The Dalles Military Road
The Dalles Military Road, also known as The Dalles – Boise Military Wagon Road, was a mid-19th century wagon road surveyed and barely built by The Dalles Military Road Company between 1868 and 1870. To qualify for government land grants, the company was supposed to build a wagon road from The Dalles, Oregon to Fort Boise in Idaho. However, the company's road, on which it spent about $6,000 and for which it received nearly 890 square miles (2,300 km2) of public land, consisted largely of existing wagon roads and rudimentary trails. In particular, the company took credit for building a well-traveled and pre-existing wagon road between The Dalles and Canyon City, Oregon.
The company also built a road from Canyon City to the Oregon-Idaho border near Vale, Oregon. The claims of a good wagon road were greatly exaggerated. These claims involved not only the company but Oregon officials, including the governor. The road was used by wagons pulled by oxen or mules to haul food and other supplies to military forts and stations spaced every 30 miles or so along the route.
In 1990, it was still possible to travel nearly the entire length from Canyon City to near Brogan, Oregon, where the route becomes U.S. Route 26, in a stout 4 wheel drive, high clearance vehicle. The visible traces show the hurried building and poor planning. Steep grades, large rocks, poor water control, and swampy areas all contributed to a rough trail. Most of the road is still used by ranchers, fishermen, and hunters, however modern 4 wheel drive vehicles are much better suited to the rocky climbs and dry stretches . Not much is left of any of the forts east of Canyon City. After the need for the road diminished and then numerous lawsuits, the company went bankrupt and abandoned it to the elements.
Public discontent with the fraud, the road, the land grants, and the way the grant lands were re-sold and managed led to a federal lawsuit about 20 years later. In the suit, the U.S. Attorney General argued that the land had been privatized through fraud and should be returned to the public domain. The suit was dismissed in 1893, when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with lower courts that since Oregon's governor had certified the road as authentic and complete in 1870, the grants were valid and could not be reversed.
In general, the road followed existing trails and roads, linking The Dalles to Fort Boise. Between the endpoints, the main route passed through or near places such as Antelope, Mitchell, Dayville, Canyon City, Brogan, and Vale, Oregon.
The fraction of the route used by a stage line that began operation in 1864, is referred to simply as The Dalles – Canyon City Wagon Road in the Dictionary of Oregon History which says "numerous freight wagons, pack trains and tramping feet of miners moving to and from the John Day Valley, gradually hammered it into a fairly good road." Points along the road included Sherars Bridge, Burnt Ranch, Antone, and Braggs Ranch, in addition to Mitchell and the end points.
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