Step across the new pedestrian bridge and into history at Fort Vancouver

Artwork, information panels, and native plants and shrubs add beauty and a sense of place to Maya Lin's Land Bridge carrying pedestrians and bicyclists over SR14 near Fort Vancouver. Bill Wagner / The Daily News

Saturday, October 4, 2008 11:33 PM PDT

By Tom Paulu

VANCOUVER — It’s an awkward place for a concentration of historic sites, framed by railroad tracks and two freeways, under a steady stream of jets roaring in and out of PDX.

But if you tune out the occasional noise, the 366-acre Fort Vancouver National Scenic Reserve offers plenty of history in a compact area in the middle of the city.

Its newest attraction is the Land Bridge, a much-heralded pedestrian pathway over Highway 14 designed by internationally known architect Maya Lin.

Considering the bridge, a nearby replica of an 1845 fort, stately houses from the late 1800s, large grassy expanses and an aviation museum, there’s plenty to keep a family occupied for hours. And Fort Vancouver is only a 45-minute drive from Kelso.

The best place to start your wanderings is at the visitor center off of Evergreen Boulevard, where you can watch movies about the fort’s history and pick up a map and brochures for all the attractions.

Land Bridge

Whether you think it’s a wonderful piece of history-themed architecture or an overpriced pedestrian freeway overpass, the Land Bridge invites exploration. It’s about a quarter-mile walk or bicycle ride from the Fort Vancouver stockade.

The bridge, which was finished last summer, was paid for with $12.2 million in federal, state and private funding. It spans the four-lane Highway 14, re-establishing the link between the fort and the Columbia River waterfront which existed in the 19th century.

The Land Bridge is the largest installment of the Confluence Project, a series of seven works done in conjunction with the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Maya Lin, best known for designing the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., designed the Confluence Project sites, including one at Cape Disappointment State Park near Ilwaco.

The Vancouver structure is called a “Land Bridge” because the 40-foot-wide pathway has plenty of room for plants in addition to people. The 1,500-foot-long bridge is also a nature walk, with signs describing the plantings, and a historical exhibit with photographs. One of the sitting areas is decorated with the words for “water” and “land” in Northwest native languages.

The bridge also provides a pilot’s-eye view of the Pearson Field runway and views of Mount Hood.

When Lin attended the bridge’s official opening in August, she said the bridge’s purpose of connecting the fort’s prairie-scapes and the river would be clearer in five to 10 years, when its trees are bigger.

On the river side, the pathway is a few yards from double railroad tracks, though trains are infrequent at that point.

The path descends under a Welcome Gate formed with canoe paddles to the curious little Old Apple Tree Park, which holds an apple tree planted in 1826, reportedly the oldest such tree in the Northwest.

From there, you can walk through an underpass under the tracks and come to the river, close to Who-Song and Larry’s restaurant. Vancouver’s Waterfront Renaissance Trail — a nice, broad sidewalk — continues for a mile or so between the river and condos, as well as two more restaurants farther east: a McMenamins pub and Beaches.

Fort Vancouver

Fort Vancouver was established in 1825 as the regional headquarters for the Hudson’s Bay Co., which built up a fur trade ranging over the northwest territories.

All the original buildings had either burned or crumbled away by the 1860s. A century later, the National Park Service began reconstructing the fort as it would have looked around 1845, its “biggest and most profitable” period, said ranger Aaron Ochoa. Builders had plenty of drawings and even photographs to use as guidelines, Ochoa said.

Today, about one-third of the original fort has been rebuilt, complete with the outer wall of 2,500 logs with sharpened tops.

The structures range from the relatively elegant Chief Factor’s residence, with carpeting and fine china, to the rough jail.

Most days, volunteers work in the blacksmith shops, stoking the fires with a huge bellows and banging out replicas of 19th-century hardware on anvils.

“This shop has the best collection of blacksmith artifacts of any facility in the U.S.,” said John Prutsman, who was busy making a spoon last week.

Other buildings house the dispensary, fur store, woodworking shop and counting house, where clerks would toil all day tediously copying documents.

Rangers give tours several times a day, or you can check out a self-guiding audio tour.

You can also watch real archaeologists at work. With some 1.5 million artifacts excavated to data, Fort Vancouver is the most extensive archaeological dig in the Northwest.

A popular wintertime attraction at the fort is the guided candlelight walks. “People always take for granted that we have electricity,” Ochoa said. “It’s a whole different story when the lights go down.”

Entrance to the stockade costs $3, with the audio tour another $3.

Vancouver Barracks

The U.S. Army took over Fort Vancouver after the British left and eventually built a regional headquarters there. It was an active army post from 1949 until 2000, and military vehicles on site attest to the fact that it’s still used by Army Reserve and National Guard units.

The public is welcome to walk or drive through the post, where many of the buildings date to the late 1800s. Most impressive are the 21 elegant houses of Officers Row.

Most of the houses now are offices or private residences. However, the first floor of the imposing Marshall House is open to the public 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays and sometimes on weekends.

The 1886 Queen Anne style home has stained glass windows and a decorative turret. From 1936 to ‘38, it housed the base commander, Brig. Gen. George C. Marshall. Exhibits tell about Marshall, who went on to be Army Chief of Staff during WWII and secretary of defense and state.

Marshall was the author of the Marshall Plan for rebuilding the economies of Europe and Japan after the war.

“We get a lot of Europeans here who know way more about Gen. Marshall than Americans know,” said house guide Paula Knight.

Another house that’s open to the public, the Gen. O.O. Howard House, isn’t as impressive. And the Grant House, built in 1850, now holds a restaurant.

A brochure points out architectural highlights of all the houses.

You can check them out as you stroll along Officers Row. For a walk of several miles, continue on the path that encircles the parade ground and links to the fort and Land Bridge.

Pearson Air Museum

“In 1805 we had the first balloon come here,” Ochoa said.

A century later, a plane flew over from Portland and landed in what at the time was the military base’s polo field. The Army established Pearson Field, an Air Corps base, in 1925.

The field made world headlines in 1937, when Valeri Chkalov landed there after the first trans-polar flight from Moscow. A busy mall-lined street off I-205 is named after Chkalov.

After World War II Pearson became a civilian field for small planes. (A major factor in designing a proposed replacement for the I-5 bridge over the Columbia River is that it not interfere with the airport’s landing path.)

The 1918 hanger houses exhibits on aviation and 15 historic aircraft --- though none of the more famous WWII warbirds.

It’s open from 10 a.m to 5 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for seniors and $3 for students ages 6-12.

If you go

To reach the Fort Vancouver National Historic Reserve, take exit 1C from I-5 and turn left onto Mill Plain Boulevard. Go one block, then turn right onto Fort Vancouver Way by the Clark County PUD.

Lantern tours of the fort will be held at 7 p.m. Nov. 8 and 22, Dec. 6 and 20, Jan. 10 and 24 and Feb. 7 and 21. The cost is $10 for adults and $7 for children. Reservations are required by calling (360) 816-6230.

Special events for children and adults are scheduled regularly. For more information, visit www.nps.gov/fova