Peter Skene Ogden State Park

The Peter Skene Ogden State Park in Oregon is located on the Crooked River Gorge in the northern part of Central Oregon, along Highway 97 south of Warm Springs.

“This Park is named for Peter Skene Ogden, 1793-1854. In the fall of 1825, Ogden led a Hudson’s Bay Company trapping party on the first recorded journey into Central Oregon, crossing the country to the north and east into the Crooked River Valley not far above here. He was in the vicinity again in 1826 bound for the Harney Basin and the Klamath Region where he discovered Mount Shasta. Ogden was an important figure in the early fur trade and ranged over all the west. He rescued the survivors of the Whitman massacre. Ogden, Utah, was named for him.”

The second trip mentioned has another History Sign dedicated to Peter Skene Ogden.

The Crooked River Gorge is an imposing feature on the landscape here. It is 500 feet deep and has been around for about 1.2 million years.

The view from the top of the gorge is pretty cool. But you can see that it made construction of all three bridges (railroad, new highway, and old highway/pedestrian bridge) here quite an engineering feat. There is a history sign here, but it’s hard to get a picture of it as it’s bright white and frequently very sunny.

“Central Oregon’s roads were primitive at best during the early 1900s. Until the 1930’s US Highway 97 was a collection of unpaved roads. Prior to construction of the Crooked River (High) Bridge in 1926 the only nearby was a small, one lane, wood structure called the Trail Crossing located about a mile upstream.”

(rest of sign unreadable)

It was yet another bridge in Oregon designed by Conde McCullough.