BEFORE YOU TAKE OFF ON ANY HIKE:
DON'T depend on these notes alone for a hike! Always STOP by the Ranger Station
and ASK about the specific trail as to conditions and exactly HOW to find it.
Tell them WHERE you are going and WHEN you will return. If you are in such a BIG
hurry, then leave a note at the trailhead. If you are in too much of a hurry to
do that, then you should GO HOME and watch television, not hike, not camp, not
ride, not out here on the...
The Santiam Wagon Road has an interesting and unique place in Oregon's History. Unlike other wagon roads that were built to bring settlers to the Willamette Valley, this road was built to lead settlers and their livestock out of the valley, playing a major role in the settlement of Central Oregon.
Since its discovery over 146 years ago, the Santiam Pass has remained an important transportation route across the Cascade Mountains. Before that time, native American groups from the Willamette Valley, the Kalapuya (Calipooia), the Cascades (Molala), and Central Oregon (Warm Springs), seasonally traversed the pass on subsistence and trading ventures.
The first white men to visit this area were Finnan McDonald, Thomas McKay, and Joseph Gervais, while trapping for the Hudson's Bay Company out of Fort Vancouver in August of 1825. However, the need for a wagon road would not come for another 25 years.
During the 1840's and 50's the population of Linn County was beginning to increase and so was the amount of land being used for crops. With less grazing land available, the cattle ranchers of Linn County began to think about the possibility of a route over the mountains to the wide open grazing lands of Central Oregon. At the same time, gold had been discovered in parts of Central and Eastern Oregon. Boomtowns were springing up east of the Cascades and so were the needs for food and other supplies in those areas. The only other wagon roads across the Cascades were the Barlow Trail near Mt. Hood and the Applegate Trail (also known as the South Road of the Oregon Trail) near Diamond Peak. A road from the central part of the Willamette Valley was now needed.
In 1859, a party including Andrew Wiley, John Gray and John Brandenburg traveled east from the Sweet Home area, up the South Santiam River, in search of a feasible route to Central Oregon. Shortly after crossing what is now called Tombstone Pass, the party became disoriented in the deep valley and tall timber along Hackleman Creek near Lost Prairie. Trying to gain a better view of the area, Wiley, the leader of the party, climbed a tree on a nearby ridge, becoming the first white man to see the Santiam Pass from the west.
After returning from the mountains, Wiley proclaimed that he had found a feasible route for a wagon road to Central Oregon via the South Santiam River. Other ranchers in Linn County were excited to hear this news and joined together to form the Willamette Valley and Cascade Mountain Wagon Road Company (WVCMWR) in March of 1864. Their primary intention was to build and maintain a road between Albany and the Deschutes River.
Initially, financing of the road came from the sale of stock at $100 per share, as well as from the tolls charged for the use of the road. This amount later proved to be insufficient and the company filed for a land grant with the federal government for 800,000 acres. Some of this land was then sold to help finance construction costs.
Construction of the wagon road began at Wiley Creek near Foster in 1865, and proceeded to the east, up the South Santiam River Valley. By 1868, the road was passable as far east as Camp Polk near Sisters. The new wagon road became an immediate success. Popular road houses were located at Cascadia, the Walton Ranch (Long Ranch), and the Mountain House. Gatekeeper and road superintendent John Gilliland reported that, as of July 8, 1871, 3126 cattle and 2310 sheep had crossed the pass already that year.
The incident for which Tombstone Pass and Tombstone Prairie were named also occurred in 1871. In that year, the McKnight brothers were traveling on the Willamette Valley, driving a herd of horses. While camped near the summit of "Seven Mile Hill" (now Tombstone Pass), the oldest son, seventeen year old Alvin McKnight, accidentally shot and killed himself. Although his body was carried out and buried at Sand Ridge in the Valley, family members later erected a monument at the site of his death. Before the incident and the placing of the monument, the area was known as Indian Prairie.
In 1872, a connecting road with Eugene via the McKenzie River Valley was completed, joining the Santiam Wagon Road at Fish Lake. Fish Lake became a very popular overnight stopping place for early travelers, and at one time had a store and road house where meals, beds and stock feed were available. The McKenzie route took some traffic away from the Santiam portion of the road, but it was the Santiam that remained the most preferred route for the rest of the 1800's.
East of Fish Lake the Santiam Wagon Road climbed towards Santiam Pass, crossing near Big Lake at what was then called "Wiley's Pass" (approximately 3 miles south of Highway 20). From here, the road gradually descended toward Sisters, passing Cache Mt. and Black Butte on the way. In 1896, the first and only toll station east of the pass was established at Cache Creek. The remains of this station as well as the wagon road are clearly visible today.
One of the directors and later a leading shareholder of the wagon road company, was Colonel T. Egenton Hogg, of Linn County. Hogg had high hopes of building a railroad (the Corvallis and Eastern R.R.) that would connect Yaquina Bay with the Snake River near Ontario. By building this railroad, Hogg and the company would have stood to gain many thousands of additional land grand acres.
In 1889, a 1-1/2 mile stretch of railroad track was laid across the pass near the present location of Highway 20. Materials and a crude boxcar were hauled to and assembled on the site. The boxcar was then loaded with freight and pulled by mules, back and forth, across the pass. Hogg then claimed that he had successfully built a railroad across the pass, and, on that basis, tried to "loophole" his way to more land grant acreage. The additional land grant never came through and the short stretch of track near the Santiam Pass was all that would ever be be built by the Corvallis and Eastern R.R. The boxcar remained as a "lone sentinel", guarding the pass for nearly 50 years.
One of the more interesting events on the Santiam Wagon Road occurred in 1905. On June 20th, gatekeeper J. L. Nye, at the toll station near Lower Soda on the South Santiam River, observed a "contraption approaching swiftly with an ugly snort". It was Dwight B. Huss in his Oldsmobile called "Old Scout". Nye had never seen an automobile before and when Huss offered to pay the toll, he became confused because his toll sheet didn't have a price listed for automobiles. Noticing that the horses and cattle gave Huss' contraption a wide berth, much the same way they do with hogs, Nye classified it as a "road hog" and charged 3 cents (the going toll rate for hogs). Huss continued on this journey in "Old Scout", which was the first crossing of the Santiam Pass and the continent by automobile.
After the turn of the century, use of the Santiam Wagon Road began to decline. This was partially due to the completion of the Columbia Southern R.R. from The Dalles to Shaniko in 1900. This railroad was the first one into North-Central Oregon and proved to be a highly competitive route for the transport of goods and people into and out of Central Oregon. In 1911, the Oregon Trunk R.R. reached Bend, taking even more traffic away from the Santiam Wagon Road. Also, in 1911 a campfire along the Wagon Road escaped and 3000 acres were consumed in the Seven Mile Burn.
Use of the Santiam Wagon Road continued to decline and almost ceased entirely in the 1920's when the new McKenzie Highway was opened. This new road was the preferred automobile route across the Central Cascades and proved to be the "straw that broke the camel's back" for the Willamette Valley and Cascade Mountain Wagon Road Company which was dissolved in 1925. At that time, the rights to the wagon road were sold to Linn County.
In the following decade, plans were made to build a new road up the South Santiam River, and in 1939 the Santiam Highway (Highway 20) was opened. This proved to be a successful new highway, and soon surpassed the McKenzie Highway in traffic volume, once again becoming the dominant route across the Central Oregon Cascades.
Currently the old wagon road is still visible in many locations between Sweet Home and Sisters. A Forest Service trail at the House Rock Campground, follows the wagon road and provides an interesting hike along this historic route. In many areas, the new highway or adjacent Forest Service roads have been built directly over the old wagon road.
By Peter L. Ohlson May 27, 1989
Edited/scripted by Tom Stewart - June 15, 1998
Another Account (Account 2) of the history of The Santiam Wagon Road.
Other trail and area information:
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