The Dalles ( ), formally the City of the Dalles and also called Dalles City, is an inland port, the county seat of and the largest city in Wasco County, Oregon, United States. The population was 16,010 at the 2020 census, and it is the largest city in Oregon along the Columbia River outside the Portland Metropolitan Area. The Dalles is 75 miles (121 km) east of Portland, within the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.

History The area around The Dalles is known to have been a trading center for American Indians as long as 10,000 years ago and is thus one of the oldest inhabited places in North America.

The site of what is now the city of The Dalles was a major American Indian trading center. The general area is one of the continent's most significant archaeological regions. Lewis and Clark camped near Mill Creek on October 25–27, 1805, and recorded the Indian name for the creek as Quenett.

Etymology The name of the city comes from the French word dalle, meaning either "sluice", akin to English "dale" and German T[h]al, "valley", or "flagstone", referring to the columnar basalt rocks carved by the river (in voyageur French used to refer to rapids), which was used by the French-Canadian employees of the North West Company to refer to the rapids of the Columbia River between the present-day city and Celilo Falls. Also in the same area was the Petites Dalles or Little Dalles, or Short Narrows. In French, "les dalles" means "the slabs". When a river flows over hard flat rocks, it becomes shallow, and rapids are created.

Fur trade The first use of the name Dalles, according to Oregon Geographic Names, appears in fur trader Gabriel Franchère's Narrative, on April 12, 1814, referring to the long series of major rapids in the river. Starting in the 1810s, Americans and Europeans passed by what became The Dalles, active in the North American fur trade as employees of either the American Pacific Fur Company (PFC) or the Canadian North West Company (NWC). Men like NWC officer David Thompson voyaged both down and up the Columbia, traveling through Celilo Falls. The War of 1812 led to the 1813 liquidation of the PFC, its properties like Fort Astoria sold to the North West Company.

In 1821 the North West Company was absorbed by the giant London-based Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Fort Vancouver, built in 1824, replaced Fort Astoria as the regional fur trade headquarters. The HBC's trading network made extensive use of the Columbia River. The rapids of the Columbia River at The Dalles was the largest and longest of the four "great portages", where fur trading boats had to unload and transship their cargoes. Sometimes, during high water, boats traveling downriver would "shoot the rapids" instead of portaging, although the practice was dangerous and many people died as a result over the years.

Wascopam Mission

In 1838 a branch of Jason Lee's Methodist Mission was established at Celilo Falls, named the Wascopam Mission, after the native Wasco Indians. In 1850 the U.S. Army founded a small post at the site of the old mission, being eventually named Fort Dalles. Fort Dalles became the nucleus of the town of The Dalles, which began to develop along the waterfront. In 1855, at the end of the Cayuse War, the Indians living near The Dalles were forcibly relocated by the U.S. Army to the Warm Springs Indian Reservation.

American settlement In the early 1840s American settlers began to arrive in significant numbers, traveling overland via the Oregon Trail. The trail ended at The Dalles. It was not possible to take wagons farther west due to steep cliffs that fell straight into the Columbia River. Until the construction of the Barlow Road in 1846, the only way to reach Fort Vancouver and the Willamette Valley was by rafting down the river from The Dalles.

A post office was established within the boundaries of the current city in 1851, and The Dalles was incorporated as a city in 1857. It has been the major commercial center between Portland and Pendleton since. The city was originally named just "Dalles". In 1853 it was changed to "Wascopum," then, in 1860, to "The Dalles".

In 1864, the U.S. Congress appropriated money to build a U.S. mint in The Dalles that was to use gold from Canyon City for coinage. The supply of gold from Canyon City began to dwindle, however, and other problems, such as cost overruns, workers leaving to work the gold fields, and flooding from the Columbia River, also contributed to the project running two years behind schedule and led eventually to its demise. In 1870, the State of Oregon received the property from the U.S. Government and the building was put to other uses.Wasco History . Wasco-history.r9esd.k12.or.us. Retrieved on June 4, 2012. The mint is now home to Freebridge Brewing.

20th and 21st centuries

Construction of The Dalles Dam in 1957 submerged the Long Narrows and Celilo Falls.

In 1963, Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was published featuring the narrator, Chief, who is from The Dalles.One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Summary and Analysis: There's a Monopoly Game . CliffsNotes. Retrieved on June 4, 2012.

In 1970, the Bonneville Power Administration opened the Celilo Converter Station near the northern terminus of the Pacific DC Intertie which sends 3,100 megawatts of electricity to Los Angeles.

In 1982, a curly-coated kitten was born on a farm in The Dalles owned by Linda and Dick Koehl. The Koehls used this kitten and her offspring to develop a new breed of cat called the LaPerm, which went on to become a popular, established, championship pedigree cat breed around the world.

In 1984, The Dalles was the site of the first and single largest bioterrorism attack in United States history.

In 1986, Penalty Phase, a film starring Peter Strauss and Melissa Gilbert, was filmed in and around The Dalles.Tarlton Law Library – Law in Popular Culture Collection – Law and Lawyers in Popular Culture . Tarlton.law.utexas.edu. Retrieved on June 4, 2012.

Geography

Highways I-84, US 30, and US 197 meet in the city.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water.

Climate

The Dalles is usually classified as a semiarid (Köppen BSk) climate region. However, it has some characteristics of the midlatitude oceanic climate that dominates west of the Cascade Mountains, combined with seasonal precipitation patterns very similar to those found in Mediterranean climates. The city's location in the eastern Columbia Gorge results in the presence of numerous microclimates within a few miles of town. To the immediate west, the winters are significantly wetter, and summers are significantly cooler. In contrast, upland locations to the south are significantly cooler in all seasons. The generally warm and dry summers near town make it the ideal climate for the numerous Bing cherry orchards in the area.

The summer season runs from mid-June through early September and is quite warm by Pacific Northwest standards; however, summer weather often oscillates between intense heat waves and much cooler and windier periods. Except for the occasional sporadic thunderstorm, there is almost no summer rainfall.

From late September through early November, the area experiences an abrupt autumn during which normal temperatures drop very rapidly and cloudy, wet weather quickly picks up. Prior to the sudden onset of the rainy season in mid- to late fall, there are often days with a very wide disparity between daytime and nighttime temperatures, sometimes exceeding . There is far less wind in the fall than in spring and early summer, though passing frontal systems can still bring quick bouts of strong wind.

Winter is the wet season in The Dalles. Despite the rain shadow effect created by the Cascades, there is still enough precipitation most years to support relatively high soil moisture levels for most of the winter. This is a very similar pattern to what happens in classic Mediterranean climates – except that the temperatures are significantly colder. The area receives measurable snowfall virtually every year, but the snow totals fluctuate dramatically from one year to the next; some seasons see only one or two brief light snow events while others get major snowstorms and cumulative totals of or more. The most snowfall in a season has been between July 1949 and June 1950. Average winter temperatures are only about colder than in cities such as Portland and Seattle, and temperatures below are very rare, but not unheard of – historically occurring on three mornings out of every five winters, but only once since February 1996.

As in the summer, winter temperatures can vary tremendously from one day to the next. During arctic air events the daytime high temperatures will generally be well below , while a strong subtropical push can raise temperatures into the 50s and low 60s F, even in January. It is quite common for relatively cold air to become trapped at low elevations due to an inversion above; depending on the temperature of the surface airmass, depth of the inversion layer, and temperatures above the inversion layer, this can result in snow, sleet, freezing rain or a very cold liquid rain.

Springtime conditions generally run from late February through early June, during which time the overall trend gradually becomes warmer and drier and the landscape briefly turns lush and green. This is the windiest season of all, with a powerful west wind on most afternoons. During stormy periods in spring, conditions are usually cloudy and cool, while most sunny and calm days become intensely warm, especially from April onward. Springtime temperatures often vary more from one week to the next than they do from one month to the next.

The growing season is roughly 200 days long in a typical year, generally running from early April through most of October. However, the spring frost dates can range from mid-March to early May, and the fall frost dates can range from late September to mid-November.

A weather station is located at nearby Columbia Gorge Regional Airport, also known as The Dalles Municipal Airport.

Economy In 2006, Google began building a major data center, known locally as Project 02, along the Columbia River in The Dalles, using the area's reliable hydroelectric power and underutilized fiber optic capacity. The new complex includes two buildings, each approximately the size of a football field, and two cooling plants, each four stories high. The project promised hundreds of jobs in the area, mainly in construction, with an additional 200 permanent positions expected later in 2006 although as of 2013 Google employed only 150 combined company employees and contractors in The Dalles.The Dalles · Google Data Centers . Google.com. Retrieved on June 4, 2012.

Top employers

In 2021, Wasco County published a list of top employers in the region. Mid-Columbia Medical Center was the number one employer listed with over 500 employees; a local school district, Oregon Cherry Growers and Fred Meyer all reported more than 250 employers. Google employed between 100 and 250 people, according to the list.

In 2012, the top 15 employers in The Dalles according to the Mid-Columbia Economic Development District report on "Largest Employers in Wasco County" were:

# Employer # of employees 1 Adventist Health Columbia Gorge915 2 North Wasco County School District360 3 Oregon Cherry Growers275 4 State of Oregon243 5 Fred Meyer 230 6 Oregon Veteran's Home 208 7 Columbia Gorge Community College 200 8 Wasco County 181 9 Google 150 10 Safeway 142 11 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 125 12 City of The Dalles 100 13 Home Depot 100 14 Cousin's Country Inn 100 15 Orchard View Farms 90

Education

The Dalles is home to Oregon School District 21. Originally 2 school districts; District 9 in the Chenoweth area and District 12 which included much of The Dalles.