Recreating The Historic Columbia River Highway: The Blog: Westport Tunnel

Backfilled West Entrance - Westport Tunnel - Westbound (2014)
Westport, Oregon. March 15, 2014
Copyright © 2014 A. F. Litt, All Rights Reserved

So this is an interesting place that I have never heard about anywhere before, except for the Waymarking.com mention below… We were planning a trip out to the lower highway, and I was preparing by searching for interesting places we might overlook if we didn’t know they were there when I found the page link below.

This is all I know about this site.

From Waymarking.com:

The Westport tunnel is one of the oldest surviving railroad tunnels in the Pacific Northwest. It was constructed around the 1880s. First used by oxen to move logs from the forest, through this tunnel and to the Columbia River over a skid road south to a logging camp.

In 1907, ox teams were replaced by steam locomotives. The tunnel which was built just large enough for ox teams was significantly widened and deepened to accommodate a locomotive.

In 1915 the railroad tunnel was apparently abandoned and the tracks pulled up.

Highway 30, then a dirt road, was completed through Westport at the time the tunnel and railroad were abandoned. Highway construction obliterated much of the grade north of the tunnel and required that the tunnel be partly backfilled to prevent West Creek from washing away the highway during flood seasons. The part of Highway 30 in front of the tunnel was later bypassed and other than broken pavement of the two lane road, the scene in front of the tunnel looks almost as it did when the tunnel was abandoned in 1915.

In December 2007, a major storm swelled up West Creek, which then overflowed into the tunnel and changed the back and floor of the tunnel.