The Dalles

You've made it to The Dalles. But your journey is not yet over. Until 1845 your only choice was to float your wagon down the Columbia River. In 1845 Sam Barlow found the wait for transport too long and too expensive, so he blazed a trail around the south side of Mt. Hood. Barlow built a toll road and from 1846 on travelers had another choice. But either way you went you wished you had taken the other.

When Joel Palmer got here Sept. 29, 1845 he wrote: "This day we traveled about five miles which brought us to the Dalles, or Methodist Missions. here was the end of our road, as no wagon had ever gone below this place. We found some sixty families in waiting for a passage down the river; and as there were but two small boats running to the Cascade falls, our prospect for a speedy passage was not overly flattering."
Learning that Samuel K. Barlow had already heouth to cut around Mt. Hood, Palmer followed and helped to blaze the first wagon road to Oregon City. From that time on the emigrants had a choice.

         On March 12, 1906 Ezra Meeker placed this marker at the Dalles. Meeker had come across the Oregon Trail in 1852.

Here at the The Dalles he opted for the river route and settled around St. Helen's. Later he moved to Kalama and eventually to McNeil island. In 1854 he brought his father over the Naches Pass trail, which had been cut the previous year. By this time Washington was a separate territory.

OAG = DeLorme's  Oregon Atlas & Gazetteer
MOT = Franzwa's Maps of the Oregon Trail
OTR = Franzwa's Oregon Trail Revisited.evisited 1997

Congratulations, you've made it