Zigzag is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

Clackamas County Clackamas County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 421,401, making it Oregon's third-most populous county. Its county seat is Oregon City. The county was named after the Native ...

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

, United States. It is located within the

Mount Hood Corridor The Mount Hood Corridor is a part of Oregon between Sandy and Government Camp, in Clackamas County. It is named after Mount Hood and has served travelers going in both directions since the days of Native Americans and Oregon Trail migrants. Th ...

, between Rhododendron and Welches on

U.S. Route 26 U.S. Route 26 (US 26) is an east–west United States highway that runs from Seaside, Oregon to Ogallala, Nebraska. When the U.S. highway system was first defined, it was limited to Nebraska and Wyoming; by the 1950s, it continued into Idaho and ...

. The community is part of a local type of government called a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

as one of the communities making up the Villages at Mount Hood, which stretches from the border of Sandy to Government Camp. The community is named after the nearby Zigzag River, a tributary of the Sandy River, which is in turn a tributary of the Columbia River. The place was also known as "Zig Zag". Zigzag's elevation is 1,414 feet (431 m).

History

Pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land. In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and de ...

Joel Palmer General Joel Palmer (October 4, 1810 – June 9, 1881) was an American pioneer of the Oregon Territory in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. He was born in Canada, and spent his early years in New York and Pennsylvania before serving ...

crossed the deep ravine of Zigzag Canyon near the timberline on Mount Hood on October 11, 1845. He described the crossing in his journal:

The manner of descending is to turn directly to the right, go
zigzag A zigzag is a pattern made up of small corners at variable angles, though constant within the zigzag, tracing a path between two parallel lines; it can be described as both jagged and fairly regular. In geometry, this pattern is described as ...
for about one hundred yards, then turn short round, and go zigzag until you come under the place where you started from; then to the right, and so on, until you reach the base.

The Zigzag River is no more crooked than adjoining streams, therefore the stream was most likely identified to fellow travelers on what was to become the

Barlow Road The Barlow Road (at inception, Mount Hood Road) is a historic road in what is now the U.S. state of Oregon. It was built in 1846 by Sam Barlow and Philip Foster, with authorization of the Provisional Legislature of Oregon, and served as the la ...

by the manner of crossing and not for an especially irregular alignment. Zigzag post office was established in 1917; it ran intermittently until 1974. For a time the Zigzag post office was located in present-day Rhododendron.

Historic structures

Zigzag Ranger Station-Mt Hood (23428728706)

The 1935 Zigzag Ranger Station is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

(NRHP). St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church, another NRHP property, was formerly in the Zigzag area. The ZigZag Inn—which, like the ranger station and church, is a rustic-style

log structure In algebraic geometry, a log structure provides an abstract context to study semistable schemes, and in particular the notion of logarithmic differential form and the related Hodge-theoretic concepts. This idea has applications in the theory o ...

—was built by William John "Bill" Lenz, son of the founder of

Lenz Lenz may refer to: Places * Lenasia, Gauteng Province, South Africa, a township often called Lenz * Lantsch/Lenz, Canton of Grisons, Switzerland, a municipality * Lenz, Hood River County, Oregon, an unincorporated community * Lenz, Klamath County, ...

in Hood River County. Lenz built many other notable structures in the area.

References

External links

Historic image near Zigzag
from Salem Public Library
Historic images of Saint John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church
from the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

digital archives {{Authority control Portland metropolitan area Unincorporated communities in Clackamas County, Oregon 1917 establishments in Oregon Unincorporated communities in Oregon

History

Historic structures

See also

References

External links