Wading Across the Willamette

The bar at the mouth of the Clackamas

The earliest stories of our city are well known, even the legendary coin toss between Maine and Massachusetts. It is still a bit thrilling for a nerd like me to run across a bit of very early history. I came upon this letter by Captain John H. Couch to the Oregon City Spectator defending the notion that Portland was as far as anyone could reasonably believe that ocean going vessels could navigate. He even mentions seeing natives wading across the river at the Clackamas bar. The letter receives an amen from gentleman farmer, and riparian land owner Thomas Stevens.

The Spectator, Oregon City, Jan 10, 1850

The main obstacle to navigation is the bar that is formed from sand pushed out from the mouth of the Clackamas river. I have canoed that area many times. Once, during high waters in the spring I was surprised and terrified to come upon a place at the bend below Hog Island that had turned to standing waves higher than anything I had ever maneuvered in my cumbersome Klickitat canoe. Time is relative, and so is white water. For me it was a terrifying rapids, for the average kayaker, a piece of cake.

Comments

The Last Word on Shanghai Tunnels - Including 14 reasons why the stories are bogus

I have never been on a tour of Portland's so-called "shanghai tunnels," so I am unable to comment on this attraction, except that I have heard that the tour is quite entertaining. Neither have I been to the Pirates of the Caribbean in Disneyland, the Magic Carpets of Aladdin, or the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, for that matter. The closest I have come to this sort of tourist entertainment was while visiting the ancient city of York I took my family on the "York Ghost Walk." This tour is a bit of innocent fun with some old ghost stories mixed in with distorted history—just for the tourists. It may be true that I have no experience with the tourist tours of these basements in the northwest regions of downtown, but I do know a bit about them. There is a great deal of documentation in the newspapers, and in old court records. They were built by Chinese back in the days when Chinatown was the center of gang activity related to the different tongs

The Chinese Ghost in the Grain Elevator

A photo I took of T5 from a water taxi while doing stowage area exams on ships anchored in the Columbia In my book, "Portland's Lost Waterfront," I have a section devoted to the O. R. & N., Pacific Coast Grain Elevator System, often called the "great grain pipe." This was a system of grain elevators following the rail lines up the Columbia River basin, with tendrils reaching out as far as Idaho . Today this system is duplicated in many ways by the Japanese owned, Columbia Grain International, a company with elevators reaching as far as North Dakota . Since the 1970s this company has operated the gargantuan Terminal 5 grain elevator near the mouth of the Willamette. This one grain elevator is responsible for a large percentage of Oregon's total exports, and a surprisingly large percentage of the entire nation's wheat exports. This industrial giant pulls grain from hundreds of railcars each day—up its whirring and rattling &qu

Asthmatic Weakling Writes Book on Prizefighting in Portland

It is true, an asthmatic weakling, who used to regularly give up his lunch money as tribute to bullies, has written a book on prizefighting. Not only this, History Press has just published it! Oregon Prizefighters: Forgotten Bare-knuckles Champions of Portland and Astoria , will hit the shelves on Monday. What was it that made someone like me, born without the “sports gene,” to become interested in the bare-knuckles prizefighting of yesteryear? It was the people: brash, naïve youths, wracked by passions, ruined by limelight. Then there is the model Portlander, Dave Campbell, for many years “Our Dave,” beloved chief of the Portland fire department. He was self-educated, intelligent, measured, and fearless, and gave up a sure championship career as a boxer to fight Portland’s fires. Add to the mix the original all-time champion, Jack “Nonpareil” Dempsey (died 1895), and “Mysterious” Billy Smith—both legends in the world of boxing history—and you soon begin to wonder why these fellow

Portland's Lost Waterfront

Search This Blog