Skamania County history

In 1843 the Oregon Trail brought the first of a great wave of settlers past our shores.

In 1844, settlers cut a wagon road along the north side of the rapids.

Beginning in 1850 with the Donation Land Claim Act, settlers could file a claim to 640 acres if married, 320 acres if single.

In July 1851, Francis Chenoweth (variously called Hardin or Justin, with surname sometimes as Chenowith) built a railroad consisting of one wagon on wood rails pulled by a single mule.

Skamania County was formed in 1854 and the county government functioned in the former quartermaster residence of Fort Cascades.

In March 1856, Indians attacked Fort Rains, a blockhouse built at the Middle Cascades to protect the portage railway.

Captain John C. Ainsworth, Simeon G. Reed, and Robert R. Thompson founded the Oregon Steam Navigation Company in 1860 and bought up all the steamboats on the Columbia and the portage railway at the Cascades.

The three settlements along the rapids -- Upper, Middle, and Lower Cascades -- included some 3,000 people making the community the largest in Washington Territory in 1861.

Cape Horn on the Columbia River, Skamania County, 1867

Work on a 3,000-foot canal at the Cascades on the Oregon side began in 1878 and dragged on for 18 years.

The United States government established the first forest reserves in 1891.

Under the auspices of the Stevenson Land Company, George Stevenson purchased the original town site for $24,000 in 1893, building the town along the lower flat near the river.

As it turned out, this move saved the county records because in 1894 the greatest recorded flood on the Columbia River destroyed every remaining building at the Fort.

Locks at the Lower Cascades, 1896

By 1900, many merchants established businesses.

In 1902, the Yacolt Burn, the state's largest fire in recorded history probably started in the Wind River Valley.

The Great Northern Railway and Northern Pacific Railroad, competitors in the transcontinental business, launched the Seattle Portland & Seattle Railway and built a line along the north side of the river through Skamania County beginning in 1906.

In 1908 the town was incorporated and the SP&S Railroad arrived, pushing the town up the hill away from the river.

Beginning in 1923, the United States Army Corps of Engineers surveyed the Columbia for its best uses.

Forty years later the community of North Bonneville developed as a construction town next to the massive Bonneville Lock, Dam and Powerhouse project, which began in late 1933.

North Bonneville was incorporated in 1935.

Federal legislation in 1937 also authorized a second Powerhouse, although the need was not then immediate.

Stevenson joined with the Vancouver, Washington library in Clark County in 1952 to form Washington State's first regional library district.

North Bonneville Library was the third library in the district, joining in 1953 and providing their own quarters in North Bonneville's City Hall.

The current Stevenson Library was constructed in 1967, with a timeless design of wood-and-rock materials and large views of the Columbia River Gorge.

The Columbia River’s north shore, where North Bonneville had grown, was selected by federal agencies in 1971 as the site for the second Powerhouse.

Federal responsibility for the North Bonneville relocation was expanded in 1974 with enactment of Public Law 93-251, referred to as the McCormack Legislation.

In 1986, Congress passed an act that created the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, designed to protect the natural, scenic and cultural resources of the gorge.

The mission statement within the act called for a Washington State lodge and meeting center to be built – Skamania Lodge.Located on 175 wooded acres overlooking the Columbia River Gorge and Cascade Mountains, construction began July 16, 1991.