Walla Walla, WA to Wenatchee, WA (US 12 to Hwy 730; south on Hwy 730 to I-84; west on I-84 to Biggs Junction, OR; Hwy 97 north to Wenatchee, WA)
Leaving Walla Walla US 12 heads almost due west to the point where the Snake River joins the mighty Columbia River at the Wallula Gap. The Columbia makes a giant “S” in central Washington and the lower horizontal horseshoe turns in southern Washington where the Snake meets the Columbia near the eastern apex of the horseshoe. Just south of the junction, the Columbia cuts through the basalt cliffs in a feature known as the Wallula Gap.
Just past the Gap is one of the eleven dams built since 1933 that have tamed the Columbia and provide hydroelectric power and water to the Pacific Northwest. McNary Dam sits just east of the I-82 Bridge and created Lake Wallula, which now fills the Wallula Gap.
The drive now enters Oregon and follows the Columbia along the southern bank on I-84. Barren bluffs rise on both sides of the river for nearly 100 miles.
A rare sight are grain elevators where the bounty of the interior of Washington is stored, waiting the great barges of the Columbia for delivery to the markets of the world.
Then, as if in a medieval tale, high on the Washington side of the river appears a sight that is initially hard to believe. There, perched above the river, is an imposing chateau, site of our next stop, Maryhill.
Maryhill
Maryhill is the creation of three individuals whose lives came together around the turn of the 20th Century. The first, Sam Hill, was a lawyer who married into the Hill family of Great Northern Railroad fame and was deeply involved in the railroad and other business interests. While on a trip to Europe in 1893 he became acquainted with Queen Marie of Romania and in turn in 1902 Queen Marie became friends with Loie Fuller, a dancer who later became the rage of Paris during the 1920’s. These three people shaped the future of Maryhill, this chateau above the Columbia.
In 1907 Hill purchased 5,300 acres along the Columbia in order to create an ideal agrarian community. He named the project Maryhill after his daughter. He constructed a magnificent house on a bluff above the river using the latest in construction techniques. The structure is built of steel and cement and consists of three stories built into the side of the bluff. Today you enter the grounds from the Hwy 14 above and are greeted with this view looking south across the river to the rolling wheat fields of northern Oregon.
From the walkway in front of the mansion the view to the south takes one across the Columbia to the wheat fields of Moro County, Oregon. The Sam Hill bridge across the Columbia was completed in 1962, one had to use a ferry prior to that.
Maryhill is flanked on both side with ramps that lead up to a circular rotundas. The small windows are skylights for the rotundas below. Hill was an avid fan of the automobile and these ramps were designed to be driveways that allowed autos to deliver passengers into the main reception hall and then depart out the other side (Yes, the plan was to escape the weather and drive through the house!) A glass art gallery now extends south across the front plaza.
The large doors open into the main reception room which looks down upon the Columbia. Hill never lived in the house, instead Loie Fuller convinced him to convert it to an art museum. Queen Marie officially dedicated Maryhill Museum in 1926. Today the reception room houses a collection of royal artifacts donated by Queen Marie. The center of the room displays a collection of gilded furniture created by Romanian craftsman in the late 1800’s, most decorated with gold leaf.
Queen Marie linked two of the great imperial houses of the 19th century. She was the granddaughter of both Queen Victoria on her father’s side and Tsar Alexander II of Russia on her mother’s side. In 1896 she attended the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and wore the court gown now on display. The glass case made it very difficult to photograph without reflections!
Queen Victoria was fond of giving her granddaughter jewelry and a display containing notes by Queen Marie herself displays a few of her gifts. The bracelet on the lower left is actually woven from Queen Victoria’s own hair…
Queen Marie was officially crowned Queen of Romania in 1992 but somehow her crown was lost. A year later she commissioned a replica of her crown from the Falize Brothers of Paris, who had created the original crown.
One of the more interesting displays is a portrait of Queen Marie’s cousin, Tsar Nicholas II. Originally this portrait was displayed in the Russian Embassy in Belgrade, Serbia. In 1914 Austrian soldiers looted the embassy and defaced the portrait. If you look closely you can see that a large cross was slashed across Tsar Nicholas’ face.
Finally, a wooden throne created for Queen Marie to use while still a Crown Princess decorates a corner of a small side room.
Five small rooms across the back of the reception room were originally intended as rooms to be personally used by Sam Hill. The top floor of the mansion, originally planned as living quarters for guests now houses rotating displays. Currently a presentation entitled “Theatre de la Mode” highlights efforts by French fashion designers to bring back their business after World War II. In this pre-technology world, advertising consisted of small wire dolls dressed in exact replicas of dresses from the current season.
While Hill included elevators in his mansion, stair wells for use by servants on either end of the main building connected all three floors.
There is nearly as much floor space devoted to what were intended to be garages for automobiles as living space. The ground floor, mostly built into the side of the hill, consists of two large rotundas flanking quarters designed for use by house staff. Each of the rotundas was designed to house 24 automobiles. Today one holds a collection of artifacts concern the famous sculptor Rodin and the other Native American artifacts.
Hill was deeply patriotic and a mile east of Maryhill lies the second of his mid-Columbia monuments, Stonehenge.
Stonehenge
The structure was completed and dedicated in 1929 as a monument memorializing the 13 young men from the local county who died during World War I. It is an exact replica of the original Stonehenge in England.
The view from Stonehenge looks west. Maryhill is nestled in the bunch of greenery in the upper right, down below is the narrow belt of orchards along the Columbia east of the Sam Hill Bridge.
Leaving Maryhill we head north up Hwy 97 into the heart of the Columbia Basin. The Cascade Mountains are to the west but a ridge of low mountains protrudes directly east for nearly 100 miles, creating the bottom of the “S”. a horseshoe of the Columbia River as it flows around this ridge. Mt. Adams is cloaked in clouds as we drive north.
Most of the Columbia Basin sits in the rain shadow of the Cascades and receives little rain. In some places desert conditions are found. Even in late spring shades of brown are beginning to dominate the landscape as Hwy 97 winds through low hills. The Columbia Basin Project includes eleven dams on the Columbia River and the water and power generated by those dams has allowed the western edge of the basin to become a virtual Garden of Eden. Our first hint of this bounty comes around a curve as the highway descends into the Yakima River Valley. The Yakima Valley is one of the principal tributaries of the Columbia and is now a rich agricultural area.
The Yakima River is the largest of the Columbia’s tributaries from the west, a ribbon of emerald green running 214 miles southeast from the eastern flanks of the Cascade Mountains to the Columbia. Well watered by irrigation from the Yakima River, the valley is a lush agricultural center, home to 40% of the world’s hops production (used to make beer) and the land and low hills are carpeted with apple orchards and vineyards with the Cascades in the background.
Toppenish is at the center of the hops area and is home to the Yakima Native American Nation headquarters. This is a working town which proudly displays the motto “Where the West still lives” everywhere. A relatively low-key downtown area is brought to life by the presence of over 70 murals painted on buildings along Main Street, part of an effort began nearly 20 years ago to bring tourists to the area.
Built in the late 1800’s the J. D. Keck Building has seen many uses over the years, including time as a movie theater. Silent figures in the upper story windows give life to the faded structure.
The goal for the day is Wenatchee, WA, and the road goes up and over several ridges as it heads north. The ridges are stark reminders of the arid climate that exits outside of irrigated lands in these parts and give a faint remembrance of what the valley floors might have looked like prior to the advent of irrigation. The contrast is quite striking.
Now traveling on I-82 (which follows the old Hwy 97) we descend into the upper Yakima Valley with the town of Ellensburg in the distance and the Cascades piercing the sky to the west.
After crossing several more desert ridges we cross the Columbia through a cliff-lined canyon and then follow the Columbia north, approaching the juncture with the next major tributary from the west, the Wenatchee River.
The road briefly climbs out of the canyon and the famed apple orchards of Washington begin to appear before descending again to hug the side of the river.
The Rock Island Dam is one of the eleven that provide the water that lets the desert bloom.
Next up: The Wenatchee Valley
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