All who crossed the plains realized that the greatest problem was how to get across the mountains. The search was always for lower passes, and authorization of the construction of the Barlow wagon road was one of the first acts of the provisional legislature. But the search for lower, better routes across the mountains continued so that in the fall of 1859 when Andrew Wiley, John Brandenburg and John Gray first discovered the South Santiam Pass, they realized that it would probably be one of the most travelled passes, not only for settlers who were continuing to move into the Willamette valley, but also for the stock men who could drive their herds to the eastern Oregon range each summer.
They were so enthusiastic that they at once made an estimate of the cost of constructing a road. Their estimate was $1,522.25.
Others became interested in developing this mountain pass and effort was made to raise money for building such a road by public subscription. When that failed they formed a company to build it as a private toll road.
The first articles of incorporation for "The Willamette Valley and Cascade Mountain Road" were filed in 1864 by Luther Elkins, Morgan Kees, John Settle, Isaac Coryell, Jacob and James Richardson. Their enthusiasm was evidently contagious because the second and third articles of incorporation contained the names of several other Lebanon men, as well as some who lived elsewhere.
In 1861 the toll road was begun. The company received 800,000 acres of land from the state - every odd section along the right of way from Albany to Ontario to help with the cost of construction. The first toll gate was about three miles east of Sweet Home with John Gilliland appointed first gate keeper.
The tolls were not exhorbitant. Six horse teams paid a toll of $3.50, two horse teams $2.00; one horse outfits $1.00; saddle horses 75 cents, and pack horses 20 cents. Cattle were charged for at the rate of 10 cents each, while sheep and hogs were paid for at the rate of 3 cents a head.
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When the first transcontinental motor trip was made by Dwight B. Huss, he chose to cross the Cascades by way of the South Santiam Pass, and went through Lebanon on his way to the Lewis and Clark fair in Portland. Service stations were then undreamed of and as he drove westward he wired to the towns ahead for gas. In a town the size Lebanon was then, the amount of gas required for the early Oldsmobile he drove was seldom on hand and so one of the hardware stores hurriedly sent for gasoline in order to have it when he arrived. In passing it might be of interest to note that in 1931 Huss crossed the continent again in the same car which by that time looked like a relic of the remote past to the many school children who gathered to watch him pass, and again he stopped in Lebanon.
J. L. Nye, keeper of the toll gate in 1905, noted that all animals gave the Huss car a wide berth. When Huss came to pay his toll, as there was no published tariff for automobile, Nye classifed the gasoline buggy as a "road hog" and let it pass through the gate for three cents, the toll charged for hogs on hoof.
The old toll gate was a plain, heavy wooden affair, with bars set close enough so no small animal like a pig could crawl through. The planks were set horizontally about 6 inches apart. It was hung on heavy posts which stayed a fence that extended on both sides of the road as far as one could see. Both gate and fence were of crude heavy timbers, but somewhere the first gate keeper had found a can of blue paint to "doll up" the gate itself. The key and lock of the historic toll barrier were used by Marvin Nye, who served as the last toll gate keeper, until his death.
The first forest look-out in the county was established near Lebanon by Marvin Nye, who was agent for the company which succeeded the Willamette Valley and Cascade Road Company. Nye, who sensed the dangers and losses of forest fires, nursed the idea that they could be prevented. Naturally enough he had difficulty in persuading the company he represented that such disasters which everyone had looked upon as acts of God could be controlled, but they finally gave him permission to try out his idea, so he sent his brother Bert to the highest place near the Middle Santiam River, a hill with an altitude of 3,700 feet. That was the beginning of our fire prevention work, before national forestry began in 1905.
The governor of Oregon and the state forester officially honored Nye for his part in inaugurating this work. Nye was a grandson of John Settle, one of those on whose land Lebanon was developed.
For many years the South Santiam road was a busy highway with wagon trains as much as half mile in length and herds of as many as 500 head of stock not at all uncommon. Sheep men in eastern Oregon sent their wool across the pass to the mill in Brownsville and Waterloo, and the teams returned with loads of vegetables and fruit.
| 1910/11 - Main & Maple St. - Joe Mayer, Ed Kellenberger, Sr., Elmore Harden, Albert Ziezing, Elmer R. Grones  |
In the heyday of railroad building, Lebanon was on a line projected from Newport, Oregon, to Newport, Rhode Island. In an effort to keep a franchise, T. Eggenton Hogg, who was constructing part of such a road, hauled a box car and a section of track to Sand Mountain, where he had a short length of road bed graded and the car set up. The amount of traffic did not justify the expense and the road was never built. However, the section of track and the car stood there for many years, reminders of the early dream. The track rusted and the box car withered away until only rusty bolts and plates remain. Old timers recall that the box car containing two sacks of beans, hauled by a mule, made two round trips daily over the short section of track.
Transportation was Lebanon's first problem. Roads were poor; dusty trails in the summer - a mire of mud in the winter. But with a population so sparse the expense of building good roads was prohibitive. So great hopes were entertained for water transportation by using the rivers. This hope that some day river boats would solve Lebanon's transportation problem led to one of the most colorful episodes in the town's history.
So sure were many early settlers that some day boats would ply the Santiam that when the railroad bridge was built at Jefferson, great pressure was brought to compel the railroad to construct a drawbridge. This would have been very expensive and to prove that it would be an unnecessary expense, the railroad company sent a boat up the river. The results of the effort to send a boat to Lebanon were such that nothing further was ever said about the need of a draw in the Jefferson bridge.
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Lebanon Genealogical Society
© 1998 Jan Phillips
First posted January 1998