page_title: Yamhill River lock and dam
section_title: Surge in log transports
hierarchical_section_title: Yamhill River lock and dam / Surge in log transports
caption_attribution_description: English: Steamboat landing at Lafayette, Oregon 1938
context_page_description: The Yamhill River lock and dam was completed in 1900. It was built near Lafayette, Oregon, to allow better river transport on the Yamhill River from Dayton, to McMinnville, Oregon. While the Corps of Engineers had recommended against construction of the lock, it was built anyway, largely as a result of political effort by the backers of the project. For almost forty years prior to the lock construction there had been efforts made to construct a lock and dam on the Yamhill River.
  The lock was a single-lift chamber 210 feet long and 40 feet wide, located on the west side of the river. The dam extended from the east bank of the river to the eastern lock wall, and when the lock gates were shut, acted to back up the Yamhill river and raise the water level sufficiently to allow ready steamboat navigation to McMinnville during the summer dry season. During the winter the lock and dam were more of an obstruction than an navigational aid, as they were frequently overtopped by freshets and floods, sometimes as high as or higher than twenty feet above the lock walls.
  The lock ceased to be used in any significant way soon after it was built.
context_section_description: In the 1930s a series of forest fires, known as the Tillamook Burn greatly increased the amount of salvaged logs shipped down the Yamhill River through the lock.  An important railroad trestle also burned, which left the river as the best remaining transport.  In 1939 the number of logs transported on the Yamhill river was over two hundred times greater than what it had been in 1931.
  The lock was closed from May 25 to June 20, 1935 while new lock gates were installed and repairs made to the miter sills.
  In 1941, 99,000 tons of logs, with attendant small tugs, were transited through the lock.  In 1943, 101,981 tons of logs were brought through the locks, the highest volume ever, falling off to 79,895 tons in 1946.  In March 1947, the large Pope and Talbot logging concern, purchased property just upriver from the locks, and organized a log dump.  Trucks brought logs to the river that had pooled up behind the dam, and dumped them in the water.  Tugboats came up through the lock and towed the logs downriver.  This continued until the early 1950s, when the log dump was destroyed by fire and rebuilt at Dayton, downriver from the lock.
  On September 8, 1949, the water behind the lock and dam was scheduled to be lowered to 2.5 feet (0.76 m)to allow repairs to be made to the dam and fish ladder.
caption: Lafayette steamboat landing, 1938
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