Rainier Loops

A route of the highway planned in 1914, but one that never came to be...

Michael C. Taylor, Road of Difficulties: Building the Lower Columbia River Highway

Although people speak of Rainier Loops as though they were once a scenic feature of the highway, they never became a reality. In 1914, when State Highway Engineer Henry Bowlby located the initial line from Rainier to the Beaver Valley, it was meant, he said, "to cross the summit between the Beaver Valley and the Columbia River at an elevation of 639 feet and run down Nice Creek into the city of Rainier." The object was to serve the people of the Apiary District, and because the county had already spent money to begin an eight percent grade in that direction, considerable pressure was brought to bear in its favor.

The elevation difference between the proposed summit and the city center was so great that a series of loops across deep gulches and dangerous hills would have been necessary, and the State Highway Department was not willing to build them; the cost was clearly prohibitive. Therefore, they relocated the road, saving $40,000 and creating the route that can still be followed today.

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