Celilo Canal

Celilo Canal
Celilo Canal in 1910; the Columbia River is visible at left.
Specifications
Maximum boat beam	65 ft 0 in (19.8 m)
Status	inundated by Lake Celilo formed by The Dalles Dam
History
Principal engineer	Army Engineers
Construction began	1905
Date of first use	May 15, 1915
Date closed	1957

Celilo Canal was a canal connecting two points of the Columbia River between the states of Oregon and Washington, U.S. just east of The Dalles.

In the natural state of the Columbia River, there was an 8-mile (13 km) stretch above The Dalles known as Celilo Falls that was impassable upstream and navigable downstream only at high water and at great risk. Celilo Canal was built in the early part of the 1900s to allow steamboat and river-borne traffic to bypass Celilo Falls.

In 1858, a 19-mile (31 km)-long wagon road, the Oregon Portage Railroad, had been built around the falls on the south side of the river. This was replaced in 1863 by a 13-mile (21 km)-long portage railway owned by the Oregon Steam Navigation Company. A number of studies and false starts were made towards building a canal around the falls, but construction on what was to become known as the Celilo Canal did not begin until 1905, and then took ten years to complete. In 1909, Scientific American summarized the status of the work and its objectives:

The Columbia River, which is the most important waterway in the western part of the United States, extends a distance of 1,400 miles (2,300 km) from Its mouth to British Columbia, where it has its source. Including its tributaries, it forms a system of waterways available for steamboats and barges aggregating 2,132 miles (3,431 km). This is not continuous, however, for the channel is obstructed at two different points. One of these obstructions is formed by what is called the Cascades, a series of rapids located 60 miles (97 km) from the city of Portland. Here the government built, about twelve years ago, a lock canal. The canal has a depth of 8 feet (2.4 m) and is 3,000 feet (910 m) long, and it contains two locks, each of which is 462 feet (141 m) in length, and capacious enough for much larger craft than pass through it to the upper river. With the aid of the canal, steamers can travel from Portland to what are called the Dalles, a distance of about 200 miles (320 km). Here, however, the natural obstacles are very great, and to overcome them an elaborate engineering scheme Is now being carried out. The river, for a distance of several miles, flows swiftly through a series of gorges which it has cut out of the rock formation in this part of Oregon.