The Most Costly Road in the World
Mitchell’s Point Cut on Columbia Expensive Piece of Highway Engineering
Unless construction work begun by the New York State Highway Commission around Cloud Mountain on the Hudson costs more, the Mitchell’s Point section of the Columbia Highway will be the most expensive wagon and automobile road in the United States. This three-quarters of a mile of new road, being built under the supervision of the State Highway Commission of Oregon, will cost $50,000. However, except for a third of a mile this work is ordinary filling. The remaining part comprises the gigantic task, that, when completed, will make the Mitchell’s Point section of the road the most noted in the mountainous districts of the Pacific Coast or of the world.
Engineers declare that no other highway in the world has ever been constructed just as the third of a mile around Mitchell’s Point. For several hundred feet the road passes through a tunnel cut in solid rock. In the side overlooking the Columbia, five big windows, “peepholes,” have been cut, giving the light for the subterranean passage and making it possible to secure an effective view of the Columbia, 100 feet almost directly beneath the roadway, which seems to jut out over the base of the cliff at this paint.
The Axenstrasse of Switzerland, about which so much has been written, is of similar construction. But in the case of the latter road, instead of holes having been cut, the side windows are more like a series of arches or arcades, and have been built up, the road having been merely cut into the side of the mountain.
The walls of these windows at Mitchell’s Point are of rough stone. No concrete has been needed to hold them in place. They are ten feet thick in places.
Unless the motorist passing through the tunnel gets down from his machine and peers over the edge of the window base it will seem to him that he is above the Columbia’s waters.
Mitchell’s Point is a huge formation of basalt and lava rock, and through it run several seams of peculiarly hard coal. The crews crossed a three-foot seam in their excavation work. In appearance the coal is similar to the Pennsylvania anthracite, but its burning qualities are poor.
In reality there are two Mitchell’s Points, Little Mitchell’s and Big Mitchell’s, as they have become known to those who reside near the giagantic crags. The small point rises to a height of from 300 to 400 feet just above the river’s edge and the 0. W. R. & N. Company’s tracks.
From its topmost jagged point it slopes gently back to the base of the larger crag, and through this, terrace-like, passes the old State highway, over which motor cars must travel until the tunnel is completed, winds around tortuous curves and up grades impossible except to high-powered machines. The second and larger formation rises to an altitude of more than 1,000 feet. It extends back in a gentle slope to the range of mountains that forms the west barrier of the Hood River Valley. The ridge of Big Mitchell’s is sharp edged. The mountaineer who dares an ascent of it must crawl on hands and knees to reach the summit, at the very point, and the topmost points of both these peculiar crags of the Cascades jut over their bases.
While most of the salient points of the Cascades along the Columbia have some interesting significance in Indian legend, no authentic legend has ever been told of Mitchell’s Point. A story prevails to the effect that in early days a man named Mitchell, when chased by hostile redmen, plunged over the precipice and was killed. But this seems to have no foundation. “When I first came to Hood River,” said E. L. Smith, who removed to the valley 39 years ago from Olympia, where he had resided with his family when Secretary of Washington Territory, “we called Mitchell’s Point ‘Storm Cliff.’ The rain and wind clouds that were brought scurrying up the Columbia always seemed to be divided here and sent eddying around the Hood River Valley.” The name is an appropriate one.
The pines and firs that have found root in the sides of the points bear mute evidence of their struggle with the wind that ever blows strongly on the exposed crag-sides. The contour of the rugged stone mass, as one stands at either the east or west approach to the tunnel work of the Columbia Highway, showing the jagged cliffs, the gnarled trees and the sheer, precipitous drops, is awe-inspiring. High up on the face of the larger cliff is a white pedestal, stowed back in a niche-like hole. Those who have climbed the trail that leads almost perpendicularly to the niche have found this white ghost-like column to be the tall stump of a petrified tree.
Edgar Locke, a rancher who has an orchard place just east of Mitchell’s Point, has a flock of white goats that have run wild, and now make the eerie crags their home. Strangers, unacquainted with the region, have often taken these animals for wild goats.
By following rough trails that lead around the base of the big point to the wooded ranges that lie back of Mitchell’s Point, the explorer may in an hour’s time reach spots as virgin and unmolested as though they were one hundred miles from any habitation. Deed hunters find this a favorite shooting ground in the fall. However, the small bushes on the places not overgrown with larger forest trees render much of this country almost impassable. This district along the top of the great gorge is known as the “brakes of the Columbia.”
Cougars often come down from the Columbia from these wilds. A year ago one was seen swimming the Columbia just west of Mitchell’s Point. A boatman made an effort to lasso the big cat, but was afraid to put his plans into effect when the cougar began to swim towards his boat. Bobcats may be found there by the score.
In the fall of 1913 Judge A. J. Derby and F. E. Newby were returning from grouse hunting down the sides of the larger crag when they were startled by a bleat and a scurrying of feet above them. Looking toward the summit of Big Mitchell’s, they saw a bobcat in full flight, pursued by one of Locke’s wild goats. The cat took to a stunted pine, while the goat pawed ferociously and vented his anger on bushes around the roots of the tree.
The five mile stretches of Columbia Highway, a portion between Cascade Locks and the Multnomah County line, and the remainder between Wyeth and Viento, stations on the O. W. R. & N. lines, are just about completed. In fact, it is now possible for an automobile to travel from Hood River to Portland. The
