Phone photo 2485

Oregon Trail

1844

Marked by the

Daughters and Sons of

the American Revolution

in the State of Washington

1916

I have probably passed by this marker thousands of times in my life, but this month was the first time I ever really noticed it! It sits nears the Falls Terrace Restaurant, and in 1916 it would've been right in the center of action in downtown Tumwater, Washington.

See that concrete wall in the background? Interstate 5 is on the other side. When it plowed through this area in the 1950s the freeway destroyed the heart of the first American settlement in the Puget Sound region. The town has been more or less of a crazy quilt ever since.

Phone photo 2265

"TUMWATER. Here the Deschutes River cataracts into Budd Inlet, the most southerly point where ends the old Oregon Trail, arduous route of the hardy pioneers of the West with a determined disregard with British opposition to their settlement north of the Columbia River a small band of pioneers founded here in 1846 the town of New Market the first American community established on Puget Sound. The Indian name for the cataract was Spa Kwatl but in Chinook jargon it was Tumwater, meaning throbbing water which name New Market later adopted."

In the background is the long derelict bottling plant of the Olympia Brewing Company.

Phone photo 588

EAT
Vader, Washington

It was just a bit north over the county line in Lewis County not far from this ancient giant EAT sign (just as easily seen on Interstate 5 today as it was when it was displayed on the Oregon Trail during the time this little cafe served the pioneers), that my ancestors first settled in Washington Territory in the mid-1870s.

Phone photo 550

Sidney S. Ford, 1801-1866
Traveled the Oregon Trail, 1845

Pioneer Cemetery
Centralia, Washington