Bridal Veil: Paving The Way

Now look down at the road that actually carried you here, because it's a piece of history in its own right. When they laid the Historic

Columbia River Highway, between nineteen thirteen and nineteen twenty-two, it was the first road of its kind anywhere in America — a highway

built not just to get you somewhere, but to show you something. The man behind it, an engineer named Samuel Lancaster, had a rule that sounds

almost like poetry coming from a road-builder: don't scar the gorge, frame it. So he eased every curve on purpose to open onto a view, and he

brought in Italian stonemasons who hand-fit the rock guardwalls and threw those graceful arched bridges across the creeks — the kind of

craftsmanship nobody bothers with on a road anymore. They called it the King of Roads, and people drove hundreds of miles just to ride it. So

as you carry on down the rest of this drive, remember: the road is half the wonder. Somebody paved the way through here on purpose, so an

ordinary traveler like you could see what once only the rivermen and the railroad ever did.