Page Index

• Sauvie Island Ferry

• Partial Viaduct, Sauvie Island Drive (1949)

• Sauvie Island Bridge (1950)

• Sauvie Island Bridge (2008)

• Sauvie Island Wildlife Area

The island lies both in Columbia and Multnomah Counties, but is accessed on its southern end from Multnomah County.

Of course, a whole book could be written about the island. I'll just throw up some interesting tidbits as they come along, especially since it is off the highway (barely).

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The Oregon Encylopedia: Multnomah (Sauvie Island Indian Village)

In the early 1830s, a devastating epidemic of malaria swept the Columbia, hitting the Wappato Valley especially hard. The very few survivors on Sauvie Island must have fled. One may have been Marie Mathlomet, age twenty-two, who was baptized and married in 1839. (In the Catholic records, which recorded her name as "Mathlomet by nation," Indian women's original places of origin were often used as surnames.) Only the dead remained in Multnomah, and the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver ordered the corpses burned. Most of the village washed away, according to Emory Strong, author of Stone Age on the Columbia River (1959). "It is now covered by a farmstead." Artifacts from the site are now in private hands.

Early on, "Multnomah" referred to an area larger than the original village. In 1811, the Astorian Gabriel Franchère referred to two Multnomah villages. Alfred Seton, a clerk for the Pacific Fur Company, extended the name to Sauvie Island, calling it Multnomah Island, as missionary Samuel Parker and others did later. Lewis and Clark had applied "Multnomah" to what is now called the Willamette River (Clark's map shows the Mult-no-mah River as originating in the vicinity of the Great Salt Lake.) They provided what might be a partial explanation for the persistence of the name: “All the tribes in the neighbourhood of Wappatoo island, we have considered as Multnomahs, not because they are in any degree subordinate to that nation; but they all seem to regard the Multnomahs as the most powerful."

The popular association of the name with an allegedly historical "Chief Multnomah" goes back to Frederick Balch's The Bridge of the Gods (1890), a local exemplar of the Victorian "Indian romance" literary genre. Balch's Chief Multnomah may have been inspired in part by the historical figure of Kiesno, a prominent Wappato Valley chief, but Balch's epic is not to be taken as reliable history.

Although the village is long gone, its name persists. Today, "Multnomah" is applied to the dialect of Chinookan presumably spoken in the Wappato Valley, and sometimes to the valley itself. It signifies a county, a waterfall, a neighborhood of Portland, and streets, businesses, and organizations in Oregon. While the village is no more, the name lives on.

There is a lot of great, early history on the island in the article posted here: Logie, James & Isabelle

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Oregon State Archives: A 1940 Journey Across Oregon

Frederic Homer Balch wrote in his Indian romance, The Bridge of the Gods: "The chief of the Willamettes gathered on Wappatto Island, from time immemorial the council ground of the tribes. The white man has changed its name to 'Sauvie' island; but its wonderful beauty is unchangeable. Lying at the mouth of the Willamette River and extending many miles down the Columbia, rich in wide meadows and crystal lakes, its interior dotted with majestic oaks and its shores fringed with cottonwoods, around it the blue and sweeping rivers, the wooded hills, and the far white snow peaks,it is the most picturesque spot in Oregon."

In spite of the fact that the island has a comparatively small population with neither stores nor shops and with but one small sawmill to represent the industrial interests, it is by no means isolated. Many people go there, so many that the small ferry is crowded to capacity. Because of its numerous lakes, ponds and bayous, the island is a popular haunt for duck hunters, and many club houses dot its length. Fishermen seek the shores of the Gilbert River for the crappies, catfish, black and yellow bass, sunfish and perch, that lurk in these sluggish waters. Men grown weary of the turbulence of mountain streams and the elusive antics of the fighting trout, find peace and relaxation in the lazy swirl of the waters and the bobbing of the cork float when a channel cat or crappie takes the bait.

The first white men to visit the island as far as known were the Lewis and Clark expedition on November 4, 1805. "We landed on the left bank of the river, at a village of twenty five houses; all of these were thatched with straw and built of bark, except one which was about fifty feet long, built of boards. . . this village contains about two hundred men of the Skilloot nation, who seemed well provided with canoes, of which there were at least fifty two, and some of them very large, drawn up in front of the village. . . ." The exploring party stopped a short distance below the village for dinner. "Soon after," Clark recorded, "Several canoes of Indians from the village above came down, dressed for the purpose as I supposed of Paying us a friendly visit, they had scarlet & blue blankets Salor Jackets, overalls, Shirts and hats independent of their usual dress; the most of them had either Muskets or pistols and tin flasks to hold their powder, Those fellows we found assuming and disagreeable, however we Smoked with them and treated them with every attention & friendship.

"dureing the time we were at dinner those fellows Stold my pipe Tomahawk which they were Smoking with, I immediately serched every man and the canoes, but could find nothing of my Tomahawk, while Serching for the Tomahawk one of those Scoundals Stole a cappoe (coat) of one of our interperters, which was found Stuffed under the root of a tree, near the place they Sat, we became much displeased with those fellows, which they discovered and moved off on their return home to their village."

In 1832 an epidemic decimated the native population, and Dr. McLoughlin removed the survivors to the mainland and burned many of the straw and board huts of the settlements.

In 1834 Captain Nathanial J. Wyeth built a trading post on the island and named it Fort William. "This Wappato island which I have selected for our establishment," he wrote, "consists of woodland and prairie and on it there is considerable deer and those who could spare time to hunt might live well but mortality has carried off to a man its inhabitants and there is nothing to attest that they ever existed except their decaying houses, their graves and their unburied bones of which there are heaps." Wyeth set his coopers to making barrels to carry salted salmon to Boston. However, his trading activities met with such persistent opposition from the Hudson's Bay Company that in 1836 he was forced to abandon the enterprise.

In 1841 McLoughlin established a dairy here, placing Jean Baptiste Sauvie, a superannuated trapper, in charge. The place has since borne the name of the old dairyman.

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Wikipedia: Sauvie Island

Sauvie Island, in the U.S. state of Oregon, originally Wapato Island or Wappatoo Island, is the largest island along the Columbia River, at 26,000 acres (10,522 ha), and one of the largest river islands in the United States. It lies approximately ten miles northwest of downtown Portland, between the Columbia River to the east, the Multnomah Channel to the west, and the Willamette River to the south. A large portion of the island is designated as the Sauvie Island Wildlife Area. Sturgeon Lake, in the north central part of the island, is the most prominent water feature. The land area is 32.75 square miles (84.82 square kilometres, or 20,959 acres). Most of the island is in Multnomah County, but the northern third is in Columbia County. The Sauvie Island Bridge provides access across the Multnomah Channel from U.S. Route 30 and was completed in June 2008, replacing the first bridge to connect the island to the mainland which was opened on 30 December 1950.

The island received the name "Sauvés Island" after Laurent Sauvé dit Laplante, a French-Canadian who managed a dairy for the Hudson's Bay Company in the 1830s and 1840s.^[1] It is predominantly farmland and wildlife refuge and is a popular place for picking pumpkins, hunting geese and kayaking. There were 1,078 year-round residents at the 2000 census. There is an industrial zone and small grocery store in the southeast corner, near the bridge. Bicyclists flock to the island because its flat topography and lengthy low-volume roads make it ideal for cycling. Its nearest incorporated neighbors are the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area to its south and southeast; St. Helens across the Multnomah Channel from the extreme northern tip of the island; and Scappoose, across the Multnomah Channel to the west.

Prior to European arrival in the 19th century, Sauvie Island was the ancestral home to the Multnomah band of the Chinook Tribe. There were approximately 15 villages on the island, hosting a total of 2,000 people who built and resided in cedar log houses 30 yards long by 12 yards wide. ^[2]

• 1792 – British Lieutenant William Broughton in George Vancouver's expedition explores the island and names the northern tip "Warrior Point" after being greeted offshore by 23 canoes of armed Multnomah.^[3]

• October 29 – Mount Hood was named on October 29, 1792, as Lt. Broughton observed its peak from Belle Vue Point at the southern tip of Sauvie Island during his travels up the Columbia River, writing A very high, snowy mountain now appeared rising beautifully conspicuous in the midst of an extensive tract of low or moderately elevated land (location of today's Vancouver, Washington) lying S 67 E., and seemed to announce a termination to the river. Lt. Broughton named the mountain after British admiral Samuel Hood.

• November 4, 1805 – The Lewis and Clark expedition lands, names it "Wapato Island" after the abundance of Broadleaf arrowhead plants, which are also known as "Indian potato" and were a major foodstuff for indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest.^[4]

• During the next decades the natives weather outbreaks of smallpox, syphilis, measles and tuberculosis.

• 1829 - A horrifying epidemic of a fever known as "the ague" sweeps across the land.^[5]

• 1832 - So much of the native population has died in the epidemic, they are nearly extinct;^[5][6] Dr. McLoughlin of the Hudson's Bay Company removes survivors and burns settlements.^[6]

• 1834 – American Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth builds and occupies Fort William, a small trading post, to compete with the British; abandoned 1836.^[4]

• c. 1836 – Hudson's Bay Company establishes dairies on the island, managed by French-Canadian employee Laurent Sauvé (after whom the island is now named).

• 1843 – The opening of the Oregon Trail makes it possible for American settlers to come to the island from the Midwest.^[7]

• 1851 – Mouth of Willamette post office is established; renamed Souvies Island the following year.

• 1858 – James Francis Bybee builds Bybee–Howell House. The structure was added to the NRHP in 1974, and is part of Howell Territorial Park.^[8]

• 1889 – Warrior Rock Lighthouse established at Warrior Point.

• 1930s – The Army Corps of Engineers builds flood-control dikes.

• 1940s – Sauvie Island Wildlife Area acquired by the state of Oregon.^[9]

• November 29, 1943 – Sauvie Island Conservation District is formed by unanimous vote.^[10]

• December 30, 1950 – Sauvie Island Bridge opens; Sauvie Island Ferry, the last ferry in the Portland metropolitan area,^[11] closes.

• 2006 – Multnomah County begins construction of new Sauvie Island Bridge.

• 2008 – New Sauvie Island Bridge opens with a parade and a performance by the Oregon Crusaders Drum and Bugle Corps.

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Links

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