Vista House: A Rest Stop Seven Hundred Feet Up

The Historic Columbia River Highway, built between nineteen thirteen and nineteen twenty-two, was designed from the start to be as beautiful as what it revealed. Samuel Lancaster, the highway's chief engineer, chose this basalt promontory seven hundred thirty-three feet above the Columbia as the place for a rest stop and overlook, calling it a spot for silent communion with the infinite. Portland architect Edgar Lazarus designed the octagonal stone structure to suggest, in his words, the ancient and mystic Thor's Crown.

Built between nineteen sixteen and nineteen eighteen, Vista House was dedicated on May fifth of that year as a memorial to Oregon's pioneers. Inside, marble floors and stained glass windows make it something other than a typical roadside comfort station. It remains one of the most photographed viewpoints in the Pacific Northwest and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.