Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/335

 the deck of a vessel lying off the mouth of the Columbia river; or that Mount Hood was so designated on October 30th, 1792, by Lieutenant Brougbton when standing on the sand bar at the mouth of the Sandy river. The secular press would do well to popularize the3e dates.

Progress of highway improvement across Blue Mountains has brought to many minds remembrance of the ox team route of the pioneers, and desire to mak^ that remembrance perma- nent. The state highway commission of Oregon has been re- quested to designate the pioneer road "Old Oregon Trait" The road of heavy travel for o^ teams, but not the early route, was that by way of Lee'f Encampment [Meacham], and this later was an active trade highway in the gold mining period, beginning about 1862. But an earlier route passed near Elgin, Weston and Milton, and this became later the favorite trade route of Walla Walla merchants. It came to be known as the Toll Gate road, as contrasted with the Meacham-Uraatilla road of the ox team immigrants. It was also the route of the Thomas & Rucklis's stage. It began as an Indian trail, con- necting the valleys of Walla Walla and Grande Ronde rivers, and was used by fur traders in 1819-34, between Fort Walla Walla [Wallula] and the Snake River Country. When J. C. Fremont came to Oregon in 1843 he followed the large emi- gration of that year, and his printed report, together with the map of the route afterwards published as drawn by hi§ engi- neer, Preuss, furnishes the best data available for research concerning this earlier route of the Old Oregon Trail across Blue Mountains. Improvement of this route for automobile service is now proposed, so as to reach the mountain summit by easy grades from both Weston and Milton, Oregon, for the traffic of Walla Walla, Umatilla and Grande Ronde val- leys. The Meacham road of today, following the general course of the ox team road was changed ^d improved in the gold mining period. It will be improved again according to