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History of Early Pioneer Families of Hood River, Oregon.
Compiled by Mrs. D.M. Coon

EARLY HISTORY OF MOUNT HOOD TOLD BY PIONEER
CAPTAIN H.C. COE

From Hood River News, March 6, 1918:

The summer of 1886 was unusually hot and dry; fierce forest fires raged in the mountains, and the air was blue with smoke. Oscar Stranahan and I had been on our annual summer outing, this time into the Lost Lake Country. The trip had been a disappointment, there was absolutely no game and the fish would not bite. So, turning our horses towards home, we reached the mouth of Lake Fork. There we decided to take the old trapper's trail across the valley to the East Fork. Here also the fires were raging. Looking towards Mt. Hood, where dense clouds of smoke were rolling southward, a thought came to me.
"Oscar", I said aloud, "Do you suppose that fire will burn through the dead-wood so we could reach the mountain? It certainly looks good. We will came back when it gets cooled off and try it.
Two weeks later we returned. Crossing the East Fork about a mile above David Cooper's farm, we made our way through heavy underbrush across what was afterwards known as the Perkins Flat to a small spring a short distance east of Evans Creeks named after R.O. Evans, an early day resident of the town of Hood River and who later took up a homestead on the creek.
From our camp west the fire had made a clean sweep and scarcely a vestige of timber or brush remained, but to the south the great timber barrier had not been touched. A change of wind had driven the fires back and finally extinguished them.
The next day two pioneer residents of the upper valley came into camp -- James Graham and David Cooper. They also supposed the way was open to the mountain and were going to pick berries.
Finding the way still blocked, Graham returned, but Cooper decided to join us in our attempt to open a trail to the mountain.
INDIAN TRAILS CROSSED VALLEY. In pre-pioneer days a large well-traveled Indian trail led from the mouth of Hood River southwesterly through the valley past the Barrett schoolhouse to the foothills, where it crossed Hood River past the Davis Divers farm, then up the east side of the middle fork and up the Eliot glacier fork to where Cloud Cap Inn now stands. Part of this trail is still discernible. Another trail from the Baldwin place crossed near Coopers and joined it near the foot of the lava beds.
These trails had been extensively used by the Indians in their annual tripe to the mountain to gather pine nuts and huckleberries. But many years prior to the advent of the white men a terrific wind storm had passed across the foot of the mountain uprooting trees and completely blocking the trails.
I, in company with others, had made several attempts to find a way through the timber barrier, but had failed to reach even the wind-fall. Only on foot was it possible to break through and then only by following the course of the river. Now, however, the way was clear to the great windfall, or so that it could be reached without difficulty.
FALLEN TRES BLOCK THE WAY. Three days were spent in prospecting for the most feasible route and we finally decided to make an attempt up the east bank of Evans Creek. Three days hard chopping brought us to the top of China Hill and on the fourth Mason Baldwin decided to make a fourth member of the party. The additional help enabled us to reach the top of the hill overlooking Roaring Camp early in the afternoon of the following day and the sight that met our gaze was certainly disheartening. Across the Roaring Camp flat to the green timber was a mass of fallen timber and brush that seemed absolutely impenetrable. "Well," said Baldwin, "I'm done, you can't get through in a months" Stranahan and Cooper agreed with him. He had spent about a week and found a fairly good route so far and only the wind-fall, half a mile wide, intervened. The green timber was open, as I knew, and if we failed now -- well, we were not going to fail and. I said, "Boys, I'm going through." They all tried to dissuaded me, but in vain. It was certainly a strenuous trip. The heat was intense, we had not tasted a drop of water since the early morning in camp and the dead fir leaves filled my clothes.
Sometimes I crawled on my hands and knees, sometimes flat on the ground and at times twenty feet in the air on some fallen log. In one place five large trees were piled one on top of another forming a breastwork that I could neither climb over, crawl through or go around. But finally I found a place where I could, with a little digging, get wider.
As I returned, a trail of fire blazed up behind me and I reached the open spot where the men were none too soon. It was a foolhardy trick, for in ten minutes such a roaring hell of fire I never saw and never expect to again -- not in this life, anyway, and Roaring Camp had been named. A week later we returned and went through on foot, it being to hot to take our horses through, and trees were still falling.
In two weeks we returned, Stranahan, Cooper and myself, Baldwin having quit. The road was clear now and we rode through to Eliot Glacier, blazing a trail through to the snowline of Mt. Hood.
TRAIL ENLARGED INTO WAGON ROAD. Later we decided to enlarge our trail into a wagon road. It was a large undertaking for three men who had little else but muscle to put into it, but that was just what did the work. The road was built, a poor one at best -- but it could be traveled and was used a great deal more than we had expected. A charter from the county was secured and toll rates established. Three years later the road was sold to Ladd & Company of the Ladd & Tilton Bank of Portland, who rebuilt it and also built Cloud Cap Inn.
POINTS ON THE MOUNTAIN ARE NAMED. Soon after opening the trail, Stranahan, Cooper and myself were exploring the mountainside near the snowline and so en-tranced had I become with the wondrous scenes and the greatness of everything round me that I forgot, for a time, that there were others, but turning I saw Stranahan standing near, also gazing in silence on the majesty of the view spread out before us. "Where is Dave, Oscar?" "Dave? Why there he goes up that rocky spur." And sure enough, there at the skyline of the ridge that now bears his name was Cooper, a mere speck in the distance hopping from one great rock to another, making his way to the top of the ridge like a demented billy goat. "He said he was going to the top of the ridge to see what was on the other side,' remarked Stranahan, and added, "Why not call it Cooper's Spur?" "Good," I replied, and Cooper's Spur it is and Cooper's Spur it will be until time shall be no more.
ELIOT GLACIER IS NAMED. "Wouldn't it be a good idea," continued Stranahan. "to give this glacier a name?" "Yes," I replied, "I think it would distinguish it from others around the mountain."
"Well," he said, "I named Cooper's Spur; you name the glacier. Now at Hood River spending the summer was a prominent Unitarian divine, the Rev. Thomas L. Eliot of Portland, who had made considerable investment in the valley and was a great booster for Hood River. His name came to my mind. "Suppose we call, it after Dr. Eliot." "Good," said Stranahan. "Eliot Glacier it is."
On Cooper's return we told him what we had done and it was satisfactory with him, although we might have done better, he thought, in naming the spur.
BARRET'S SPUR. Lying between the middle and west forks of Hood River and reaching to the snowline on Mt. Hood is a heavily timbered mountain commonly known as Blue Ridge.
The year previous to the opening of our road, Dr. Perry G. Barrett, Hood River's first practicing physician, for whom the Barrett district school was named, accompanied by Mrs. Barrett, had made an excursion up the west side of the Blue Ridge to the snow line, camping there several days. So we decided that no better name could be found than Barrett's Spur.
NEWTON CLARK GLACIER. Lying south of the White River glacier is a large receding glacier less broken than those on the north slopes. Newton Clark, a prominent early day settler of the valley, was, I believe, one of, if not the first man to make a trip over it, and Stranahan informed me that it had been decided to name it after him.
THE COE AND STRANAHAN GLACIERS. Commencing near the summit of the mountain on the north runs a small but extremely scarred and broken glacier. Near its toot it strikes squarely against. Pulpit Rock and divides, one half going east and the other going west. One day as I was standing on the ridge overlooking the valley Stranahan came up to me and said, "Mr. Coe, as you were the, instigator of the building of the road and opening up the mountain resort, it is no more than right that you should be remembered in the names given out, so Mr. Cooper and I have named the glacier that we crossed yesterday the Coe Glacier. "Very good, Oscar," I replied. "As we have been partners in this road-making business and that glacier splits in half on Pulpit Rock, the west shall be Stranahan Glacier."
My story of the building of the Mt. Hood road is done. Not a great deed now, but a large item then. Had we not built then, someone else would have done so later.
Little did we think when we so glibly handed out names for the rugged ridges and ice caves on old Hood's rock-strewn sides that they were written as lasting as the rocks themselves.
Would it not be a gracious act for the Hood River Pioneer Society to place an inexpensive though lasting tablet on some prominent point commemorating those men for whom these places have been called?