Vista House Observatory Columbia River Highway Oregon Map_Univ_Virginia The scene crackles with cannon

The scene crackles with cannon flash and churned water

1917 — a mobilization broadside from the spring America abandoned its old neutrality

rendered in the sober lithographic register reserved for men whose vocations crossed both ocean and color line in the long aftermath of the war

Every bracket and sash in the lantern-room geometry seems set down with the patience of someone who knew the sea would test it

cataloged from above in linen postcards of the 1920s and '30s

Vista House Observatory Columbia River Highway Oregon Map_Univ_Virginia The scene crackles with cannonVista House Observatory Columbia River Highway Oregon arrives in octagonal stone perched high on Crown Point, its rotunda windows surveying the gorge where basalt cliffs plunge toward the river's silver bend. Built to crown the great scenic highway, it stands sentinel over winding switchbacks and Douglas fir a marble jewel of the auto touring age, cataloged in linen and real photo postcards from the 1920s and '30s. About the Source Bella Frye curates