The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1909-09-23
BiGGS THE DESOLATE
ITS DRIFTING SAND

The following description OF Biggs.
wDere several prominent men of Ore
gon made their start, is uniquely
described by John Cradelbaugh, tor.
merly editor of the Glacier, In the
Portland Oregonian:
Perhaps the most desoIate place in
Oregon, for that matter anywhere
is Biggs. The most dreary, sand.
blown desert camp in Nevada or
Arizona is beauty spot beside it,
Its only advantage over them being
that it is on the bank Of the Colum
bIa, and that IL always beautiful.
But turn your back to the river and
he place is desolation. Every body
has heard of Riggs, simply because it
is a rairload junction, the northern
terminus of the Columbia Southern,
built by E. E Lytle aud Walter
Moore, lS yeers ago.
Twas going to say it boasts of half a
dozen houses, but it doesn't. 1t has
that many, but it doesn't boast about
them.
Biggs is located at the mouth of a
canyon about 10 miles long, up which
the Columis Southern climbs to the
magnificent wheat fields OF Sherman
County, 1900 or 1850 feet above"it.
There is more sand to the square
rod at Biggs than anywhere in the
world, and 1t is restless, rowing hobo
sand, too. Originally it no doubt
came from the faraway Snake River,
and got piled up on the Oregon shore
at Cello, by the Columbia. AS the
river reCedes, the west wind sweeping
up along its course, carries the sand
back along the beach aud never ending
sheet Of it, drifting like fine dry
snow, up the longer slopes of the big
sand drifts, to be deposited on the
steep lea side of them. Thus slowly
these big drifts travel, ever eastward
during the Fall and Spring, carried
up the slope, deposited on the otLer
side, moving by impercepitble de-
grees, but always moving.
1t vagaries have caused the 0. X
Il N. officials more trouble and worry
than all the foods and fires and other
things sthat ever happened to it. 1t
crawled onto the tracks and stayed
there, and though the little grains
we're not larger than mustard seed,
they we're more powerful than the
great moguls, and stopped all traffic
The travelling public swore at the
railroad company, and waited i'm.
patiently for trains that never came
the railroad management dsmne the
public for its refusal { accept the in.
evitable, aud lay awake of nights try
ing to devise some way to stop the
enCroaohments of the intinitesimal
bits of Iock, and inoidently to make
life burdensome to the section bosses,
who, in turn growled at the section
crews as they lifted their tiny shovel:
laden with the resistless yellow stuff
in vain opposition to the tireless west
wind. Other places on the road had
sand and plenty of it but Biggs wai
unreasonable. The railroad company
built sand fences, regular biliboards,
set at an angle OF about 40 degrees
to the track. to change the ooulse OF
the sand stream For miles on either
side OF the road, tut few feet apart,
these fences line the track looking
for ali the world like the backbone OF
some mighty fish Is or 20 miles long
might look, the road representing
the spine, and the fences the lines o.
parallel ribs. This plan ploved o.
great benefit, and is still in use, al
being the best, in fact, the only
thing that accomplished anything
1t helped some, even at Blggs, bu
there every day is holiday for th'
sand, aud it does just as it plesses.
During a little quiet spell, when The
West wind WAS on vacation anc
the river was high, someone bull
a two. story hotel there and painted
it white. The sand dunes Whispered
the story to each other and waited
By and by the water went down, "nt
miles of sand beach we're uncovered
Then the West wind came sweepinI
up the river to see what had peeI
going on while it was away, and theI