The Lewis River Hydroelectric Projects - PacifiCorp

Lewis River Interpretive & Education Plan
While forging his way up the river, McClellan noted flatly that “the valley of
the Cathlapoot’l above and at our crossing is utterly worthless for any purpose.”
His assessment proved prophetic, as it was many years before settlers ventured
to create homesteads in the lower valley—and only a few ever tried to tame the
upper parts of the valley into farms or pasture lands at all.
Prospectors
Homesteaders
In the mid-1850s, discoveries of small amounts of gold in streams north of
the Chelatchie Prairie ignited gold fever—and for decades afterwards, legends
and rumors sustained it: Ole Peterson used his gold to buy those fancy cars
he liked… “Indian George” always paid for groceries with nuggets from a
heavy buckskin bag… For a handful of prospectors in the late 19th century,
the possibility of a windfall of nuggets in some obscure Lewis River tributary
was enough to drive years of exhausting exploration, hunger, cold, equipment
trouble, and loneliness. But despite decades of slow but steady prospecting, and
the establishment of several mining claims—including one that now lies beneath
the Yale Dam—gold mining never really “panned out” along the Lewis.
The mid-1800s saw increasingly rapid settlement of northern Oregon and
western Washington by emigrants, with an increase in response to the Donation
Land Act of 1850. As the prime agricultural lands of the Columbia and
Willamette regions dwindled, however, new settlers were forced to choose more
marginal lands for homesteads. But even as the lowlands of the Cascades were
claimed and farmed, the rugged valleys and gorges above remained empty of
settlers.
The first settlers within the project area arrived in the early 1860s, claiming land
through pre-emption (for unsurveyed public land), or under the Homestead
Act of 1862 (for surveyed public land). However, much of the settlement above
present-day Merwin Dam (originally called Ariel Dam) followed in the wake of
1880s and 1890s logging operations that cleared the land of the huge timber that
made the area so difficult for farming. After an area was logged, “stump farmers”
could set up small fields and scrape by on subsistence crops. After the economic
depression of the 1890s, there were several small farms in the valley. Most of
these were in the Merwin and Yale Valley regions, with very few above the site of
Yale Dam and none documented above the site of Swift Dam.
Homestead life along the Lewis River before the dams could be difficult, but
those who experienced it often look back on their farm days as some of the best
of their lives. Families lived in modest houses and farmed small plots, growing
vegetables, fruits, hay, and sometimes grain. Most families had chickens and a
cow or two for milk and meat; some raised pigs, some kept sheep. Meat, fruit
and vegetables were preserved and stored for winter use, and excess was sold to
markets in Woodland. Some families grew cash crops of potatoes, strawberries,
and raspberries.
Sea Reach Ltd • 146 NE yamhill Street • Sheridan, OR draft 3 • November 2008 • page 61