The Oregon Surveyor July/August 2018

10 Vol. 41, No. 4 The Oregon Surveyor | History & Travel Where Mules Could Not Go G ene White had the lead for the survey operations and was also responsible for construction of this 115,000-volt line which was built along the rim of the Columbia Gorge, traversing some of the roughest ter- rain in the region. He writes: “With the country still in the throes of the Great Depression, the government was in- terested in having people see that its investments were providing tangible benefits. Although the best route was several miles farther to the south, our instructions were to put the line where people could see it! Special towers were designed with no single piece weighing more than 70 pounds. They were car- ried in by mules wherever possible, and by men where mules could not go. We had places where you couldn’t get a mule carrying several of the 70-pound pieces, and 70 pounds was the limit a man could carry or that you could han- dle by getting a long hand-line across Excerpted from an early Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) internal publication describing a segment of the 115kV transmission line extending between Hood River and Troutdale along the South side of the old Columbia River Highway (Hwy 30), now made obsolete by Interstate 84—used with permission. By Ray Griffin, PLS