Washington: Maryhill Museum visit

Ahead we had the longest travel day yet on our Oregon road trip but we still plan to squeeze a lot in so we leave early. It is yet another fine day and we decided to pull off I-84 to check out Hermiston, which is famous for its watermelons. The drive was quick as there was not much to make us want to stay longer – this is our first and most likely last visit to Hermiston.

What had piqued our interest was the museum of art at Maryhill, which was around the halfway point on our journey to Portland. The museum was founded by Sam Hill (1857 to 1931) who was by all accounts an interesting character. He was originally a child of the mid-West but fell in love with the Northwest and moved himself here and it became his life-long passion to develop the communities of Washington and Oregon. His fortune was made in building railroads, working in his father-in-law’s businesses. When he relocated to Seattle his wife, Mary, could not settle and returned, with her children, to Minneapolis after six months. The Northwest was still very wild and a tough environment for refined folks to accept. Anyway, Sam threw himself into building a legacy and his real passion was roads. He created the Washington State Good Roads Association in September 1899, which persuaded the Washington State Legislature to create a state highway department in 1905. Hill persuaded the University of Washington to establish the United States’ first chair in Highway engineering in 1907. After failing to convince Washington State to build a highway on the north bank of the Columbia River, he convinced Oregon officials to build the scenic Columbia River Highway, which linked coastal Astoria, Oregon and The Dalles, Oregon.

Sam wanted to build an inland empire in the Northwest and purchased land in Klickitat County, Washington along the Columbia River and named the parcel Maryhill after his wife and daughter. His original plan was to build a farming community but unfortunately, this is a place where it does not rain a lot so this adventure dried up! Today they do successfully harvest grapes and the area is now a producer of some very good wines – which has been helped with the introduction of modern irrigation systems that were not available during Sam’s time. In an attempt to tempt his wife back to Washington State, Hill built the building which now houses the museum – sadly the plan failed and the building lay empty for many years.

Monuments were another of Sam Hill’s passions. He was responsible for the Peace Arch which sits on the I-5 border crossing with Canada at Blane. With our recent travels to and from Vancouver, BC to catch flights we have had a close-up experience with this arch. A more interesting and somewhat quirky monument is the Stonehenge that Hill built next to his Maryhill estate. Of course, we had to visit this and see how it compared to the original and much more ancient edifice from our homeland. This Stonehenge was not built for druids dressed in bedsheets to shuffle around on summer solstice and instead is a monument to the local young men who fell during World War I. The structure itself is not as rustic as the original henge on Salisbury Plain, but nonetheless, it is impressive.  As always it was sad to see a record of those who had died at such a young age.

The location has spectacular views down to the Columbia River. This is a wonderful setting!