Photograph of Historic Columbia River Highway — Photograph by Ben Stanfield from Rockville, MD, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Columbia River Highway Historic District

A National Historic Landmark. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

From the record

“The Historic Columbia River Highway is an approximately 75-mile-long (121 km) scenic highway in the U.S. state of Oregon between Troutdale and The Dalles, built through the Columbia River Gorge between 1913 and 1922. As the first planned scenic roadway in the United States, it has been recognized in numerous ways, including being listed on the National Register of Historic Places, being designated as a National Historic Landmark by the U.S.”
Wikipedia article Historic Columbia River Highway, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 650 National Register listings published here for Multnomah County · listed in 1983 · category: District · a National Historic Landmark.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

National Historic Landmark. The highest federal designation, held by about 2,600 places in the country against roughly 100,000 Register listings.
What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 38 structuress as contributing to the listing.
Still standing. The Park Service records this property as extant.
Address. Roughly bounded by the Sandy River Bridge, Troutdale, Multnomah County on the West, the Chenoweth Creek Bridge, etc., Troutdale, 97031
When was it listed? December 1983
Category. district
Census division. Corbett
National Register reference number. 83004168 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

28 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 28 fires within 5 miles of Columbia River Highway Historic District between 1993 and 2020, burning about 297 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 3 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Recreation and ceremony	11
Arson/incendiarism	3
Debris and open burning	3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Natural	2
Smoking	1
Fireworks	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Railroad operations and maintenance	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
29 September 1993	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	not named
22 September 1994	Smoking	1.0 acres	Molalla Unit	TUCKER RD
2 September 2013	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area	SANDY 2
10 September 2002	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area	SANDY JUNCTION
9 August 2019	Natural	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	RIVERBEND
27 August 2011	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	SR 14
27 August 1994	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	not named
22 August 2000	Equipment and vehicle use	130 acres	Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area	DELTA #2

Every fire recorded in Multnomah County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 37 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 37 workings within 5 miles of Columbia River Highway Historic District: 20 past producers, 14 producers, 2 unknowns, 1 plant. 15 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Clay, Geothermal. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
(Facility) Troutdale Smelter	Aluminum	Plant
Camas Placer	Titanium, Iron, Gold	Unknown
Midvale Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Washington	Gold	Unknown
Camp Collins Ymca	Geothermal	Producer
Columbia Brick Works	Clay	Past Producer
Columbia Brick Works	Clay	Producer
Corbett	Geothermal	Producer
Midvale Quarry	Stone	Past Producer
Quarry	Stone	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Multnomah County

Storms near this property

2 since 2005

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Troutdale, the town this property stands in, in 2 storm reports between 2005 and 2017: 2 heavy rain. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
February 2017	Heavy Rain	Troutdale	-	Multnomah County Sheriff's Office reported that heavy rain caused a landslide on the Historic Columbia River Highway near the Stark Street Bridge.
August 2005	Heavy Rain	Troutdale	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Multnomah County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 83004168 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Multnomah County	All 650 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.