George Stevenson stood on the north bank of the Columbia River and envisioned a community strategically located for commerce at the narrow Gorge above the Cascades of the Columbia, where every traveler on this liquid highway stopped to portage the rapids. In 1889, he purchased the old Shepard donation land claim for $24,000, plotted a riverside town, and gave it his name. In its early days, rough-and-tumble Stevenson supplied merchandise, entertainment, and camaraderie for loggers and farmers scattered across rugged wooded hills. Modern Stevenson conducts its business with a view of one of the finest Gorge vistas. An early resident, A.C. Sly, recalled that there were no roads at all and that one could scarcely get around by horseback, but five or six steamboats a day came in even as late as 1908, making life necessarily leisurely.