Eagle Creek Campground

Oregon State Archives: A 1940 Journey Across Oregon

EAGLE CREEK PARK (L) [West of Hwy. 730 Junction], 148.7 m., one of Oregon's finest recreational areas and picnic grounds, was constructed and is maintained by the United States Forest Service. On the banks of plunging Eagle Creek are rustic kitchens, tables and extensive parking facilities.

1. Left here on the Eagle Creek Trail, that winds up the mountain side to WAHTUM LAKE, 13.5 m. Construction of the trail presented many difficulties; parts of it are cut through solid rock, and in one place it passes behind a waterfall. Along the trail are GHOST FALLS and the DEVIL'S PUNCH BOWL The latter, a fresh water cauldron hemmed in by pillars of basalt, abounds with steelhead trout.

2. Right across Eagle Creek from Eagle Creek Campground on the WAUNA POINT TRAIL, which leads 5.5 m. through Eagle Creek and Columbia Gorge canyons to WAUNA POINT (2,500 alt.).

http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/pages/exhibits/across/eaglecr.html

The Sunday Oregonian: Beautiful Columbia Gorge Park Soon To Be Accessible To Autos (July 16, 1916)

Eagle Creek is one of the principal points of interest in the Columbia Gorge Park division of the Oregon National Forest, recently set aside for public recreation purposes. Several trails to neighboring lakes and mountains are planned, and since the first of June the Forest Service has been at work on a footpath leading upstream from the bridge. Several hundred yards are completed already, and visitors will soon be able to reach Eagle Creek Falls, about two and a half miles above.

Here the stream descends in six eccentric jumps from the hanging valley above to the basin of the Columbia.

Further points are to be reached as soon as the trail can be extended. Chinidere Mountain and Wahtum Lake are to be included in the route, and a connection will be made with the Herman Creek Trail, so that trampers will be afforded a 27-mile circuit of rare scenic beauty and interest.

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The highway crosses Eagle Creek only 150 yards above its mouth, and a short trail brings the excursionist to the rocky bank of the Columbia.

Eagle Creek pours its contribution into the river through an outlet crowded with huge boulders. These monsters have been standing along the bed of the stream many hundreds of years, some of them having diverted the course of the channel. Their origin evidently was volcanic. Most of them are rounded in form, as if they had been rolled down from the brink of some ancient crater that figured in the geologic history of the Cascades.

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The Columbia Gorge is seen from Eagle Creek at its most picturesque point. Steep rocky cliffs rise on both sides of the Columbia, and the current in its oceanward journey moves swiftly between. Deep hollows have been worn in the sides of the cliff, and the water swings through them in giant eddies. An occasional island in mid-stream bears the wash of a heavy current; detachable sections of earth and rock are often wrested from their beds and whirled along with the flood.

Robert W. Hadlow, Columbia River Highway Historic District, National Historic Landmark Nomination

The Eagle Creek Campground is the oldest improved USDA Forest Service campground in the United States and was a very popular destination with travelers on the CRH.(2) Popularity and subsequent overuse of the campground prompted the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), in the mid-1930s, to enlarge the recreation area to include a community kitchen, public comfort station ["Big John"], and trail registry booth, along with additional day and overnight use areas. The CCC also constructed a wooden pedestrian suspension bridge spanning Eagle Creek. It provided access to several trails in the campground’s vicinity. Severe weather in 1997 destroyed this structure, but the Forest Service has planned for its reconstruction (see Figure 14).

"The Forest Service opened America's first Forest Service campground in 1916 at Eagle Creek after commissioning the building of the Eagle Creek trail. People flocked to it. Soon, scattered along the length of the Scenic Highway there were picnic stops, campgrounds, roadhouses, service stations, etc, etc to entertain and serve the newly-mobile NW public. Everyday-people tourism was born -- now people had someplace really special to drive with their new cars."

Scott Cook, Curious Gorge

Stairways In Heaven: Eagle Creek - A rolling stone gathers no moss, and neither does a stairway that's often walked upon. This delightful nook of stairs, built by the CCC in 1936, rarely feel a footstep. While here mate sure you check-in on the picnic table, water fountain and community kitchen too.

...maybe the mossiest picnic table Anywhere On Earth ... Really!

At Eagle Creek if you pull in and stop 200 yards past the first parking lot you'll be in a remnant picnic area of the U. S. Forest Service's FIRST campground ever -- the 1916 Eagle Creek campground. There's an Interpretive Panel, a bunch of picnic tables and BBQs, as well as the original rock-and-log trail register cubby-hole and 1936 Community Kitchen building. To find the mossiest EVER, head up behind the community kitchen shelter on a remnant of the original campground road. Fifty yards ahead, in the middle of nowhere, I think you'll be impressed!

If anybody messes with this table, my favorite table EVER, you'll have hell to pay and Mother Nature will be on my side. Please... respect this relic! I'm only telling you of its existence so that it may see a long and deteriorating natural life with a cadre of like-minded admirers.

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