Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/303

THE BARLOW ROAD 295 day, there, above and beyond us were the towering heights, with their immense array of sky-piercing shafts. "Up, up to an altitude fearfully astounding the ascent is steep and difficult, but there are many such ridges of the mountains to be crossed before you can descend into the flour- ishing valley of the Willamette. Down, down into the deep, dark and silent ravines, and when you have reached the bottom of it, by precipitous descent, you may be able to form an idea of the great elevation which you had previously attained. The cross- ing of the Rocky mountains, the Bear River range and the "big hill" of the Brules, with the Blue Mountains, was insignificant in comparison to the Cascades. Here is no natural pass you breast the lofty hills and climb them there is no way around them, no avoiding them, and each succeeding one, you fancy is the dividing ridge of the range." The Barlow road was an important asset to both immigrants and settlers. It enabled the former to divide their trains and avoid the overcrowded condition on the Columbia ; it furnished the latter a means of communication and trade with the settlers east of the mountains. Large numbers of Willamette valley cattle were driven over it to be slaughtered in the mines and many a packer has paid toll at its gates. Judge Matthew P. Deady, 34 an esteemed citizen and noted jurist of Oregon, is reported to have said of this road: "The construction of the Barlow road contributed more towards the prosperity of the Willamette Valley and the future State of Oregon than any other achievement prior to the building of the railways in 1870." The general references consulted in the preparation of this paper are as follows : Palmer's Journal, published in Thwaites' Early Western Travels. Elwood Evans' History of the Northwest. Bancroft's History of Oregon. The Oregon Spectator, Vols. I and II. 34 Quoted in Quarterly of the Oreg. Hist. Soc., Vol. Ill, p. 79.