Welcome to the web home of the Willamette Falls Heritage Foundation
Willamette Falls is a large, horseshoe-shaped basalt cascade that divides the upper and lower reaches of the Willamette River. which is an American Heritage River. The falls lie 14 miles upriver from Portland and were the heart of pioneering industry in the Oregon Territory.
May News--CORPS RECEIVES STIMULUS FOR INSPECTION AND REPAIRS OF WILLAMETTE GATES
Lock supporters were jubilant to learn April 28 that funding has been allocated from the Corps' stimulus package to complete the inspection and repairs of the remaining six pairs of gates. Inspection of Gate 3 of Willamette Falls Lock and Navigation Canal got under way the week of January 26. Repairs were completed in early March and the gate leaves rehung. Engineers supervised test operations March 11. Inspection of Gate 7, on the upstream end of the canal, will begin soon. Pictured above with a photo-op check on May 11 are (L. to R.) former West Linn mayor Norm King; Colonel Miles, head of the Portland District Corps of Engineers; Lynn Peterson, chair of the Clackamas County Board of Commissions; "One Willamette River" convener and former State lawmaker Verne Duncan; U.S. Representative Kurt Schrader; Steve Greenwood, director of Oregon Solutions; Mark Ellsworth, of Governor Kulongoski's office; and Mayor Alice Norris, of Oregon City.
Hawley Powerhouse commemorative exhibit now on display within Portland General Electric Hydrogeneration engineering offices
ART CONTEMPLATES INDUSTRY -- THE HAWLEY POWERHOUSE COLLECTION, moved from Willamette Falls Hospital Gallery, in Oregon City, to PGE's World Trade Center 3 offices in Portland on May 14. The exhibit showcases the now-nonexistant Hawley Pulp and Paper Company Powerhouse, a 1916 structure whose foundation is part of the head dam around Willamette Falls (under license to Portland General Electric). Hawley was decommissioned and disassembled under an order of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, starting in July 2008. The powerhouse was erected in 1916 next to PGE's Station A--the site of the first long-distance transmission of direct current in the nation. Station A was demolished in 1965, after which the Hawley powerhouse sat alone on Black point. The concrete foundations and rusting exterior metalworks of three historic power stations are now all that remain of that unique part of Oregon's and America's electrical history, but their importance must not be forgotten. The exhibit returns to the artists July 1. Kevin Farrell's oil painting has been pulled early so that it may be exhibited as part of an Oregon150 display at the Froelick Gallery.