Columbia River Gorge Area Info
Michael & Suzanne Maurer
Brokers ~ OR
Assoc. Brokers ~ WA
Windermere, Glenn Taylor Real Estate
504 Cascade Street
Hood River, OR
541.386.2831
800.755.7544
THE DALLES, AN OVERVIEW
The City of The Dalles, Oregon was incorporated on June 26, 1857. The Dalles is located in North Central Oregon, 75 minutes east of Portland in the Columbia River Gorge. The Dalles has a population of 12,722 within city limits and is the county seat of Wasco County. It serves a total of 37,215 people within another 25 miles of the city limits. The population growth between 1980 to 1990 was 29% in The Dalles.
Wasco County is named for the Wasco (or Wascopam) tribe of Indians that lived south of the Columbia River, near The Dalles. When Wasco County was created from portions of Clackamas, Marion, Linn, and Lane Counties on January 11, 1854, it consisted of all of Oregon Territory between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains and from latitude 42deg. (the California border) to latitude 46deg. (the Washington border). This was the largest county ever formed in the United States, originally consisting of 130,000 square miles.
Portions of Wasco County as it was originally drawn now lie in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Over the years, seventeen other counties in eastern Oregon were created from Wasco County, which now consists of 2,387 square miles. It is bordered by two rivers, the Columbia to the north and the Deschutes to the east, and by the Warm Springs Indian Reservation on the south and Mt. Hood National Forest on the west. Wasco County shares political boundaries with Sherman, Wheeler, Jefferson, Clackamas, and Hood River Counties.
The Dalles was designated the county seat when the county was formed in 1854. Courthouses were built in 1859, 1884, and in 1914. All three buildings are standing today and the 1914 building is still in use as the county courthouse.
County officials include three commissioners, district attorney, assessor, clerk, sheriff, surveyor, and treasurer. In 1969 the county court ceased to have any judicial functions and became a purely administrative body.
Wasco County is served by Senate Districts 27 and 28; Representative Districts 55, 56, and 59; and the Second Congressional District. The 1997 Wasco County population of 22,600 was an increase of 4.2% over 1990.
The falls on the Columbia River near The Dalles served as a gathering place and major trading center for many Indians, including the Wasco, Paiute, and Warm Springs. The falls had been named Le Grand Dalles de la Columbia (The Great Falls of the Columbia) by French Canadian fur traders. The Indians of the region were moved to the Warm Springs Reservation in 1855.
The Dalles had served initially as a way station on the emigrant road to the Willamette Valley. The construction of a pioneer road over the Cascades in 1845 and the Donation Land Act of 1850 brought families to the area to settle. Wasco County became a major transportation hub for both river traffic and inland traffic. River traffic on the Columbia River was profoundly affected in 1935 by the building of Bonneville Dam in Multnomah County and by The Dalles Dam in 1957 in Wasco County. The county's economy is based upon agriculture (orchards, wheat farming, livestock ranching), lumber, manufacturing, electric power, transportation, aluminum, and tourism.
In the 1980s the land use and election laws of Wasco County were challenged when Rajneeshpuram was developed on 64,000 acres near the John Day River. Friction developed between the followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and the residents of Wasco County. The commune took control of the community of Antelope, which they renamed Rajneesh, and attempted to manipulate the county government by registering to vote homeless people brought in from outside the county and state. The ensuing investigation in 1985 led to the arrest of the Bhagwan's personal secretary on charges of theft and attempted murder. The Bhagwan was indicted on federal immigration charges and deported to India. The mortgage holder repossessed Rajneeshpuram in 1989.
**This data obtained from the Oregon State Archives Public Information Server.
