Yesterday I took the day off and ventured along the old Oregon 23/US 197 corridor between The Dalles and Maupin. I've been meaning to take that drive for
at least 10-15 years, ever since someone on Panoramio posted 5 photos of old concrete mile markers that looked like the ones the State Highway Division posted along the Pacific, Columbia River and Old Oregon Trail Highways in 1924. For various reasons (theft, destruction, road widening, etc.), many of these markers did not survive to the present day, so I'm always down to go hunting for them along old highway alignments. Unfortunately I didn't snag copies or other information about the Panoramio photos before Google pulled the plug, so I didn't have any exact locations on any of the mile markers.. After doing a little bit of guesswork on where the first 12 or 13 might have been along the route, I ventured on my way with my camera.
To say it was a success was an understatement. Of the 5 that I was looking for (3, 9, 12, 18 and 19) I found 4 of them. Two of them were in excellent condition for their age. One was in pretty bad shape, and the other... well, I'll explain later. The only one I wasn't able to visit was 19.
I found mile marker 3 at a curve along
this part of old OR-23. As you can see, it's seen some better days. Tons of exposed rebar, pieces missing, large cracks, you name it. The number is much less legible on the other side. It is currently being used to hold up a birdhouse on a pole -- though maybe the birdhouse is holding
the milepost up.
By comparison, mile marker 9 is completely intact and looks beautiful. I found it
just shy of old OR-23's intersection with Old Dufur Road/Emerson Loop Road. I was certainly impressed that it stuck around as long as it did, given I didn't find any other mile markers along the stretch of old OR-23 that was still open to vehicle traffic.
When exploring sections of OR-23
closed to vehicle traffic, however, I encountered this:
A virtually spotless mile marker 12, complete with view of central Oregon's rolling hills and the tip of Mount Hood, can be found along
this old alignment. Aside from the deterioration of the road, this view was more or less what travelers along this route saw heading this direction until the highway was realigned in the mid-1960s. In my mind, this is just another instance where Oregon road planners of yesteryear took care to provide travelers with scenic opportunities while driving.
A little while after driving through Dufur, I pulled over in a wide area used for gravel storage, presumably by ODOT. The old highway likely passed along the western edge of this area, so I did a little bit of looking around. That's when I found this close to the road:
Unbeknownst to me at the time, what I found were the remains of mile marker 18. According to GSV imagery from May 2012, this post would have been
here, near those three trees. I took some of screenshots from GSV that clearly show the post:
1 2I have no idea what happened to it, but it's beyond repair regardless. It was found about 200 feet away from where it should have been placed. So far away, in fact, that I never even ended up exploring around where it used to be. I didn't see any sort of number when I tried to turn it over, so I'm guessing the number used to be on the right side.
As I mentioned previously, I was unable to locate or visit mile marker 19. This was for a couple reasons -- it was almost 100 degrees that day, and I likely would have needed to walk more than a mile and a half round trip to visit it. Plus, the road crossed at least one private fence, and I have no idea if the ROW is still owned by the highway department or the county, or if it's been turned over to abutting property owners. Regardless, I would love to go and see if 19 still exists someday. The marker itself would be in the vicinity of
this stretch of old highway about 70 feet up from the present road.
I didn't see any other mileposts along my journey. However, there is another abandonned 2-mile long segment further south, between Tygh Valley and Maupin, that deserves a closer look one of these days. Again, it might be private -- a sign about 2/10ths of a mile down from the western end said the land was for members of Wilderness Unlimited and to "avoid arrest"
Still, I wouldn't mind meeting up with some like-minded roadgeeks to check that road out one of these days, since I believe there's strength in numbers. (I suppose calling them to ask permission isn't out of the question either, but I doubt I'll get it without being a member.) That said, I wouldn't go again until I get the specific locations of where the mileposts were originally placed, so that we know what to look for in the right spots. Also, it would probably need to happen in the spring or the fall, since it's hot as hell in the summer and cold as hell in the winter.