I do not recall when I first discovered the Mitchell Point Tunnel in period photographs, I would have been quite young. I do recall thinking that it was one of the coolest roads I had ever seen. A road tunnel cut just inside the face of a cliff with wide windows open to the sunlight.
The old postcard photos show a fascinating scene, a tunnel large enough for the cars of the early 20th century to pass one another on a smooth roadway. Big openings with heavy stone pillars separating them holding up the tunnel roof. The scenery would have been lovely, with views of the Columbia River well below.
The Columbia River Highway features prominently in my childhood memories. I grew up in the Portland area, and for many years my grandparents lived near The Dalles, as a result our family often traversed the area.
As the line from the old song stated “Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go,” we went. For us the river was the Columbia, and the woods were the thick forests of the Columbia River Gorge.
We would stop along the way, visiting waterfalls, hiking the trails, winding along the still open sections of the historic highway. The road itself was a large part of the beauty, cut dramatcally into the cliffs with bridges and tunnels. I loved those beautiful cut basalt railings that defined the roadway, always a welcome sight that meant an adventure was about to happen.
There were also sections of the highway that were not open, mostly east of Cascade locks, remants left after construction of Interstate 84 along the same route. Fragments of roadway with those iconic railings hanging on a cliff above the interstate near Bonneville. Road cuts visible in the bluffs near Hood River. Each a reminder of what once was before the interstate. I imagned driving the old roadway in it’s prime, bouncing along in a Model A to picnic beside the waterfalls.
I clearly recall being devastated when I found out that the tunnel of windows had been destroyed in 1966 during construction of Interstate 84.
Once, when assigned to do a research paper I decided to use the Columbia River Highway as my subject. I wrote about the builders and engineers, the dates, the costs, the challenges overcome to create the first major paved highway in the Pacific Northwest.
It was a pretty good paper if I recall, my enthusiasm for the road coming through in the text, if only for a junior high school student. The destruction of the tunnel being a notable part of the paper.
It was with facination when I learned that the Mitchell Point Tunnel was to be reconstructed. And it has been, opened to the public this spring. I have to go! Planning a day in the gorge I decided to add the tunnel to the schedule after spending the morning visiting waterfalls.
The Oregon Depatment of Transpotation has done an admirable job, carving a lengthy tunnel through the bluff and including wide windows that allow light into the tunnel and provide views of the river below. You cannot drive through the new tunnel, rather it is part of a growing pedestrian and bicycle path that reaches through the gorge tying together parts of the old highway.
The tunnel is not quite the same, the windows further apart without the graceful pillars that were used in the original. The engineering of the new tunnel clearly much more conservative than the past.
The new tunnel is substantial, not just a short dip through the rock, rather a lengthy path with quite a few windows. The entry and exit feature lovely stonework that mimic the original style of the historic highway it is meant to recreate.
My thanks to those who share my fascination with the original Mitchell Point Tunnel, and worked to recreate this feat of engineering. The tunnel is once again a defining part of the Columbia River Highway.
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