Underwood, Washington

Welcome to Underwood, Washington

The Underwood community’s economy was historically based on the extensive timberlands, and after the land was cleared, the orchard industry took hold. Before 1908 there was very limited transportation opportunities to this region of the Columbia River Gorge and travel consisted of taking a series of steamboats and portage railways around the rapids that had been in use on both the Oregon and Washington sides of the Columbia River since the 1850s. Regular access to the north side of the Columbia River came with the development of The Spokane, Portland, and Seattle Railway (SP&S) at the turn of the 20th Century, this transportation improved the local agricultural industry. Construction on the North Bank Railroad, as it was initially termed, began in 1906 and officially opened March 11th, 1908. About the same time c1907 construction of the North Bank Highway also termed State Road No 8 began with later sections completed by 1916. This road follows present day Cook-Underwood Road north of the river up on the terrace, it was rerouted closer to the river over different time spans beginning in the 1930s with the planning for the Bonneville hydroelectric dam. The dam was planned to produce 500,000 kwh of power which in turn attracted aluminum processing plants to the Southwest Washington region during World War II and ultimately led to increased industrial development within the river’s settlements. The backwater from the installation of dam in 1934, caused the river to rise some 64 feet behind the structure. Shown is the original 1936 USACOE Survey Map overlaid onto a modern aerial used for HGIS analysis (Frazier 2020).