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OREGONSCAPE
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| RECORDED HISTORY MEETS geologic history in the Columbia River Gorge. Millions of years ago, flows of volcanic basalt covered the landscape, then Ice Age floods carved a channel through the rock, allowing the river to reach the sea. The cliffs along the edge of the Gorge provide evidence of those geologic forces at work. Explorers and pioneers named two basalt landmarks in the Gorge Cape Horn. Lower Cape Horn is on the Washington side of the river, opposite Bridal Veil, and Upper Cape Horn — shown in this 1867 photograph by Carleton E. Watkins — was on the Oregon side of the river between Tenmile Rapids and Celilo Falls. Those falls and narrows comprised a twelve-mile obstruction to navigating the Columbia. |
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As steamboats could not get through the rapids except during extreme high water, the Oregon Steam Navigation Company (OSN) built a portage railroad in the early 1860s to transport freight and passengers past the rapids. The Oregon company transported Watkins, his camera and equipment, and his traveling party along the river when he visited in 1867. |
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By the twentieth century, hydropower had became a priority for boosters and developers, and many of the landmarks familiar to pioneers disappeared as dams changed the character of the river from wild and rocky to wide and navigable. When the gates at The Dalles Dam were closed in 1957, the water began a rise of eighty-five feet, creating Lake Celilo and submerging Upper Cape Horn and Celilo Falls. Today, the only Cape Horn left along the Columbia River Gorge is in Washington. |
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| —Mikki Tint, Special Collections Librarian, OHS Research Library |
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