THE CELILO CANAL—ITS ORIGIN—ITS BUILDING AND MEANING
By Marshall N. Dana.
Thirty-five years ago when Columbia river steamboats were still being trained to run up hill, a government engineer planned a giant's staircase to get the ambitious craft over The Dalles and Tumwater falls at Celilo.
The next scheme was to install an elevator operated by water power at the foot of The Dalles, and by it lift steamboats to the level of a railroad track, where they would be hauled on cars by locomotives the eight and a half miles to the head of Tumwater falls, to be lowered into the water again by another elevator. An alternate proposal was a canal to be dug around the falls and the rapids at the level of the head of Tumwater falls. At Big Eddy, below The Dalles or Five-Mile Rapids, a drop of 72 feet was to be overcome by a hydraulic elevator carrying a caisson in which the boat making passage would remain afloat. This canal was to have two locks with lift of 15 feet each between Celilo and Big Eddy and a third at Celilo with a lift of 20 feet. The Columbia as a source of water for the canal was ignored; the supply was to be brought in a 13,000 foot feeder from the Deschutes river.
There was also a good deal of talk during 1893 of a dam at the head of The Dalles which would pond the water back to the foot of Tumwater falls, drowning out Ten-Mile Rapids, and the idea had a good deal of favor until Colonel G. H. MendelL, corps of U. S. engineers, recommended the construction of a boat railway from Celilo to Big Eddy. The board of engineers had approved a portage railway from The Dalles city to Celilo, and he included this in his recommendation, saying it could be used as a part of the boat railway to be constructed later.
The estimate for the boat railway from The Dalles or Five-Mile rapids to Celilo at the head of Tumwater falls, together with an open river improvement of Three-Mile rapids between
