Fort Cascades Historic Site

Fort Cascades was established in 1855 in the state of Washington in order to protect the portage road around the lower end of the Cascade Rapids of the Columbia River. The fort was located on Hamilton Island, downstream from the Bonneville Dam. In 1856, a group of Indians attacked the white settlements and Fort Cascades was burned to the ground. The fort was rebuilt but was then abandoned in 1861 because the Army needed to focus its attention on the Civil War. The town of Cascades developed around the fort and took over the buildings when the Army moved out. In 1894, a flood on the Columbia River wiped out the abandoned fort and the town of Cascades. The Fort Cascades Historic Site is on the Register of Historic Places and offers an interpretive trail, which follows the bed of the portage railroad as it was in 1836 and leads to the Cascades Townsite and Fort Cascades Campground.