Lancaster's Lodge and Retirement Cabin at Tanner Creek (UPDATED: March 20, 2014)

Originally posted on Rubble on September 20, 2013:
http://rubble.blogspot.com/2013/09/lancasters-logde-and-retirement-cabin.html


Several of us were discussing Lancaster's retirement during the weekend of the Yeon to Moffett Creek HCRH Trail Dedication... Apparently, I was combining two different stories. I was saying that Lancaster retired on Bell's property, but these were two different locations.


"Samuel Lancaster built a private 72-acre campground at Bonneville that overlooked Bradford Island and the lower Cascade rapids. He constructed a log dining hall and tent 'cabins' at camping areas. Lancaster used facilities he had observed in Switzerland as a model for his development. The log structure burned in the late 1920s and was not replaced. In 1928, Sam Hill built a 22-room house on a 35-acre estate at Bonneville for his 'friend' Mona Bell. Because the property was required for the construction of Bonneville Dam, the government purchased the estate in 1934." - Clarence E. Mershon, The Columbia River Highway: From the Sea to the Wheat Fields of Eastern Oregon


"...while across the road Lancaster established a campground and recreational facility, Camp Get-A-Way." - Clarence E. Mershon, East of the Sandy: The Columbia River Highway


"In the 20s, Sam Hill built a large home on top of the large rock formation north of I-84, east of exit 40. The house was razed in the late 50s." - Clarence E. Mershon, East of the Sandy: The Columbia River Highway
    


Additional photos from Scott Cook / Curious Gorge:

The long-gone Mona Bell mansion built by Sam Hill for his mistress Mona Bell: 
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/52098770

Mona Bell's one-time mansion atop Bonneville Rock:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/74053683

Remnant foundation of Mona Bell Hill's mansion:

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/74053689

Bell's mansion was on the hill on the east end of the screenshot above, between I-84 and the railroad tracks. The relocation of the rail line to its current route when its former path was flooded by the dam apparently blasted away a large chunk of Mona's hill, and the construction of I-84 apparently took out another large chunk of it, leaving only a sliver of the land that once held her mansion and, consequently, only a small sliver remains of Bonneville State Park. 

UPDATE: March 10, 2014

The Oregonian:
The architectural hash mansion of eccentric Mona Bell Hill was razed for the Bonneville Dam: Historic home series

http://www.oregonlive.com/hg/index.ssf/2014/03/the_home_of_mona_bell_hill_onc.html