John Day: Lost Histories
The dike west of 3rd street on the river in Umatilla should have been
covered by water from John Day. Courtesy of the Umatilla Museum
and Historical Foundation
The impact of John Day stretched far upriver, affecting social as well as biological communities. The numerous rapids and islands of the John Day reach were covered, flooding the spawning grounds for thousands of fish. Blalock Island, in the Columbia, where Indians and whites hunted, settlers raised horses and peach trees, and mined gold, was almost completely inundated. Lake Umatilla covered native petroglyphs, four towns, 87 miles of highways and 140 miles of railroad lines. The lake destroyed the towns of Boardman and Arlington and was scheduled to flood parts of Umatilla and Roosevelt. Although the Corps paid some residents to salvage their homes, it razed other buildings.
When Ernabel Mittelsdorf was asked in a 1999 interview what she remembered about moving the town of Boardman, she replied:
Losing the river. We lived on the river, and losing the river was probably the most traumatic thing. The river was free flowing and when I was away [and then returned] that was the first thing I did was walk down by the river and listen to it rustle. So that was not a good thing to lose. But that's the way it is.
Losing the original town to the waters of the Columbia resulted in a loss of historic buildings and culture that, according to Carol Michael of the Boardman Chamber of Commerce, has relegated the citizens of the town to a sense of second class status in Morrow County. In an effort to reclaim a sense of history in the community, citizens of Boardman recently gathered to share memories of the old Boardman school. Together they watched home movies of individuals trudging through the soon-to-be-deserted streets, hauling their homes away from the river.
"Relocation" from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers document
East Oregonian article - "Before the dam: Boardman revisits former town site"
Ernabel Mittelsdorf remembers the town of Boardman
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