Mosier: Sawmills and Steamboats on the Gorge

The small Columbia River Gorge town of Mosier traces its roots to a Massachusetts man named Jonah Mosier who arrived in Oregon Territory in the early eighteen fifties. He and his wife had come west with their children. According to local accounts, he staked a claim at the mouth of a creek between Hood River and The Dalles, where he is said to have built sawmills and a boat landing so lumber could be shipped downriver.

The creek, the valley, and eventually the town all took his name. The town site was platted later in the nineteenth century. Mosier was incorporated in nineteen fourteen and remains a quiet farming community in one of the most dramatic river canyons in the American West.