Fort Cascades National Historic Site
📍 Washington, North Bonneville
A quiet 1.5-mile loop trail through the earthworks and building footprints of an 1855 Army fort — built to guard the Columbia's toughest portage — now a National Historic Landmark with the vanished town of Cascades still underfoot.
An 1855 army post, now just its footprint
Fort Cascades was built in 1855 to protect the portage road around the “lower cascades,” the final and most dangerous stretch of rapids on the Columbia River, at a time of conflict between the U.S. Army and regional tribes during the Yakima War era. The fort and the small town of Cascades that grew up around it were later abandoned; the site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987.
Today a 1.5-mile interpretive loop trail traces the former fort, the town site, a fishwheel replica, two historic portage roads, and a grave site, with signs marking what stood where. It’s one of the least-visited stops in the immediate Stevenson area — most travelers pass it entirely for Bonneville Dam next door.
Visiting
- Trailhead off SR-14 near milepost 38 in North Bonneville, via Dam Access Road — a few minutes from downtown Stevenson.
- Free, no entry fee; vault toilet at the trailhead.
- Flat, easy 1.5-mile loop; shaded and can be buggy in summer.
🐿️ Cinnamon was here
Field report
Just up the road from the last stop, I found the older, quieter half of the same story: Fort Cascades, an Army post the humans built in 1855 to guard the portage road around the Columbia's roughest water, now a National Historic Landmark of foundations and signs instead of walls.
The 1.5-mile loop took me past stone footings where the fort's blockhouses stood, the traced outline of a whole vanished town called Cascades, an old grave site I bowed to twice out of respect, and a fishwheel replica spinning over the same rapids that made this portage worth defending in the first place.
Nobody else was on the trail when I went — just interpretive signs doing the talking. Every trail review agreed on one thing: bring bug spray, it's shaded and buggy in summer.
— Cinnamon 🐿️
📸 Cinnamon's camera roll
Snapshots from our very good boy on the road.
Where it is
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