Snowplow on Mt Hood Loop Highway circa 1950-ish. The winters of 1949-1951 were big snow season’s on Mount Hood.
This scene is most likely on the road to Timberline Lodge.
Here’s a great story from 1958 about driving through Oregon’s Lolo Pass Road back when it first opened. It tells about how, after it was determined that the area was not a part of the Bull Run Lake watershed, the road was built in 1955 opened to the public from Spring until Fall for fantastic views of Mount Hood’s west side.
Here’s a rare view of Oneonta Bluff and the old railway bed prior to the construction of the Historic Columbia River Highway.
Once construction of the road took place the construction of the tunnel allowed automobile passage through the basalt promontory. In time increased traffic and larger cars and trucks necessitated the relocation of the railroad and the highway to allow the cars to bypass the tunnel altogether. The tunnel was filled in 1948.
Covered up and virtually forgotten, many people would stand on the old bridge that seemed to direct traffic directly into a solid rock wall.
In 2009, as a part of the restoration of the remaining segments of the old road, the tunnel was excavated and restored, including the wooden cribbing and rock facades.
Today the old tunnel is a pedestrian passage and witness to the old Columbia River’s history.
