First People

Native American Indians were the first inhabitants of the Gorge arriving approximately 10,000 years ago. Over the centuries they developed a culture rich in tradition and art as they made a home in the Columbia River Gorge.

The Cascade Chinook Indians settled where the Columbia River cut a path through the Cascade Mountains. West of the Cascades were large dense stands of forest. This is where the Coastal Indians lived. East of the Cascade mountains the climate changed, becoming much drier and desert-like. This was home to the Plateau Indians. The Cascade Indians lived in the middle of these two different environments. As a result, they have some characteristics of both tribes.

The Cascade Rapids were formed approximately 700 years ago when an earthquake caused a landslide. If you look at the mountains behind Stevenson, you will see the exposed red rock that was left behind when half of the mountain tumbled away. The rocks and rubble from this slide created a dam 200 feet high (Bonneville Dam is 70 feet high). It is estimated that it took up to ten years for the river to reach the top and overflow. It is believed that the legend of the Bridge of the Gods is based on this fact.

The Columbia was the easiest path through the Cascades, and became a main trade route for the Indians. The Cascade Indians, like the white man who followed, took advantage of the passage, trading with both Coastal and Plateau tribes. Tribes coming up or going down the river had to stop, take their canoes out of the water and walk around the treacherous rapids. When other tribes wanted to pass through the Cascade Indian's territory, they would have to pay a toll, much as we pay to cross the Bridge of the Gods today. Instead of 75 cents, they would receive trade goods, such as furs, beads, or food items.

The Cascade Indians lived in pit houses. These pit houses were constructed around a pit dug into the ground. Pole frames were erected to provide support for the siding and roofing material that was made out of cedar planks. These pit houses were large and usually housed several families. Lewis and Clark reported one that measured 35 feet wide by 50 feet long by 35 feet tall.

Because the Cascade Indians controlled the passage, they were able to trade for what they needed. Salmon was plentiful and would be dried and traded for other staples. This allowed them to live in one place, unlike the coastal Indians who had winter and summer camps, and the Plateau Indians who traveled from their winter home to collect food at different locations.

In addition to salmon, the women of the village would collect roots, berries, and fruits. Roots, such as Camas, Wapato, and Indian Potato were collected and stored in baskets. Blackberry, wild strawberry, and gooseberry were just a few of the berries that could be found, and fruit such as the chokecherries were collected and stored for the coming winter. The men hunted and trapped wild game such as deer, bear, and squirrel. The meat was then prepared for winter storage by drying.

Clothing was made out of cedar bark or leather. Women would shred the cedar bark and weave skirts and capes. Leather dresses and skirts would be worn on special occasions. The skins of deer and elk were softened by being soaked in a fatty solution of deer brains and sturgeon heads, then scraped and stretched, and finally cut and sewn for clothing. These dresses would then be decorated with tassels of bear grass, shells, porcupine quills and natural dyes.

The Indians of the Cascades were wood workers, bone carvers, weavers and stone workers. Men made dugout canoes, spear handles, sinew-backed bows, and housing. Using their skill at lashing, they constructed pole frames for drying fish and meat, erected plank dwellings, and hollowed out wooden bowls for cooking or holding foodstuffs. Nets were woven from hemp and projectile points were made from obsidian.

The women wove baskets using many materials including cedar root and bear grass. Although these baskets were made for everyday use, they were decorated with geometric patterns and some human forms. The Cascade Indians, like other tribes, developed unique patterns that distinguished their work from others. Another art form that developed was pictographs and petroglyphs.

Pictographs and petroglyphs are rock drawings done by Native Americans. These are very common throughout the Gorge. Pictographs are paintings. The colors were made from different minerals like iron oxide that produced red, a certain type of clay produced white, copper oxides produced blue-green, and charcoal and manganese oxide that produced black. These minerals were pounded into a powder and then mixed with a liquid such as water, blood, eggs, fat, plant juice, or urine. The paint would then be applied to the rock surface with fingers or brushes made of animal hair, twigs or feathers. Petroglyphs are rock engravings. The engraving is made in one of two methods. Pecking is where a hard stone is used to slowly peck away portions of the rock surface or abrading the surface of the rock with another harder stone. The exact purpose of these rock drawings is unknown. Some say that they were done for religious ceremonies. Some say that they are a record of Indian history. Whatever the reason, they remain an enduring legacy to the Native American People and are to be viewed with respect as any piece of art.

The Native Americans passed along their history orally through stories. Many of these stories are still told today, but many more have been lost. Many of the stories are myth-like in that they tell of a time before man walked the earth. In this time, Coyote walked the earth. Coyote is described as a trickster and helper whose job was to make the earth a safe place for the people to come.

The Cascade Indians believed that all things possessed a spirit power. All boys and many girls went on a spirit quest to find their helper or spirit guide. The young people went out into the wilderness alone for several days and nights. They were required to fast, pray, and dance until their helper appeared. These helpers could be animal, plant or mineral, such as bear, fir tree or a stone. When the helper was revealed, he or she was free to return to the village.

The Indians of the Cascades had three social classes: free, rich upper-class families; free, but poor lower-class, and slaves. Slaves worked constantly, were treated poorly and could not hope to improve their lives. Slaves were of all ages, usually captured from distant villages or other language groups. Some were captives seized during warfare or won through gambling.

The poor classes lived in pole-frame dwellings covered with woven rushes or matting when they could not afford plank houses. They were at the mercy of the wealthy who made demands upon them. Like the slaves, they had little hope of improving their position.

The arrival of the white man forever changed the Cascade Indians' way of life. The differences in cultures caused many misunderstandings. In addition, the white man brought with him his disease for which the Indians had no immunity. During the epidemics of the 1830's, the Cascade Indians' population almost disappeared. No longer did they control the river.

(Back to top)

   Explorers

While fur trade was the first great incentive for coming to the Columbia River Gorge, it was the Donation Land Claim Law of 1850, and later the Homestead Act (which allowed people to obtain title to land), that brought people here to settle. Cutting wood for the wood-burning steamships that plied the Columbia River was the first occupation in the County. Commercial fishing for salmon and sturgeon, lumbering and farming soon followed.

Skamania County was formed in 1854, and the county government functioned in the former Quartermaster residence of Fort Cascades. Then they subsequently moved the government offices to the post hospital within the former Fort compound. This building then served as the courthouse until April 1893. Three wooden benches, one drop leaf table and a few chairs completed the list of furniture. The reason for the move from the Lower Cascades to Stevenson in 1893 is not clear. One storyteller relates that the rent for the building was raised and the commissioners objected. In the middle of the night, the records were moved out by the portage railroad, then onto a fishing boat, and arrived in Stevenson. As it turned out, this saved the county records because in 1894 the greatest recorded flood on the Columbia destroyed every remaining building. The town of Cascades was never rebuilt.

1933 work began on Bonneville Dam, the first hydroelectric dam on the Columbia River.

The town of Stevenson is located on the Henry Shepard Donation Land Claim. George Stevenson bought a portion of the Shepard land in 1893 and laid out the original town site.

The City of North Bonneville is the only other incorporated community in the County. It was located on the site of the former community of lower Cascades in 1984. At one time Cascade was the largest town in the Washington Territory and was an important steamboat stop and terminus for the portage railroad that transported goods and people around the Cascade rapids on the Columbia River. Following the 1894 flood, a small community continued to exist and it sprang back to life as North Bonneville in 1933 when work began on Bonneville Dam, the first hydroelectric dam on the Columbia River. North Bonneville was a spontaneously assembled community, built with whatever materials were available and put together in a rush to meet the needs of construction workers arriving by the hundreds in the area. When the Bonneville Project was completed in 1938, the town remained. The town was incorporated in 1935.

Construction of a second powerhouse at Bonneville Dam began in the mid-1970's. The site of the new powerhouse covered over 90 percent of the town of North Bonneville. The town was relocated west of the old town on Hamilton Island and south of Greenleaf Slough. Site selection and design for the new North Bonneville were a result of intensive multi-disciplinary planning. The new town was dedicated in 1978.