Baker's Ferry Road, Carver Oregon
N 45° 23.421 W 122° 29.803
10T E 539396 N 5026438
The road now known as Baker's Ferry apparently began as an encampment route for Native Americans and has progressed into a paved road that leads into Portland, Oregon. (Approximately 25 miles)
Waymark Code: WM6R28
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 07/11/2009
Views: 14
Copied from the sign at the listed coordinates:
"Grinding Rock"
Native Americans are understood to have used this large rock for grinding acorns, nuts, or corn, and preparing other foods. The several holes are evidence of long term use. This rock may have been close to Native American encampments located near the mouth of nearby Clear Creek. Abundant fall salmon runs congregated at the mouth of the creek and would have been an attractive source of food. Fall encampment is also harvest time for the acorns and other grains of the Willamette Valley and would have been ground to floue in these holes during theis time. no other evidence of Native habitation have been discovered on this Historical site. Once harvested, the acorns were dried n th open air. Women then pounded acorns into meal frm which they would make soup and mush, often using a rock like this one displayed. Natives differ on the use of the name "grinding rock". Some perfer to call such rocks "pounding rocks", since acorns were really pounded into meal rather than ground. Other call them "bedrock mortars", because the rocks served as a mortar against which women pounded the dried acorns using a stone pestle. This process left holes in the rock over many generations of use.
Winding down close by from this stone was the trail to the river that was eventually developed into the wagon road leading to Horace Baker's slack-line ferry. Evidence of the wagon road extends along the hillside just inside the tree-line from the shed to the Pioneer Church. Passing the Grinding Rock, a branch trail now leads to the restaurant and up to the cliff face. On the way, there are several remains of quarried rocks showing evidence of drilling and cleaving."
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Additional information copied from this website:
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visit link)
The Clackamas River at Carver was originally crossed using a slack-line ferry orperated by Horace Baker. Subsequently a wooden covered bridge spanned the river and is reported to have been the longest covered bridge in the State. The modern steel truss bridge replaced the wooden bridge, and is itself now slated for replacement in 2009. Located alongside the wooden bridge was a large train trestle of the C & E Railway. That line extended out past Viola and served several sawmills and communities.
The modern era significance of the trail/road can be found on this website, a portion has been copied here:
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visit link)
"Horace and Jane Baker traveled west from Illinois in 1846. The Bakers chose the area for their 640-acre Donation Land Claim due to a basalt rock formation. Horace Baker was a stone mason by trade and, being a very enterprising man, envisioned this area as one of great promise. The quarry became a thriving business. At that time the area was known as "Baker’s Quarry". Horace also ran a slack-line ferry across the Clackamas River where the bridge is now located.
In the area which is now the Carver Boat Ramp the quarried rock was loaded onto barges and during the spring floods was floated six miles down the Clackamas River to Oregon City and distributed from there. Rock from the quarry provided the materials to build the Oregon City Locks, the Tillamook Lighthouse, Portland’s Pioneer Post Office, the Portland Hotel, and more.
Later the area of the Baker land claim became known as "Stone". It was not named after the quarry, but after Livingstone Stone, who was the first superintendent of a fish hatchery located near the confluence of Clear Creek and the Clackamas River. This was only the second fish hatchery in the nation, and the first in Oregon.
The area of "Stone" was renamed "Carver" after Steven Carver who platted the first development in the area and built a railway to service the town. The current bridge was built in 1955."