Looking at Aurora, Oregon’s Willamette River railroad crossing today, it’s easy to think that when the railroad reached the river, they built a bridge. But the real engineering challenge began long before the water. That’s because the land beside the river was low and therefore prone to flooding. This meant a railroad could be washed away simply by rising water.
That was major problem #1 and this meant the stretch of land between Aurora and Wilsonville was unsuitable for a railroad. Yet it gets worse, because here’s the thing: The Willamette crossing at Aurora wasn’t simply about crossing the Willamette River. The real challenge was getting trains up, over, and back down. That was major problem #2. So how are you going to address both of these mammoth and seemingly intractable issues? Click on the video to find out in Part 2 of this interesting series.
It’s 1908 and you’re walking through the woods here in Aurora, Oregon…long before World War 1 and the Great Depression. Continuing your walk, you happen upon a clearing…then see what look like railroad tracks.
Little seems to have changed around these parts of Aurora over the past century. That’s because railroad tracks and the trains that rode them…like this one…were here, more than a century ago, when this new railway started. Yet mystery still lingers in this spot, just waiting to be uncovered. In fact, there are more than a few hidden secrets around here, all in plain sight…if you know where to look.
A KEY DIFFERENCE Imagine standing beside these tracks a century ago. Here’s a key detail that surprises most people. You wouldn’t know by watching trains here today, but back then they were powered by something very unique. For that time, many would picture a loud locomotive— spouting smoke, burning coal and maybe stopping for water. But that’s not what passed through Aurora. So how exactly how were trains powered through here in 1908…and what changed? That answer is contained in the railroad’s name, once considered the future of American railroads…yet today is forgotten.
This wasn’t the Oregon Steam Railway. It wasn’t the Oregon Coal Railway. It wasn’t the Oregon Diesel Railway. It was the Oregon Electric Railway. So instead of passing through rural Aurora here behind a smoking engine, passengers were riding in clean, quiet electric cars—with comfortable seats and a smoothness that felt futuristic. Passengers glided peacefully through Aurora on thick padded seats, with polished wood interiors, ample legroom and brass trim.
Riding aboard the Oregon Electric Railway wasn’t just transportation—it felt like the future, with electric lights and sometimes a freshly-prepared meal, making the journey a refined event, instead of jostling down Oregon’s muddy roads in early automobiles. The score at that point was Oregon Electric Railway: One, and early cars: Zero, because the electric train’s more reliable and luxurious transportation, all while moving at up to 60 miles per hour…was tough to beat.
The Oregon Electric Railway seemed unstoppable. Yet that same year the futuristic railroad opened, competition was already beginning to appear—and its rivals weren’t limited just to other railroads. The Oregon Electric wasn’t our region’s lone local railroad, either. That’s because just a few miles away, another railroad was racing toward Salem, creating one of Oregon’s early transportation rivalries.
COMPETITION The Oregon Electric Railway faced competition from an established area rival. Just a few miles east, Southern Pacific was pushing south through Oregon City and Canby, with both railways eventually meeting at Donald, Oregon.Donald became a significant railroad junction, since it connected both systems, where freight and passengers could also transfer there between different railroads.
STATION TO STATION While much has disappeared around Aurora, something survives: Names. And those weren’t names of just any place. They were destinations. Scattered across Aurora’s landscape are clues from the Oregon Electric Railway era—they’re names people pass every day, without realizing each one is part of both Aurora’s past…and also its present. Why? Because a century ago, they were literal landmark destinations, important to Aurora travelers. These seemingly insignificant historical breadcrumbs have turned into today’s precious gems, so don’t be fooled by the small signs representing them.
Your first clue transporting you back more than a century is the Prahl Road directional sign you may have noticed driving west from Charbonneau and the I-5 freeway, toward Butteville and Boones Ferry Road.
Those Prahl Road signs are important…and for a reason you might never have considered: Even now, they literally point you back to the year 1908. That’s because Oregon Electric Railway trains crossed the Willamette River from Wilsonville near here, with their very first rural Aurora stop called Prahl Station.
Prahl Station and the subsequently-named Prahl Road are associated with Frederick Prahl, the Oregon Electric Railway roadmaster who supervised construction of the train bridge connecting Aurora to Wilsonville in the years before it opened for traffic in 1908.
When the bridge opened, Prahl Station served as both a landmark and flag station, a railroad destination where the train stopped if someone signaled, or flagged to be dropped off there. But Prahl Road is not the only clue hiding in plain sight. That’s because just south of the old Prahl stop is another forgotten Oregon Electric Railway location you may have passed through without ever considering its significance. The name? Curtis Station. That railroad crossing still intersects with Arndt Road, just like it did long ago, located literally a stone’s throw from Klupenger Road to the west. Like the Prahl stop, Curtis was also a rural flag station. But it’s worth lingering here a little while longer for evidence of what once was.
That’s because while this station has all but disappeared from maps and much of written history…here on the ground, if you know what to look for, you’ll still see the almost forgotten name of “Curtis” clearly emblazoned on the train shed there.
BRIDGE ON THE RIVER…WHY? Looking at the river today, it’s easy to forget that before 1908 there was no bridge connecting Aurora and Wilsonville. Aside from local ferries, travelers and freight had no convenient way to cross here. The Oregon Electric Railway changed that forever by building the bridge. Those stations only existed because that railway solved the first and enormous problem: Crossing the Willamette River.
Another interesting clue lies at the river itself. So why was this railroad bridge built here where the Willamette River meets a seemingly random patch of Aurora soil?
This crossing’s location was no accident. The Oregon Electric Railway needed a place where it could overcome its greatest obstacle—the Willamette River—while still creating a direct route south toward Salem.
When we look at this crossing today, it’s easy to think that when the railroad reached the river, they built a bridge. But the real engineering challenge began long before the water. That’s because the land beside the river was low and therefore prone to flooding. This meant a railroad could be washed away simply by rising water. That’s major problem #1 and this meant the stretch of land between Aurora and Wilsonville was unsuitable for a railroad. Yet it gets worse, because here’s the thing: The Willamette crossing at Aurora wasn’t simply about crossing the Willamette River. The real challenge was getting trains up, over, and back down. That was major problem #2.
So how are you going to address both of these mammoth and seemingly intractable issues? Engineering found a way. So to fix this, railroad engineers created a raised pathway—using long trestles and carefully engineered approaches—for trains to safely cross the river. Find out what happens next in our next video.
People camping just outside of Aurora, Oregon today are enjoying life at the site of an erased civilization. They have no clue they’re standing at ground zero of the most violent, destructive natural disaster in Oregon’s recorded history. Click the image below for Part 1 of this compelling story.
And though it remains the granddaddy of them all…you’ve never even heard of it….even with the epicenter nearby. And while Aurora’s town and rural areas were hit hard, outskirts like this were wiped virtually clean. There were winners and losers, with one nearby community holding on and the other now inhabited mainly by passing tourists, with no idea of what happened. So what was this disaster and why haven’t you heard about it? This is the battlefield of a community that fought…and lost badly …with that big battle occurring under a frightening set of events.
BIGGER THAN 1996 Whether it’s an earthquake, lightning strike or flood, natural disasters each tend to provide their own frame of reference. Many Oregonians recall the 1996 flood in much of the Willamette Valley. That regional soaker became a benchmark for water disasters. Yet here’s what’s left out: There’s a flood by comparison that was worse…and it isn’t even close. The flood of 1861 stands as the all-time record holder for the most disasterous on the Willamette River. That 1861 flood barrelled through at 635,000 cubic feet per second, being half again worse than the 1996 flood and packing more than seven times the punishing power of Niagara Falls.
AREA MAP: LAY OF THE LAND
CALM BEFORE THE STORM The 1861 Willamette River flood was the result of a perfect storm: A ‘Pineapple Express’ weather event that unfolded in two distinct phases. Because November, 1861 was unusually cold and snowy, first came heavy snow accumulation. Then the situation got worse…much worse…because after that massive snow drop, next came a tropical cyclone with strong winds…and that part happened fast…with most of the warmer rainfall compressed into just 72 hours, rapidly melting the dense snowpack.
The result? Flash flooding…which is what made the 1861 disaster so devastating. It triggered a sudden surge of runoff into the Willamette River, with a flow greater than the mighty Mississippi, raising water levels to record highs. As a result of that thousand year event, much of the Willamette Valley became a freshwater ocean…the size of 273,000 football fields and more than half the size of Rhode Island.
WHEN THE RIVER BECAME A WEAPON In 1861 around Aurora, water was cresting by December 5th. Yet the real damage was just getting started, because here’s something people don’t realize: Water alone wasn’t the deadliest part. That’s because the Willamette River was now weaponized. Water cresting, the river was armed and dangerous, fully loaded with a quiver of mountain timber. Soil now softened, fir trees were uprooted and fell like dominos, then raced torpedo-like with the fast running current. Local Butteville pastor Reverend Michael Fackler wrote in amazement about pitch-black currents carrying massive fir logs up to 200 feet long.
SHOWDOWN AT GRAHAM’S FERRY Graham’s Ferry was at a critical bend in the river and where colossal trees were turning into battering rams. They tore ferry cables, leveled orchards and pushed buildings over with ease. Imagine waking up in the freezing darkness of December to the sound of roaring water and 200-foot missiles snapping your house in half. Use heavy, low-frequency “thuds” and wood-splintering sound effects in the audio mix. Timber pierced through the current, slamming into lowlands around Graham’s Ferry and Butteville Road to devastating effect. The sheer force of massive logs, swinging Paul Bunyan-like, clubbed everything in their path, leaving heaps of scattered lumber across French Prairie as the water receded.
FLOODING AND FIGHTING By December 1861, the United States was entering its first, bloody Christmas of the Civil War as President Abraham Lincoln struggled to heal the fractured Union. Back east, soldiers prepared for the brutality of battle by digging trenches in Virginia. But here in Oregon, pioneers fought a very different enemy, digging out from the massive heaps of French Prairie mud covering where their towns used to be. As Civil War soldiers raced toward each other, in Oregon, survival depended on racing from a rising river.
At Champoeg—the very birthplace of Oregon’s first government—the water reached a mind boggling 30 feet depth. Famous as the site of Oregon’s first provisional government, Champoeg was submerged under about 30 feet of fast-moving water. Every structure was swept away except for the Hudson’s Bay Company warehouse.
AFTERMATH During the late 1800’s, railroads gradually replaced the steamboat for transporting the area’s freight and passengers, with Champoeg declining as a trade center. Some residents attempted to rebuild, but another flood decades later permanently ended their efforts as the buildings at Champoeg were again swept away. The hopelessness of re-establishing a town at Champoeg was eventually understood, leading to its abandonment in 1892. Champoeg is now a State Park.
Steamboats at Champoeg, Oregon
WINNERS AND LOSERS Yet an Aurora area community survived…and though it’s small, it’s still here. That place? Butteville, Oregon.
So what about another nearby French Prairie area, like nearby Donald, Oregon? Donald didn’t even exist then, developing into a town decades later. As a result, damage to that area was pretty much limited to what was then largely French Prairie farmland.
WHY DID CHAMPOEG DIE WHILE BUTTEVILLE SURVIVED? Geography helped. Champoeg wasn’t destroyed because it sat dramatically lower than Butteville. Instead, it was just a few extra feet of elevation. Yet when floodwaters spread across French Prairie, that made all the difference. This hill just outside of Butteville—known by its French Prairie derived name of La Butte is a hard volcanic basalt escarpment that gave Butteville its name. At 427 feet elevation, it doesn’t seem that tall. Yet this seemingly non-descript hill would have represented higher ground to those seeking refuge during the 1861 flood. The elevation of La Butte was above the 30-foot floodwaters that also completely obliterated the lower-lying town of Champoeg.
Along with Champoeg, the 1861 flood completely destroyed several other Willamette Valley towns, mills and bridges never designed to withstand such pressure. A few of these were:
1. Linn City: The bustling mill town of Linn City was swept away and eventually replaced by the town of West Linn.
2. Orleans: Just across the Willamette River from Corvallis, Orleans was completely washed away and never re-established.
3. Santiam: A short drive from Albany, the town of Santiam is another community erased by the 1861 flood and and never rebuilt.
So the next time you’re driving around Aurora between Butteville and Graham Road along Butteville Road, or camp at nearby Champoeg Park, look around. You’re on the site of Oregon’s greatest-and most forgotten-disaster.
