Rail Depot Museum

This listing is provided by Explore Troutdale

On November 20, 1882 a rail line was built through what is now Troutdale and east through the Columbia River Gorge. Troutdale’s founder, Capt John Harlow, asked the railroad to establish a depot at his town site. When they refused, he sailed his small riverboat up the Sandy River during a spring freshet and declared the river navigable demanding an expensive draw bridge to accommodate river traffic instead of the trestle planned by railroad builders. He obligingly withdrew his demand when the railroad bowed to his wishes for a depot. The original 1882 depot burned in 1907.