COLUMBIA RIVER HIGHWAY, OREGON On June 7, 1916, the Columbia River Highway in Oregon, which had been opened to traffic on July 6, 1915, was formally dedicated. From reports of this great work which had reached the Society, we believed that a description of it by the Consulting Engineer of its construction in Multnomah county, Mr. Samuel C. Lancaster of Portland, Oregon, would be instructive to easterners in more ways than one. Therefore, in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History, we invited Mr. Lancaster to address the members of these two institutions in the auditorium of the Museum in New York City on Wednesday evening, March 28, 1917, and he kindly consented to do so. The address, which more than met the expectations of the audience which filled the hall to the limit of its capacity, was beautifully illustrated with colored stereopticon views and moving pictures, many of the former being made in natural colors directly from nature. (See plates 71-75.) Mr. Lancaster has been called the poet-artist-engineer, and well deserves the title. He unites a profound love of nature and a keen artistic sense of natural beauty with the manifest ability of a civil engineer,- a combination of qualities which is unfortunately too rare. His description of the building of the highway gave instructive insight into the enterprise and public spirit of the authorities who provided the appropriation for the work, the generosity of individuals who contributed of their own means and property to the preservation of certain beautiful features of the scenery along the road, and the engineering skill and good judgment of the builders. The Columbia River Highway is a broad thoroughfare on the left bank of the Columbia river, extending for a distance of about 200 miles from the Pacific Ocean on the west to Hood River on the east. It runs through four counties, namely, Clatsop, Columbia, Multnomah, and Hood River. In Clatsop county, it begins at Seaside on the shore of the ocean, parallels the beach for twelve miles, cut across marshlands for a distance of 12 miles more to Astoria; and continues 28 miles to the Columbia county line. The grandest feature of the section is Bugbee mountain, 23 miles east of Astoria, whence an unbroken view is obtained for a distance of 40 miles up and down the river and where four remarkable curves bring the road down 650 feet on a five per cent grade. In Columbia county, the road is 56 miles long, its most notable scenic section being the Beaver Valley in which are the Beaver Falls. In Multnomah county, the road continued 25 miles to the City of Portland, and thence 46 miles eastward. The latter stretch is completely paved. Features along the road east of Portland with their respective distances from the city are as follows: Crown Point, 23 miles, where the road is carried around a rock cliff at an elevation of 750 feet above the river; Latourell Falls, 26 miles; Bridal Veil Falls, 28.5 miles; Gordon or Waukena Falls, 31.5 miles, in Benson Park of 400 acres, given by Mr. S. Benson of Portland; Multnomah Falls, the largest of the ten waterfalls in Multnomah county, 32.5 miles; Oneonta Gorge, and rock tunnel 125 feet long, 34.5 miles; In Hood River county there are about 20 or 25 miles of the highway. The Mitchell Point tunnel is a feature of this section. Five miles east of the tunnel is Hood River City. In this county, the Cascades having been passed, the gorge widens out again and presented some very rugged and beautiful scenery. Along the whole route remarkable engineering difficulties have been overcome. The maximum grade throughout is five per cent and the minimum radius of curves 100 feet. Gorges have been spanned by graceful reinforced steel arch bridges; tunnels have been bored through cliffs, sometimes with openings at the side, like great balcony windows, commanding beautiful views, like the famous tunnel of Axenstrasse overlooking Lake Uri, Switzerland; at places the road has been supported on columns on the side of mountains, to avoid disfiguring the scenery by cutting into the mountainside, and advantage has been taken of every opportunity to secure the finest vistas of river gorge, glens, waterfalls, and distant mountains. At several points the lofty summit of Mount Hood may be seen. On September 1, 1915, Gen. George W. Goethals, builder of the Panama Canal, passed over the highway between Portland and Cascade Locks and is quoted as saying that "the Columbia River Highway is a splendid job of engineering and absolutely without equal in America for scenic interest." The building of the highway on its present scale was undertaken in 1913. A campaign of education had aroused public interest in good roads, and this interest was stimulated by the desire to open the highway through the Columbia Valley in time for the Panama-Pacific exposition in San Francisco in 1915. Multnomah county took the lead, and in September of that year called in Mr. Lancaster as Consulting Engineer. The other counties joined the movement enthusiastically. The new State Highway Commission coordinated their work. Multnomah county spent $1,640,000 in road construction and paving in that county, and the contributions of the other three counties brought the total cost of the highway up to nearly $3,000,000. From Portland, it is possible to drive over a paved road into the very heart of the Cascade Range. Crown Point, one of the commanding eminences on the route, may be reached in one hour from the city, and the gorge of the Columbia with its extraordinary scenery in two hours. Persons desiring further information on this subject are referred to the beautifully illustrated book "The Columbia: America's Greatest Highway," by Mr. Samuel C. Lancaster of Portland, Oregon. THE CALIFORNIA MISSIONS Candle Day at San Fernando The Landmarks Club of California, which was incorporated in 1895, the same year in which the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society was incorporated, has been doing a notable work for the preservation of the California Missions. In our Annual Report for 1912 we have given a condensed history of these interesting establishments and from time to time have spoken of the great historic and artistic interest attaching to these landmarks. Doubtless a comparatively small proportion of all the people who use the expressions "mission furniture," "mission pottery" and "mission architecture," realize the origin of these terms or the extremely interesting and important chapter of Ameri can history lying behind them; but to those who have visited California and seen either the well kept mission of Santa Barbara or the crumbling ruins of Capistrano or other missions will ever forget the impression made upon them by the sight. The Landmarks Club began material repairs and a campaign of Education simultaneously. At San Juan Capistrano, the jewel of all the Missions, there was desperate need of safeguarding. The tile roofs were falling in and the adobe walls were breached. First, the rotten pole rafters were replaced with strong timbers, good for centuries. The old tiles were put back on this enduring roof-structure. The adobe walls were mended and reinforced, and the sagging walls of the great stone church were tied together with big rods of steel. Then the two huge buildings at San Fernando were similarly re-roofed, repaired and safeguarded. Then the club acquired (from a squatter owner) the beautiful little mission of Pala, and made similar protective repairs. It has also helped to save the Missions of San Luis Rey and San Diego; and done many other works for which it deserves the highest credit. Except for its work, there would be nothing left today at San Juan Capistrano, San Fernando and Pala, but mounds of adobe and broken tiles. On August 6, 1916, the 147th anniversary of the arrival of Gov. Portola and Father Crespi with their expedition at San Fernando, the club held a remarkable ceremony at that mission which is within the corporate limits of the City of Los Angeles. In anticipation of the day, the club sold candles at a dollar apiece, the proceeds to be devoted to the repair of the ruins, and the anniversary was called Candle Day. Nearly 7,000 persons gathered at the scene on the anniversary day, and listened to not only a Franciscan mass, but also the words of a Jewish Rabbi, a Bishop of the Church of England, a Congregational Clergyman, the President of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and many laymen. An old-time California barbecue (with 10 beeves, 400 gallons of coffee, 2000 loaves of bread, 600 pounds of Spanish beans) was served free. At twilight, the climax of the day was the lighting of 5000 memorial candles, which were arranged eight deep, from end to end of the 270-foot cloister. Such a sight was probably never before seen in America. The President of the Landmarks Club of California is Mr. Charles F. Lummis, and its home office is at No. 200 East Avenue, Los Angeles, Cal. GOLDEN GATE PARK, SAN FRANCISCO An appeal received by this Society in February, 1917, from San Francisco for information as to how Central Park in New York City had been saved from encroachments, revealed the fact that San Francisco has exactly the same problem to contend with in regard to her superb Golden Gate park. In 1911, when San Francisco was casting about for a site for the Panama-Pacific exposition which was held four years later, there was an influential movement for building it in the western part of Golden Gate Park. At that time, Mr. William H. Hall,* who made the first topographical survey of this park for the first Park Commission, who made the plan for it, and who laid out, shaped and improved it during the first seven years of its development, lifted up his voice in protest against this proposal. He pointed out that Golden Gate Park was the only area having the form and semblance of rural nature which San Francisco had or was likely to have, that was large enough for a notable park proper; that it had taken 40 years for assisted natural development to bring the westerly two-thirds from a condition of gracefully shaped drifting sand-dunes to what could then be seen in most of it— a healthy growing young forest area, undulating and diversified in form, feature and vegetation, just beginning to assume the dignified aspect and afford the restful qualities of a true park; that if it were planed and scraped down and filled with artificial and temporary buildings, its natural charm would be ruined; and that it would take another 40 years to bring it back, in size of growth alone, as a mutilated relic of what the park then was. In a letter addressed to the Executive Board of the Directors of the Exposition dated April 25, 1911, he not only adduced these arguments against the use of the park for the exposition, but also pointed out the fallacies of many mistaken arguments in its favor. * Mr. Hall was the first engineer and superintendent of Golden Gate park, 1870-76; and later Consulting Engineer in general supervision of its works 1886-90. He enjoyed the friendship and advice of Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect of New York. |