History of Mt. Adams

By Cheryl Mack, Trout Lake Archeologist & Historian

The 12,276-foot-high volcano that we now call Mt. Adams was known as Pah-to to local Klickitat and Yakama Indians. The mountain figured prominently in legendary stories, and its lower slopes provided berries and game in abundance. The first Euro-Americans to record seeing the mountain were members of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1805, but they misidentified it as Mount St. Helens, which had been named even earlier by British explorers. Mt. Adams received its present name in the 1830’s, following a failed scheme by the mapmaker Hall Kelly to rename the peaks in the Cascade Range for American presidents. Kelly did not even know that Mt. Adams existed, but he accidently placed the name he intended for Mt. Hood a bit too far to the north, where in fact a mountain happened to be. None of his other names stuck, but since Mt. Adams had no official name at the time, the name stayed. The name was in common use by the 1840’s, but it doesn’t appear on a map until 1854, with the publication of the Pacific Railroad Survey map. The earliest image of Mt. Adams was painted by the renowned landscape painter Albert Bierstadt, following a visit to the area in 1863. This monumental painting (measuring 4.5’ by 7’) currently hangs in the Art Museum at Princeton University.

Photo Credits (hover to pause)

1: North Side of Mt. Adams, Courtesy USFS

2-4: Mt. Adams Ascent, Courtesy Seattle Mountaineers, 1911

5: Mt. Adams Ascent, Courtesy Seattle Mountaineers, 1922

The first ascent of Mt. Adams (by non-Indians) was reportedly from the north side in 1854, by a party of men working on the immigrant wagon road over Naches Pass. Edward J. Allen, A. G. Aiken and Andrew J. Burge are given credit for this ascent, although few details are known. Attempts to climb Mt. Adams from the south side are documented in newspaper articles as early as 1858, but the first successful ascent was likely in August of 1864, by a group of men from Hood River and The Dalles, guided by “Indian Johnson.” Indian Johnson was a local White Salmon Indian formerly known as Sapotiwell. In 1856 he was credited with warning the Joslyn family of an impending attack by Yakama Indians, thus saving their lives. According to the newspaper account of their climb, Indian Johnson refused to go above timberline on the mountain, out of respect for the sacred nature of the peak. The mountain became popular with climbing groups in the early 1900’s, with numerous mass climbs of close to one hundred people.

With the creation of the Forest Service, Mt. Adams took on a new role. The devastating forest fires of 1910 resulted in an emphasis on fire detection, and Forest Service staff were searching for the most effective places to build fire lookouts. A fire lookout was built on the summit of Mt. Hood in 1915, and by 1916 the Forest Service began considering the idea of building one on the summit of Mt. Adams. Placing a lookout on a 12,000-foot snow peak was a daunting task, but by 1918 the four-year process of building a structure on the summit began. Materials were hauled by truck to Morrison Creek campground, by packhorse to the base of the mountain, and then hauled to the summit on either the backs of men or using counter-balanced sleds. Actual construction began in 1920, and the building was completed in 1921.

Darryl Lloyd’s 2018 book “Ever Wild – A Lifetime on Mt. Adams” has a wonderful description of both the construction of the lookout and the ordeals of the men who staffed it for the next three years. Ardith Thompson’s father, Art Jones, was one of these men, as was Adolf Schmid. The lookouts not only had to regularly haul their own supplies to the summit on their backs (including kerosene and canned milk), but they also had to keep all windows and doors to the lookout clear of snow, make sure the phone line to the lookout (a single string of #9 wire many miles long – their only means of communication) remained intact, and protect themselves during lightning storms. During one memorable storm in 1923, the door of the lookout was blasted off by lightning, and the hinges completely melted (as did their phone line). In 1924 the decision was made to abandon the lookout that had taken four years to build. This decision was based more on the fact that high clouds often obstructed the view from the summit, making the lookout less useful than those at lower elevations.

The abandoned Forest Service fire lookout on the summit of Mt. Adams found new life in 1929, when Wade Dean of White Salmon formed the Glacier Mining Co. and proposed mining sulfur off the summit of the mountain. He hired a crew of young men, and the first two to arrive on the summit had to chop ice out of the interior of the lookout to create a place for the eight crew members to sleep. Dean paid $7.50 a day plus room and board (such as it was), which were very attractive wages during the Great Depression. Keith McCoy described his personal experience working at the sulfur mine in his book “Mt. Adams Country,” and Darryl Lloyd interviewed two other crew members for his chapter on the mine in his book “Ever Wild.”

The men told of how they had to dig four-foot diameter shafts down through the ice with a pick and shovel, sending the ice back up in buckets. Dangerous pockets of sulfur gas were sometimes encountered in these ice shafts, but so were layer after layer of butterflies and insects trapped in ice. Men put olive oil and vinegar with a few drops of iodine on their skin to protect it. They wore wolverine fur on their parkas because ice didn’t cling to it. They worked in the bottom of 200-foot-deep pits. Dean eventually added a bunkhouse addition to the side of the lookout, as well as a storage shed for equipment (both are still there today). Their supplies were packed up to the summit by a team of pack horses owned by Jack Perry. Keith McCoy talked about how the trip back down (when the horses were carrying ore) was much harder for the animals than the trip up.

Photo Credits (hover to pause)

1: Glacier Mining Operation, Glacier Drill, Courtesy USFS

2-4: Glacier Mining Operation, Courtesy USFS

5: Russ Niblock, 1934

Storms were a problem for the miners as well. During one memorable lightning storm in 1936, the miners told of how they realized too late that they had left dynamite and blasting caps inside the lookout (a no-no), and after they awoke from being knocked unconscious by a lightning strike (which also set their broom on fire), they were simply glad to still be alive.

Dean eventually brought a gasoline-powered diamond drill to the summit, and work continued on the mine until 1938. His biggest problem was getting the sulfur off the mountain. Dean had big plans, which were described in an article which appeared in “Popular Mechanics” in January of 1939.

“Dean is convinced this mineral wealth can be mined profitably despite the extreme barriers. His projected nine-mile tram, from the summit crater to a base with a year-around water supply, would consist of a chain of towers and suspensions as high as two or three hundred feet above the surface of the mountainside in places, carrying half-ton capacity buckets spaced three or four hundred feet apart. The weight of descending ore would more than offset the weight of ascending freight and passengers. Under a permanent shelter, the upper end of the tram would connect with a 1,500-foot ventilated tunnel leading under the dome of the mountain into the beds of ore. Dean pictures a complete mining community built into the mountainside, with living quarters, stores, and recreational facilities deep inside where workmen would be immune from the ravages of high-altitude winters. “

Popular Mechanics, January 1939

Things didn’t go quite as planned (and a War intervened), and Wade Dean eventually abandoned his venture on Mt. Adams. But the lookout (minus the cupola) is still there, along with Dean’s additions. And the diamond drill still sits inside.

Mt. Adams Lookout 1940

Mt. Adams Lookout Today

Photo Credits (hover to pause)

1: Bird Creek Meadows, Courtesy USFS

2-3: Mt. Adams & Hellroaring Canyon, Filloon, Courtesy USFS