Cascadia Daily Photo

In the early part of the 20th Century, highway engineers were working on a project to get a road through the Columbia River Gorge. The technology of the day involved digging four tunnels along the length of the highway. Oneonta Tunnnel is a 125 foot bore through the rock near Oneonta Gorge, and can be seen along hte Historic Columbia River Highway (the one used before Interstate 84 was built through the Gorge). It had been filled in around 1948 and was only reopened in March 2009. More historical information can be found at this link. But beyond the dates and statistics about the tunnel, when I had the opportunity to see it, I loved the fact that I was witnessing an achievement that had been accomplished a century before, one that I cound now see and feel. I was there to see something that I had only seen before in history books (where you might see it with a “modern” Model T driving through). Photo: Taken at Oneonta Gorge in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon on 29 August 2010.