The Dalles, Oregon, United States

🇺🇸 The Dalles is the largest city of Wasco County, Oregon, United States. It is the largest city along the Oregon side of the Columbia River outside the Portland Metropolitan area. The Dalles is 75 miles (121 km) east of Portland, within the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.

History The area around The Dalles is known to have been a trading centre for Native Americans as long as 10,000 years ago and is thus one of the oldest inhabited places in North America.

The site of what is now the city of The Dalles was a major Native American trading center. The general area is one of the continent's most significant archaeological regions. Lewis and Clark camped near Mill Creek on October 25–27, 1805, and recorded the Indian name for the creek as Quenett.

Etymology The name of the city comes from the French word dalle, meaning either "sluice", akin to English "dale" and German Tal, "valley", or "flagstone", referring to the columnar basalt rocks carved by the river (in voyageur French used to refer to rapids), which was used by the French-Canadian employees of the North West Company to refer to the rapids of the Columbia River between the present-day city and Celilo Falls. Also in the same area was the Petites Dalles or Little Dalles, or Short Narrows. In French, "les dalles" means "the slabs". When a river flows over hard flat rocks, it becomes shallow, and rapids are created.

Fur trade The first use of the name Dalles, according to Oregon Geographic Names, appears in fur trader Gabriel Franchère's Narrative, on April 12, 1814, referring to the long series of major rapids in the river. Starting in the 1810s, Americans and Europeans passed by what became The Dalles, active in the North American fur trade as employees of either the American Pacific Fur Company (PFC) or the Canadian North West Company (NWC). Men like NWC officer David Thompson voyaged both down and up the Columbia, traveling through Celilo Falls. The War of 1812 led to the 1813 liquidation of the PFC, its properties like Fort Astoria sold to the North West Company.

In 1821 the North West Company was absorbed by the giant London-based Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Fort Vancouver, built in 1824, replaced Fort Astoria as the regional fur trade headquarters. The HBC's trading network made extensive use of the Columbia River. The rapids of the Columbia River at The Dalles was the largest and longest of the four "great portages", where fur trading boats had to unload and transship their cargoes. Sometimes, during high water, boats traveling downriver would "shoot the rapids" instead of portaging, although the practice was dangerous and many people died as a result over the years.

Wascopam Mission In 1838 a branch of Jason Lee's Methodist Mission was established at Celilo Falls, named the Wascopam Mission, after the native Wasco Indians. In 1850 the U.S. Army founded a small post at the site of the old mission, being eventually named Fort Dalles. Fort Dalles became the nucleus of the town of The Dalles, which began to develop along the waterfront. In 1855, at the end of the Cayuse War, the Indians living near The Dalles were forcibly relocated by the U.S. Army to the Warm Springs Indian Reservation.

American settlement In the early 1840s American settlers began to arrive in significant numbers, traveling overland via the Oregon Trail. The trail ended at The Dalles. It was not possible to take wagons farther west due to steep cliffs that fell straight into the Columbia River. Until the construction of the Barlow Road in 1846, the only way to reach Fort Vancouver and the Willamette Valley was by rafting down the river from The Dalles.

A post office was established within the boundaries of the current city in 1851, and The Dalles was incorporated as a city in 1857. It has been the major commercial centre between Portland and Pendleton since. The city was originally named just "Dalles". In 1853 it was changed to "Wascopum", then, in 1860, to "The Dalles".

In 1864, the U.S. Congress appropriated money to build a U.S. mint in The Dalles that was to use gold from Canyon City for coinage. The supply of gold from Canyon City began to dwindle, however, and other problems, such as cost overruns, workers leaving to work the gold fields, and flooding from the Columbia River, also contributed to the project running two years behind schedule and led eventually to its demise. In 1870, the State of Oregon received the property from the U.S. Government and the building was put to other uses. The mint is now home to Freebridge Brewing.

Construction of The Dalles Dam in 1957 submerged the Long Narrows and Celilo Falls.

In 1963, Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was published featuring the narrator, Chief, who is from The Dalles.

In 1970, the Bonneville Power Administration opened the Celilo Converter Station near the northern terminus of the Pacific DC Intertie which sends 3,100 megawatts of electricity to Los Angeles.

In 1982, a curly-coated kitten was born on a farm in The Dalles owned by Linda and Dick Koehl. The Koehls used this kitten and her offspring to develop a new breed of cat called the LaPerm, which went on to become a popular, established, championship pedigree cat breed around the world.

In 1984, The Dalles was the site of the first and single largest bioterrorism attack in United States history.

In 1986, Penalty Phase, a film starring Peter Strauss and Melissa Gilbert, was filmed in and around The Dalles.

In 2018, Terry A. Davis, creator of the TempleOS operating system, walked from Portland, Oregon to The Dalles in three days via the Columbia River Gorge. There, he was struck by a train and died at the age of 48.

Geography Highways I-84, US 30, and US 197 meet in the city.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 20.61 square miles (53.38 km²), of which 20.35 square miles (52.71 km²) is land and 0.26 square miles (0.67 km²) is water.

Economy In 2006, Google began building a major data centre, known locally as Project 02, along the Columbia River in The Dalles, using the area's reliable hydroelectric power and the underutilized fiber optic capacity of the area. The new complex includes two buildings, each approximately the size of a football field, and two cooling plants, each four stories high. The project promised hundreds of jobs in the area, mainly in construction, with an additional 200 permanent positions expected later in 2006 although as of 2013 Google employed only 150 combined company employees and contractors in The Dalles.

Economy: Top employers As of 2012, the top 15 employers in The Dalles according to the Mid-Columbia Economic Development District report on "Largest Employers in Wasco County" are: 1 Adventist Health Columbia Gorge; 2 North Wasco County School District; 3 Oregon Cherry Growers; 4 State of Oregon; 5 Fred Meyer; 6 Oregon Veteran's Home; 7 Columbia Gorge Community College; 8 Wasco County; 9 Google; 10 Safeway; 11 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; 12 City of The Dalles; 13 Home Depot; 14 Cousin's Country Inn; 15 Orchard View Farms.

Education The Dalles is home to Oregon School District 21. Originally 2 school districts; District 9 in the Chenoweth area and District 12 which included much of The Dalles.

District 21 includes 3 elementary schools: Colonel Wright Elementary, Chenoweth Elementary and Dry hallow Elementary. District 21 is also home to The Dalles Middle School and The Dalles High School.

St Mary's Academy is a k-8 school affiliated with the Catholic Church in The Dalles.

Columbia Lutheran School is a Christian elementary school of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod in The Dalles.

The Dalles is also home to the main campus of Columbia Gorge Community College which began in 1977 as Wasco Area Education Service District. It is a leading institution in renewable energy technology education and training.

Demographics As of the census of 2010, there were 13,620 people, 5,472 households, and 3,441 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,144.9 inhabitants per square mile (828.2/km²). There were 5,903 housing units at an average density of 929.6 per square mile (358.9/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 87.9% White, 0.5% African American, 1.5% Native American, 1.0% Asian, 0.8% Pacific Islander, 5.7% from other races, and 2.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 17.0% of the population.

There were 5,472 households, of which 30.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.1% were married couples living together, 12.4% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.4% had a male householder with no wife present, and 37.1% were non-families. 31.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.40 and the average family size was 2.99.

The median age in the city was 39.7 years. 23.8% of residents were under the age of 18; 8.3% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 24.1% were from 25 to 44; 25.8% were from 45 to 64; and 17.9% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 48.4% male and 51.6% female.

Culture: Events The Northwest Cherry Festival is held in The Dalles in April.

Museums • Columbia Gorge Discovery Center & Museum, the official interpretive centre for the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area • Fort Dalles Museum, Oregon's oldest history museum located in the Surgeon's Quarters built in 1856 at Fort Dalles • Pulpit Rock, used by Methodist missionaries to preach to Native Americans • North Wasco County Aquatic Center, the most recent in many iterations of the local swimming pool. Previously known as the Natatorium, "Nat" or "Nat Club". • The river front trail, runs along the Columbia River from the Discovery Center to the local boat marina.

Media: Radio • KACI 1300/103.9 FM • KODL 1440AM/99.1 FM • KMSW 92.7/102.9 FM • KACI-FM 93.5 FM • KCGB-FM 105.5/96.9 FM • KJYV 101.5 FM

Media: Television • K34KE-D translator for KGW Portland, NBC affiliate • K23OV-D translator for KOIN Portland, CBS affiliate

Media: Print • Columbia Gorge News • Columbia Community Connection Digital, Bilingual and Local News for the Mid-Columbia Region

Rajneeshee Movement In 1984, The Dalles was the scene of a bioterrorist incident launched by members of the Rajneesh Movement in an attempt to gain control of the local government of Wasco County, which failed on Election Day. Salmonella placed in ten restaurants resulted in 751 cases of Salmonellosis. It was the first known bioterrorism attack of the 20th century in the United States. The circumstances of the attack are documented in an American Medical Association article (JAMA Vol 278, No 5, page 389, 6 Aug 1997).