HISTORICAL BEACON ARGUEMENT

[billcoe]

As it's Beacon, and the off season, I realize it's going to be an argument soon enough:-), like to examine this idea. Pulled from the Beacon Trail Maintenance thread.

 

Did I mention that I have a old oil painting from 1860 thereabouts of Beacon Rock, and it shows a giant pinnacle laying against Beacon Rock right beneath where the Arena of Terror is. My interpretation is that when the railroad was being put in they blasted the detached pinnacle for railroad fill, and then started on Beacon Rock by drilling the 3 tunnels in anticipation of blasting it for fill, but it was saved by being purchased by the climber/philanthropist Henry Biddle, who then built the trail. Who knows what incredible routes are now rubble, and how cool the Arena of Terror/Jensens Ridge area could have been.

 

Steve, Ivan asked for a photo, can we get one? Also, do you know who did your painting, and is it for sale? Research indicates that James W. Alden did a painting in 1857 called either "Castle Rock or 'McLeod's Castle'. Don't know where that is or what it looks like. But early photos and cards don't show the pillar you mention.

 

1908 photo of the other side

[stevetimetravlr]

My Portland store got burglarized Monday evening at 3am, smashed the front door and then smashed the tops on all my antique display cases and cleaned out the jewelry. meth heads the cops think, but its a pretty big hit so I have been pre occupied but will try to find the artwork and get a photo of it and see what you guys think.

ps your postcard Bill only dates from 1908, Railroad was before that.

[denalidave]

My Portland store got burglarized Monday evening at 3am, smashed the front door and then smashed the tops on all my antique display cases and cleaned out the jewelry. meth heads the cops think, but its a pretty big hit so I have been pre occupied but will try to find the artwork and get a photo of it and see what you guys think.

Sorry, dude, that sucks...

[billcoe]

Holy crap, sorry to hear of the store break in.

[JosephH]

As I understand the history the tunnels were cut, the slopes were clearcut up to the rock from the tracks (seen in photos), and the fourth tunnel blown all with an eye for riprap for work downriver along the Columbia and in Portland. Back then Portland flooded with some regularity and the rock was to be used somehow in relationship with those flooding events and roadwork.

[QITNL]

Painting of Beacon Rock made sometime between 1857 and 1862

(sig looks like James W. Alden)

 

Castle Rock, Columbia River - 1867 - Carleton Watkins

 

Castle Rock - Arthur B. McAlpin and Charles Lamb - circa 1889

[JosephH]

Hmmm, the arena is clearly visible if you blow up that last 1889 pic QITNL just posted. I haven't seen that one before but it pretty much shoots down the idea the arena was blasted anytime after the turn of the century. Has anyone seen documentation of any kind which dates exactly when those tunnels were chiseled out?

[ivan]

indeed, the arena's obvious in a # of those pix - no need to let facts get in the way of a good story, though, this is beacon, afterall

[Plaidman]

Yeah we are all full of stories or something.

[pink]

indeed, the arena's obvious in a # of those pix - no need to let facts get in the way of a good story, though, this is beacon, afterall

:lmao:

[stevetimetravlr]

[JosephH]

I'm not saying it wasn't blasted; it has all the hallmarks and fractures of a blast. But I believe the 'conventional wisdom' was the tunnels were chiseled and the arena blown just prior to, and were the impetus for, the sale into private hands to preserve it. It's that story that goes out the window with the 1889 photo - the blast, if there was one, obviously happened prior to that.

 

Just did a search on the date of the railroad itself and found this:

 

"In a driving rain on March 11, 1908, delighted locals joined dignitaries here at Sheridan's Point to celebrate completion of the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway between Pasco and Vancouver."

 

So if the railroad wasn't in until 1908, then blowing the arena for rock doesn't seem like a very useful endeavor unless they were going to transport it on the river in some sort of early barge. It also seems to me like there would have been easier sources of rock closer to the city if that was how they were transporting it. They could have blown Rooster Rock and had a good supply in a place far easier to load the rock.

 

I don't know - it's a mystery.

[QITNL]

Found a better version of the second shot:

 

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/190016682?rpp=60&pg=1&ft=*&who=Carleton+E.+Watkins&pos=32

 

Click full-screen and you can zoom in real close. There's a pinnacle lower left, if that's what the historical argument is about. (I haven't climbed there since I was a kid.)

[JosephH]

I can see why you might think that, but I believe that's just the shadow from Jensen's. From what I can see the arena looks entirely present in that 1867 photo as well. And as much as it looks like the result of a blast, maybe it was the result of an earthquake and it's all buried under the high angle slope up to the arena (that's got to be made up of rocks from somewhere). Biddle himself made no specific mention of a blast or even the three tunnels in his "Beacon Rock on the Columbia"

 

[ivan]

"Beacon Rock on the Columbia"

 

thanks for the link - i'd never read old boy biddle's li'l take on the subject, and had to have a healthy gut-chuckle at his concluding philippic:

 

"But it is a sad commentary on our civilization that a few among

those who visit Beacon Rock seem to delight in doing all they can

to destroy its beauty. Mosses and ferns are torn tip along the trail,

the wild flowers picked, loose rocks rolled down, and names scratched

at every available point. The perpetrators of these deeds, when

called to order by the caretaker, often retaliate with the vilest abuse.

When will the uncivilized element of our population he educated to the point that it will be content to enjoy beauty without trying to destroy it?"

[billcoe]

@##X$!!! Thieves.

 

Timetraveler: Do you still have the painting for sale? Is it in your Portland store? We have all the paintings of the house down and figure that I can finally go for what I want now:-)