Sail Brewing Company, "Full Sail Brewing — Employee Owned — Lock, Stock & Barrels!" http://www.fullsailbrewing.com/fsbcpresitsofficial.htm (accessed April 2004).

^72. Hood River News, June 27, 2007. Yet there is controversy with the company's practices, especially with regard to the spraying of pesticides, and problems with price fluctuations and international competition. See, for example, Hood River News, March 17, 2007.

^73. See Hood River News, June 21, 2007

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