NEWS AND COMMENT
Oregon Trail Monuments.
These have been erected in many places in Oregon and Washington by Daughters of the American Revolution and will be objects of sentimental interest for all time. The patriotic women deserve the thanks of all lovers of pioneer history and the gratitude of pioneer descendants.
The fourth and latest monument of this kind in Oregon was dedicated October 13, 1917, at Oregon City, where the old road crossed Abernethy Creek. Willamette Chapter, through its acting regent, Mrs. W. H. T. Green, presented the monument to the state regent, Mrs. Isaac Lee Patterson. The monument bears a bronze tablet, inscribed, "Old Oregon Trail, 1846," to memorialize the journey of the first wagons of the Barlow party across Cascade Mountains, in 1845-46.
At Rhododendron, on Barlow Road, thirteen miles below the summit of Cascade Mountains, stands a monument erected by Multnomah Chapter, in October, 1917, on ground given by Mrs. Emil Franzetti. The tablet inscribed, "The Oregon Trail, 1845," was placed by Mrs. Ormsby M. Ash, Mrs. Mary Barlow Wilkins, regent, Mrs. Walter F. Burrell and Mrs. R. S. Steams. This monument will be dedicated next summer. The site is on Zig Zag River near its junction with Sandy River.
The first of these pioneer monuments of the Daughters of the American Revolution, placed at Multnomah Falls, on the Columbia River, is inscribed "To the Oregon Pioneers, 18361859." The dedication took place August 24, 1916, directed by Multnomah Chapter, Mrs. James N. Davis, regent. The tablet is secured to a large stone, which serves as a drinking fountain. No one pioneer year could be designated on the tablet because the Columbia River was a highway for explorers, traders and missionaries many years before the advent of the ox-team pioneers.
