Wyeth Flume

Past and Present Views Along the Columbia River Highway

Post by Johnathan Ledbetter on April 18, 2020:

Looking over my OSHD ROW maps of the CRH and found a wood flume marked on one a 1960 map (8B-17-9) showing the UPRR relocation around Gorton Creek. I eyeballed the approximate location on Google Earth. Doubtful any part of it exists 60 years on, at least above the surface.

Comment by Cathy Wagner Warhol on April 19, 2020:

Growing up in the 1950s and 60s my family had many picnics at Starvation Creek and Viento. I have a memory of my cousin and I finding a flume in the woods at one of these parks. We actually climbed up and walked in it. Do you suppose there is another one further east?

ODOT, Historic Columbia River Highway Oral History: Final Report

Michael Tenney & Barbara Hosford... Recollections of the Highway

One of the most memorable experiences in Michael and Barbara’s youth was when, in the late 1950s, Joe Bill took them to play at the flume. The wooden flume was located around milepost 54, right across from the current Wyeth weigh station. The flume had a galvanized tin bottom. It extended back, almost back up to a hole the hole in the hill where the water poured out, and ran under the highway before giving out into a log pond. When they got to the flume they climbed all the way up the hill and then rode the flume down like a waterslide. Unfortunately, like all good times, this one had to come to an end. Barbara and Michael discovered that there were fresh water leeches in the flume; it was their first and last time to ride it.

“Yeah there were leeches. Fresh water leeches. You'd get out of it and have to be picked clean.” - Michael

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