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Mt. Hood Territory Travel Articles
- Hidden Gem
- Just an Old Barn
- Road Trip
By M.J. Cody, The Oregonian Column, Wingin’ It
The barn is a hundred and fifty years old. Or more. I pass by the 1880s farmhouse and walk across the green lawn, edging around the fresh dirt mounds of industrious mole excavation up to the barn side door where I hear the whine of a power saw. Other industrious mammals are inside. The two-legged kind. Tom Burnett and a friend are finishing restoring the barn on a tight time-line to get the farm in operation by Mother’s Day. They have a couple of foundation timber post ends left to replace, and will move on to tightening the cable they've installed to reinforce the entire structure.
I make my way inside and wait for a pause in the sawing, then shout. Tom pulls off his ear protection and turns to see me admiring the work.
"This should last another 150 years," Tom says.
The barn repair is an ongoing labor of love that he and others have worked on for forty years. He shows me the most recent efforts. A new foundation has been installed with a concrete base to foil moles, but the barn appears to be sitting on a stone foundation, as was the original. All of the reconstruction has been done with vintage lumber and beams, or ripping lumber from locally felled fir trees, using a local saw mill. As Tom remarked, the current renovation – installing cables and the foundation restoration – should be the last major effort for a long time.
The barn is one of two original buildings left intact on the Philip Foster Farm in Eagle Creek, between Sandy and Estacada. The Foster Farm was established in 1847 after Foster became partners with Sam Barlow in building the Barlow Road. The route would be an alternative on the Oregon Trail for the pioneers, over Mt. Hood to Oregon City and the lush Willamette Valley, rather than having to negotiate the treacherous Columbia River rapids.
Foster owned a store in Oregon City at the time, and decided the new location would be a perfect rest stop for the steady stream of settlers coming through on the newly established toll road. The Foster Farm essentially became the first "destination resort" in the Oregon Territory. After months of arduous travel, the emigrants would find an oasis with a general store, a blacksmith shop, cabins to rent, wagon camps, pastures for their stock, oats, wheat, and fresh fruit and vegetables. The Foster's also provided lodging and meals at their house.
By 1880, Eagle Creek was a thriving community with an expanded store, dance hall, saloon, post office, drug store, schools, gristmill, and a nearby lumber mill. It is estimated some 10,000 emigrants passed through the Foster Farm from 1848 to 1915. With the dwindling of new arrivals, and a railroad and trolley system from Portland established, Eagle Creek soon was overshadowed in 1903 by the new resort town of Estacada.
Only the barn and the house are original. It is known that the current house on the farm was built in 1883 by Philip Foster's son, Egbert, and the guess is that the barn was built in the 1860s because of the mortise & tenon with wooden peg construction. Tom notes that the decaying posts had been repaired once since it was built, and because of the square nails used, puts that work at around 1900.
Tom tells me that barns of this vintage are disintegrating and collapsing all over Oregon. He says there are basically two things will ruin a barn: water and fire. If a barn roof fails, the barn rots, inviting bugs to help finish the job.
I leave Tom to the restoration work and exit back across the lawn. The lilacs are budding out and the place looks serenely beautiful. I hear the whine of the power saw accompanying birdsong, and I can't help but be grateful for all the good people who work on, and have saved, this lovely farm.
As I drive away I take a last glance at the fine, wholesome, no-nonsense structure of that barn so lovingly restored as though it were a living thing. I've heard Tom refer to it with consternation and tenderness as if it were a family member. And well he should. His great-great-grandfather built it.
IF YOU GO: The Philip Foster Farm, 29812 S.E. Hwy. 211 (near the junction of Hwy. 224 & 211) From Portland: I-205 to exit 12, Clackamas/Estacada. Follow Hwy. 224 toward Estacada to Eagle Creek and the junction of Hwy. 211. From OR 26, Sandy, take Hwy. 211 to Eagle Creek.
The Philip Foster Farm is open year-round. Buildings – farmhouse, barn, reproduction store, blacksmith shop and cabins – and tours are available to the public June-October. For information: 503.637.6324.
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