Dodson is an
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
in
Multnomah County
Multnomah County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 815,428. Multnomah County is part of the Portland metropolitan area. The state's smallest and most populous county, it ...
,
Oregon
Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...
, United States.
It is located about 4½ miles (7.2 km) east of
Multnomah Falls
Multnomah Falls is a waterfall located on Multnomah Creek in the Columbia River Gorge, east of Troutdale, Oregon, Troutdale, between Corbett, Oregon, Corbett and Dodson, Oregon, Dodson, Oregon, United States. The waterfall is accessible from the ...
and one mile west of
Warrendale, in the
Columbia River Gorge
The Columbia River Gorge is a canyon of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Up to deep, the canyon stretches for over as the river winds westward through the Cascade Range, forming the boundary between the state ...
on
Interstate 84/
U.S. Route 30
U.S. Route 30 or U.S. Highway 30 (US 30) is an east–west main route of the United States Numbered Highway System, with the highway traveling across the Northern U.S. With a length of , it is the third-longest U.S. Highway, afte ...
.
It is across the
Columbia River
The Columbia River (Upper Chinook language, Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin language, Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river headwater ...
from
Skamania, Washington.
[ Dodson is within the ]Cascade Locks
Cascade Locks is a city in Hood River County, Oregon, Hood River County, Oregon, United States. The city got its name from Cascade Locks and Canal, a set of locks built to improve navigation past the Cascades Rapids of the Columbia River. The U. ...
ZIP code.
Dodson was a railroad station on the Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company line (today owned by Union Pacific
The Union Pacific Railroad is a Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United States after BNSF, ...
) named for Ira Dodson, who was an early settler in the area.[ Circa 1885 the station was also known as "Dodsons". Author ]Ralph Friedman
Ralph Friedman (June 3, 1916 – June 3, 1995) was an American author, best known for his books about Oregon, which included travel guides and popular histories.
Born and raised to an impoverished Lithuanian Jewish immigrant family in Chicago, ...
says Dodson is a "hamlet that time and tracks have passed by".[
Dodson was the site of the McGowan salmon cannery and a ]fish wheel
A fish wheel, also known as a salmon wheel, is a device situated in rivers to catch fish which looks and operates like a watermill. However, in addition to paddles, a fish wheel is outfitted with wire baskets designed to catch and carry fish fro ...
c. 1900.[ In February 1996, a series of massive ]debris flow
Debris flows are geological phenomena in which water-laden masses of soil and fragmented Rock (geology), rock flow down mountainsides, funnel into stream channels, entrain objects in their paths, and form thick, muddy deposits on valley floors. ...
s, resulting from the same severe weather that caused flooding in the Willamette Valley, occurred between Dodson and Warrendale, destroying homes and blocking the railroad and I-84 for several days. A 1.65 acre parcel in the landslide area was bequeathed to the Friends of the Columbia Gorge Land Trust
Land trusts are nonprofit organizations which own and manage land, and sometimes waters. There are three common types of land trust, distinguished from one another by the ways in which they are legally structured and by the purposes for which th ...
, which hopes to convey the property into public ownership.
References
External links
Images of Dodson
from Flickr
Images of the Dodson landslide
from Waymarking.com
from Portland State University
Unincorporated communities in Multnomah County, Oregon
Ghost towns in Oregon
Columbia River Gorge
Unincorporated communities in Oregon
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