Transportation
12
Oneonta Bluff blocked engineer Samuel C. Lancaster’s effort to extend the Columbia River Highway farther east in 1913 because the railroad occupied the only available land around the formation, and the bluff’s basalt, marked by frequent cleavages and easily broken when disturbed, raised fears that a 125-foot-long, 20-foot-wide bore would leave too little natural rock to support the outer wall and cause the formation to collapse onto the railroad track. Lancaster overcame this by having work crews from contractor S. P. White & Co. inject concrete into the crevasses to hold the crumbling basalt together, allowing the tunnel to be completed by late spring 1914 with minimal rock fall. Bypassed in 1948 and filled with rubble, the Oneonta Tunnel was reopened in 2009 and now gives visitors access from a parking area to Oneonta Gorge Creek and Falls.
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