THE DALLES —

By 1850, when the first U.S. Army fort was built on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River, The Dalles was already a well-known location.

In late October 1805, the westbound Lewis and Clark expedition set up camp just below Celilo Falls, where the Wasco Indians had fished for salmon from time immemorial. The expedition’s visit coincided with a traditional gathering of tribes for commerce and family reunions. Interpretive plaques mark the remnants of “Rock Fort,” near the modern downtown of The Dalles.

When the first organized wagon train followed the Oregon Trail down the Columbia in 1843, it, too, stopped at The Dalles — so named by French-Canadian fur trappers for flat, basaltic flagstone rocks (“dalles”) that marked the Celilo rapids. From this point, some migrants continued downriver through the steepest part of the Columbia Gorge, while others took their livestock around the south side of Mount Hood on the treacherous Barlow Road.

In 1848, after the Whitman massacre near Walla Walla, the U.S. government determined a need to protect settlers from Indian hostility. So in 1850, two regiments from Fort Vancouver traveled 83 miles upriver to establish Fort Drum. Renamed Fort Dalles in 1853, it was a hub of operations during the Yakama Indian War of 1855-58.

A rich heritage

The Gothic Revival quarters of the fort’s surgeon, constructed in 1856, is today the oldest surviving structure in one of the Pacific Northwest’s most historic communities. It’s at the heart of the Fort Dalles Museum, which opened in 1905 as Oregon’s oldest history museum. Open to visitors between Memorial Day and Labor Day, it comprises seven buildings, including the Anderson Homestead, built of hand-hewn logs in 1895.

My offseason visit last week to The Dalles, a 2½-hour (131-mile) drive north from Bend up U.S. Highways 97 and 197, didn’t allow me the opportunity to dive inside all of the historic attractions of this small city of just more than 12,000 people. But even a 24-hour stay, from lunch hour to lunch hour, gave a sense of heritage in a majestic riverside setting, not far east of the dual volcanic cones of Mount Hood and Mount Adams.

The town of The Dalles grew up at the foot of the old fort. In 1854, it was designated as the seat of government for Wasco County, the largest U.S. county ever created: It spread across 130,000 square miles, including all of Eastern Oregon, from the Cascade crest to the Continental Divide, where the Rocky Mountains cross present-day Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

When Oregon became a state in February 1859, Wasco County was reduced to the area that now comprises all of Eastern Oregon — now 17 separate counties, including Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson. The original Wasco County Courthouse (built in 1858) still stands behind The Dalles Area Chamber of Commerce on dead-end Second Street, just west of downtown. It had a sheriff’s office and three jail cells on the first floor, and a courthouse upstairs; today, the structure is open for tours and audiovisual programs five days a week between April and September.

Nearly 70 historic commercial buildings, more than two dozen of them dating from the 1800s, stand today in The Dalles National Historic District, and there are many more historic residences in the adjacent Trevitt Historical Area, with the 1858 courthouse on its edge. Prominent in Trevitt is the Bennett-Williams House, built at 608 W. Sixth St. in 1899 in Queen Anne style. The soaring roofline of this olive-green house features a belvedere tower; beneath it are a gazebo and a veranda, all featuring intricate ornamentation.

Historic downtown

No building in downtown The Dalles stands out so much as Old St. Peter’s Landmark, built as a Catholic church in 1897 and saved from demolition in 1971 by a group of citizen historic preservationists. The Gothic, red-brick church, whose steeple rises 176 feet into the sky, was a benchmark for steamboat captains traveling the Columbia River in the early 1900s.

Within the building, now often used for weddings, is a stunning collection of ecclesiastical art, including 34 stained-glass windows, a rare Kilgen pipe organ, two pump organs, altars of Italian Carrara marble, and a Madonna carved from the keel of a ship sunk off the California coast in the early 1850s.

A couple of blocks distant, at Sixth and Union streets, St. Paul’s Chapel opened in 1875 and it is still the official office of the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon. Expanded in 1902 incorporating the earlier building, it boasts a bay of stained-glass windows and a square bell tower with a louvered belfry.

But downtown The Dalles was not all about churches. Far from it. The town had its share of hotels, banks, mercantile stores and theaters as well as saloons and brothels (the last of which closed as recently as the 1950s).

Perhaps the best-known historic building is the Baldwin Saloon (Second and Court streets). Built in 1876 as a restaurant, subsequently converted to a bar, it was a working saddlery for decades before new owners stripped and refurbished the old building, reopening as a restaurant in 1991. Now one of The Dalles’ most popular places for lunch and dinner, the Baldwin serves a steak-and-seafood menu every day but Sunday. Behind its 18-inch-thick stone walls, the restaurant displays a fine-art collection of landscape art by Joseph Englehart (1867-1915) and several bar nudes by noted California painters.

Nearby, immediately across the railroad tracks that skirt the north side of downtown, is the 1867 Glitchell Building (opposite First and Washington streets). Considered the oldest commercial building still standing in The Dalles, it was originally the H.J. Waldron Drug Store, but later served a variety of other uses. Local lore insists the poet Walt Whitman stayed here when the Glitchell was a boarding house. Today, however, it is abandoned and fenced off, notable only for the old advertisements painted on its exterior walls.

The handsome, Moorish-style Granada Theater (221 E. Second St.), built in 1929 at the height of the Art Deco era, was the first theater west of the Mississippi River designed specifically for “talkies” as the movie industry evolved out of the silent-film era.

Two blocks south, the 1910 red-brick Carnegie Library building (220 E. Fourth St.) served The Dalles as its public library until 1966. (The Carnegie Foundation funded more than 2,500 libraries across the United States between 1898 and 1916.) Today it is home to The Dalles Art Center, an exhibition space with a monthly rotating series of shows. February saw the Mid-Columbia Middle and High School Art Competition; March presents the Gardens and Garden Art Juried Open Show. The work of featured regional artists is planned later in 2009.

Gorge discoveries

But the best historical collection this side of Portland may be seen at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center. Overlooking the river from a bluff two miles west of The Dalles, this outstanding facility is the official interpretive center for the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.

It has two principal divisions. The Wasco County Museum traces the human history of the region from the original Native American dwellers, through exploration and westward migration, to the growth of modern towns. At the heart of the exhibit is a re-created village with a variety of period shops.

The main Discovery Center exhibit traces the natural history of the Columbia River Gorge, beginning with the last Ice Age (which ended about 12,000 years ago). Plant and animal life, human migration and modern economic activities provide a thread that ties the gallery together; several short films describe the growth of fishing, timber harvesting, orchards, electricity and tourism.

Smaller galleries display a fine collection of items from the Lewis and Clark expedition. There’s also a hands-on children’s gallery, a cafe and a gift shop. Outside is a small enclosure for rescued raptors and an interpretive trail that winds through 50 acres of native plant restoration.

Dam progress

The Dalles is also well-known for its Bonneville Power Administration dam, which spans the Columbia two miles east of the city.

Controversy has surrounded The Dalles Dam since the Army Corps of Engineers began its construction in 1952. When it was completed in March 1957, the dam submerged Celilo Falls and the adjacent village of Celilo, which anthropologists had identified as the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in North America. Wasco Indians had for centuries speared spawning salmon from platforms beside the falls. Today, the slack water of Lake Celilo backs up 24 miles behind The Dalles Dam.

Prior to the construction of the dam and its 650-foot-by-86-foot navigation lock, however, Celilo Falls had been a severe obstacle to river transportation. Large ships and barges can now safely travel all the way up the Columbia and Snake rivers to Lewiston, Idaho, 470 miles from the mouth of the Columbia.

What’s more, The Dalles Dam’s 22-generator, half-mile-long powerhouse produces 2.1 million kilowatts of electricity when running at peak capacity. That’s enough electricity to power 800,000 homes, nearly as many as there are in the entire state of Oregon.

A visitor center, located at Seufert Park on the Oregon shore of the dam, is open through the summer season. Although access is more restricted than it had been before Sept. 11, 2001, due to terrorism concerns, there are excellent exhibits on river management from several different viewpoints, including those of environmentalists and American Indians.

Sometime in summer, when I have an extra day to play, I vow to take my dog on the nine-mile Lewis and Clark Riverfront Trail, which extends from the dam’s visitor center to the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center. We’ll make a midway stop at the famed explorers’ Rock Fort beside the river and inhale the collective breaths of all those who came before us.