2020 Crowdfunding Update #3

Shepperd's Dell Falls and Bridge
Shepperd's Dell State Natural Area. Oregon.
April 18, 2014
https://sites.google.com/site/recreatingthehcrh/historic-columbia-river-highway/shepperds-dell/shepperds-dell-trail

Heading into the final week or so of the website rebuild (www.RecreatingTheHCRH.org), I am finding myself in a position where I need to pass the crowdfunding hat around again to see this work through to the end. (https://www.gofundme.com/f/recreatingthehcrh)

Due to the Covid-19 shutdowns, I ended up having a lot more time to work on the website than I originally expected, and I was able to accomplish a lot more with a lot less income over the last couple months. Because of this, instead of just repairing the site, I was able to add a significant amount of new content as I worked through the pages, and the site is a lot larger, more detailed and, hopefully, a bit easier to navigate than it ever has been before.

Since the fundraiser started, I’ve put in 577 hours, averaging 47 hours per week, and repairing, updating, and/or creating over 800 web pages full of history, maps, photos and information on the Columbia River Highway. I truly hope this is becoming, as highway expert Kirk J. Poole suggested, “the encyclopedia of the highway” and “the most seminal work” on the CRH “in the past 50 years.”

Now that the world seems to be slowly resuming, it is time for me to wrap this phase of the project up as quickly as possible. Moving ahead, after the rebuild is done, there will still be new content being added to the site on a regular basis, more photos, current and past, more stories and histories to be explored, more field work to be done and, hopefully, a lot more video being produced. However, that will be part-time work on the side for me, not full-time work as the site rebuild has been.

So, to everyone who has been able to contribute so far, I thank you very much. The work done so far would not have been possible without your support, and for those who haven’t yet, if you enjoy the content on the Recreating the HCRH Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/RecreatingTheHCRH) and / or the website, I’d ask you to consider throwing a few bucks towards supporting this work. Every little bit helps a lot!

Please check out the website, and I’d love to hear any feedback. It is complete from Seaside to Lindsey Creek now and, for a few more days, a bit more hit and miss after that.  You can go directly to the site and explore (www.RecreatingTheHCRH.org) or go to the progress spreadsheet and click the links to see the recently repaired and updated pages (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JRWxizJp1E6rxhj8Ak4o9BX4F4ugiNIPNzlyJcuYlRM/edit?usp=sharing).

And, once again, here is the link to the crowdfunding campaign: 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/recreatingthehcrh

Thanks to everyone for all of your support and participation in this project!

2020 Crowdfunding Update #2

Moving ahead into this last week of the month, I wanted to remind folks that the crowdfunding campaign is still going on, and I could really use a little support right now since this is my only source of income for the moment.


GoFundMe Link: gf.me/u/xmar2w

I backed off on promoting the crowdfunding campaign for a bit. With the Covid-19 outbreak, I've had plenty of time to work on the website, and am very near completing the rebuild of the Lower Columbia River Highway segment, and have completed a significant amount of the work on the HCRH and Upper Highway Sections.

I am hoping to get the primary rebuild done by the end of the week and to be able to just focus on new content moving ahead after that (and I've got a ton of great stuff on deck that I can't wait to share!). With the extra time that the current situation is offering, I took some extra time on the Lower Highway section to add A LOT of new content while rebuilding that part of the site. Please check it out: 

https://sites.google.com/site/recreatingthehcrh/lower-columbia-river-highway

Since the crowdfunding campaign began, I've put in 262 hours on this project, and the website is not only getting repaired, but updated and reorganized, and will, hopefully, be much more user friendly experience moving ahead. My daily, page by page, progress can be tracked here: 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JRWxizJp1E6rxhj8Ak4o9BX4F4ugiNIPNzlyJcuYlRM 

Thanks to everyone who has donated! Even with the extra time this crisis has brought, this work still would not have been possible without the donations made so far! 

Moving ahead, I really do not want anyone to donate if they are feeling like they not surviving financially through these uncertain times, but if you are able to help out at all, it would be greatly appreciated. My finances have been way scaled back, so only a few dollars will go along way towards making it through the next month. Even five bucks will go a long way for me right now.

Chasing down red herrings: Paradise Lane & McKay Drive

Spent way too long today chasing down these red herrings, but I did finally get them ruled out by the 1928 Metsker map that shows the CRH running on the west side of the tracks through here.

True, this could be a remainder of the pre-1920-ish Portland Road through here, so later research may put this page back up on the site.  If not, it will live here as an "early draft."

PARADISE LANE & MCKAY DRIVE

Route 2

Ruled Out

March 25, 2020

I'll probably just delete this page after ruling out McKay Drive, but it does provide an interesting look at the process I use on charting out the original highway, starting with Google Earth and lidar (if applicable) to identify likely suspects and to plan future field trips to confirm or reject the grades and roads as old CRH. Left out of the process, here, is looking at period maps, but those are not easily accessible to me at the moment.

Originally, I mapped out the major surviving fragments by just getting out on the highways and driving, spotting the roads and exploring. The major sections of the old route are pretty obvious if you know what to look for.

It's these sorts of bits and pieces fragments around the new and improved modern highways that are a lot more difficult to sort out.

Tiny section of possible old pavement on Paradise Lane (v.007) Google Earth Imagery Date: May 8, 2019

Above, there is a very interesting looking patch of possible old pavement on Paradise Lane, just west of W. Lane Road that I spotted while looking for Taylor's "Mile 22.8" fragment on Google Earth.

However, a quick look at the location in Google Street View almost immediately rules it out. Clearly, the grading shows that this is overflow parking for the church and not a relic of the original highway.

Paradise Lane suspect in Street View Google Street View Imagery Date: July 2018

I am only mentioning McKay Drive, which I wondered about long before spotting the Paradise Lane pavement, as a rule out. The south end, before the curve, is a better possibility than the north end, after it curves away from modern US 30 to meet with W. Lane Road.

Modern US 30 between Scappoose and the Old Portland Road into St. Helens feels way too straight for me. On the other hand, Old Portland Road itself, which is confirmed to be original highway, is pretty straight too.

Also, I am not seeing any clear paths for the original alignment coming into the north end of this short road.

Bottom line, McKay Drive is probably not original CRH, but I still want to check it out on the ground before I rule it out.

The south end makes this road look likely, but the north end goes no where... (v.007) Google Earth Imagery Date: May 8, 2019

A final possibility here comes from looking at the alignment of the south end of McKay Road, Paradise Lane, and the road on the highway side of the cemetery just south of Honeyman Creek (below).
McKay Drive. Probably not CRH, but curious enough to need to be ruled out (v.007)
Google Earth Imagery Date: May 8, 2019

While I suspect that if these were all parts of the original highway they would remain connected as a continuous frontage road, who know? Stranger things have happened over the years, and it is all worth checking out on the ground, making a few quick stops on the way west to more certain territory.

Cemetery and Honeyman Creek (v.007)  Google Earth Imagery Date: May 8, 2019

Delena, Oregon

Text from the old Delena page on the website, I am preserving this here because I want to, after the rebuild, check with Pamela and see if she still has the Panoramio photos.  These links are all dead since Google discontinued that service.

Old Delena School (2010)

Photo by Pamela Elbert Poland

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/41116710

Since 2010, the roof has been replaced. 

Old Delena School, Re-purposed With New Roof (2015)

Delena, Oregon. Columbia River Highway. May 9, 2015

Copyright © 2015 A. F. Litt, All Rights Reserved

Another good 2010 photo of the old Delena School, 1922, by Mark Zemlin on Panoramio: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/33457622

The Ghost Town of Delena is right here, but other then piles of 1970’s logging equipment there is little interesting to see.

Pacific Northwest Photoblog: Beaver Falls – Clatskanie Oregon

http://pnwphotoblog.com/beaver-falls-clatskanie-oregon/

Hudson School

Another old school, now re-purposed as a church.  It's a little bit off the old highway.

2010 Photo: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/41116316

I spent 4 years at Hudson School, which is off the old highway. It's now a church and they did some remodeling on it that totally changed its look. 

 [It closed] ...after they built the new school complex (which is on the old highway), which opened in the fall of 1978. They consolidated Hudson and Delena and put them in the new school called Hudson Park Elementary. I moved away from the area in 1984, so it was after that the grade school downtown was also closed and the kids moved up to the newer school.

Pamela Elbert Poland. Facebook Comments. May 23, 2015

I attended school here from October 1966 until June 1970, grades 1 through 4.

Pamela Elbert Poland. Panoramio.  September 22, 2010

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/41116316

2020 Crowdfunding Update #1

Abandoned Columbia River Highway fragment in Gilliam County

So we're a few days into the campaign and have reached 10% of the goal.  A nice start!  Thank you very much to those who have contributed so far, it is very much appreciated.

I'm planning on running this sort of like a pledge drive on PBS/NPR, so I'll be bugging folks every day or so on Facebook as this project continues.  If you have already contributed, I apologize in advance for this!

So far, I've been able to start getting some time in today on repairing some old pages.  I'll be posting links as I continue.  Today's work was made possible by the contributions received so far, so things are going well!

And, as always, every little bit helps, so please consider contributing so we can get this website up and running again, so it once again can be a useful asset for everyone interested in the history of the old Columbia River Highway!

GoFundMe: gf.me/u/xmar2w

2020 Fundraiser: Rebuilding the Columbia River Highway Website

Elowah Falls, June 16, 2015
Filming for #recreatingthehcrh

To help rebuild the website, please visit: https://www.gofundme.com/f/recreatingthehcrh

With new construction of the State Trail on the horizon, and the new research coming in from Kirk Poole's awesome Past and Present Views Along the Columbia River Highway Facebook Group, it is time to return this much appreciated resource to a usable state.

Originally, I built this site while I was a stay-at-home father and had a lot of time to work on it, but now it is a very part time job and, at the current rate, documenting new research and repairing the old pages, it will take about two years to complete this work.

Because of this, I've decided to try a bit of crowdfunding to speed the job up. My day job work is very slow right now, and this would be an ideal time for me to work full time on the website for several weeks. 

So, my fundraiser is going to be for covering time and expenses for full time work on the website, and to help fund some new research. How much I can get done and how quickly will depend on the response to the campaign. 

 
If fully funded, I plan on getting the site fully restored by the end of March. However, any contributions will help. 

Overall, this project has been a seven-year labor of love and I have resisted seeking donations in the past, but as circumstances change, I am realizing that I need some help to get this work done.
Once the site is rebuilt, I will also be able to focus more on research and video production, on new content instead of just repairing old content. While I am not sure if a feature length documentary and book are still in the works, time will tell, I do want to resume producing video shorts and fleshing out the history of the highway in more detail on the website.

If you have appreciated the content on the website, the associated Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/RecreatingTheHCRH), and/or the YouTube Channel in the past, I'd ask you to consider contributing to this fundraiser. Any amount will help, and I thank you for taking the time to consider helping with this cause.

One way or the other, work will continue on the site and I look forwards to continue sharing the history of the highway with everyone!

To help rebuild the website, please visit: https://www.gofundme.com/f/recreatingthehcrh

Dead Blog Photos

Too much of this!
(Yes, I know, too meta, a working image of a non-working image...)

Unfortunately, the devastating data losses a few years back that killed off most of the photo links on the website also killed off a lot of them here on the blog. 

And this!

My focus is going to be on rebuilding the website, not the blog, but if there are specific images here that you would like to see, let me know which image and which post and I will see what I can do! know!

Email me at aflittcreative@gmail.com

Hello 2020: Work on Recreating the HCRH Resumes!

Columbia River West to Ruthton Point
Ruthton Park. Hood River, Oregon.
April 25, 2013

It's Saturday, I've been down with the flu for a week and a half, and I've got a lot on my plate that I want to accomplish today with the HCRH project, but before diving in I wanted to do a quick overall project update (mostly to help sort out my own thoughts on how to move ahead).

Looking back at the videos from 2015 (a half-decade ago!), you'll see that there were ambitions for this project that were clearly never met. Without going into detail, let's just say a lot of life happened right as I was gearing up for production on the feature-length documentary in late 2015 and those next few years were difficult years, to say the least...

Very little creative work on anything was possible during that time, and there were a lot of setbacks involving the work already completed on the film. Data loss on the website, requiring the rebuild I am currently working on, lost footage and stills, which may be recovered in the future, the fate of those hard drives is still undetermined... Heartbreaking, since a lot of that material is irreplaceable due to construction of the HCRH State Trail in the Gorge and to the general passage of time. There was also a significant loss of gear and equipment that made further progress on the film impossible at the time...

Anyway, life is much better now and, while I was unable to meet the 2016 goal for the movie and the 2018 goal for a book, I did get a book out in 2019! It just had nothing to do with the highway, was fiction, and was written by someone else! That work took almost all of 2019 to complete, further delaying this project, but it is work that I am very proud of.

Upon publication of The Yellow Painted Man last year, after a brief break, it is now time to return to the highway. This return has been further motivated by the excellent work Kirk J. Pool and several other folks have been doing recently documenting the Lower Highway (including the first decent explorations of the Bagby Loops that I know of!). Their work can be followed on the US 30 Remnants from Astoria to Eastern Oregon group on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/483015922488601). It is an excellent group and definitely worth joining if you enjoy the exploring the history of the highway.

So, now it is 2020 and I've started rebuilding the website. For now, that is going to be my primary goal. Movies, books, whatever... It all needs to start with getting the site back up and running, so that is all that I am going to worry about at the moment. After that, we'll see what life holds.

Recreating the HCRH: "New" Website
January 18, 2020
https://sites.google.com/site/recreatingthehcrh/home

I will say, this project started with researching a planned short film on the original route of the highway (filming on that was mostly completed by the end of 2015), and I really do hope that is where this leads in the end. Whether or not that happens may depend on if the old footage is recovered along with several other factors. Losing that footage is not necessarily a deal breaker, though. Any hesitation I have at this point in declaring the film alive (or, at least, undead) really comes from being a bit gun shy after the setbacks a few years ago.

As for a book, well, that might actually come before the movie now. We'll see how things go. But, as I said, first things first: it all starts with rebuilding the website, a pretty significant project all on its own.

The first stage will be reformatting for the new platform while rebuilding the dead photo links. That, in and of itself, will be a fairly sizable project. I had to do that once before and it took about six weeks of eight hour days to complete. Today, the site is much larger and more complex than it was then and my "free" time to work on this labor of love is much reduced, so just completing this stage of the work may take months.

While rebuilding, I will also be updating the site with new material as it comes up, so there will be some forward motion this year, it all won't just be rebuilding what's been lost.

The second stage, surely occurring, to some degree, concurrently with the first step, will be filling in gaps in my research and "completing" the site per my original goals for it.

After that, we'll find out what seems to be the best way to proceed.

This project has always been a fun adventure, and I look forward to moving ahead with it, whatever the future may hold!