The Longmire Wagon Train
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Camp Columbia

The Longmire Wagon Train, also, Camp Columbia. . , The Longmire Wagon Train , In 1853, Congress authorized the survey and construction of a road from the Snake and Walla Walla Rivers through the Cascade Mountains. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis ordered Captain George McClellan to construct the road and make it passable to emigrants . It passed through what is now Columbia Park and was later called River Road or Old Military Road., Hearing of this road, the Longmire party, led by James Longmire, brought 36 wagons and 150 people past this area in September 1853 on their way from Shawnee Prairie, Indiana to the Nisqually prairie in western Washington state. They represented the first wagon group to pass through the Yakima Valley and cross the Cascade Range. , Leaving the established Oregon Trail and turning north at the Umatilla River near Pendleton, OR, they reached the Columbia River at Wallula. They moved up the Columbia River to the mouth of the Yakima River and followed it to the Horn, crossing the river 8 times in a distance of 10 miles. At the second crossing, a party member by the name of McCullough died and was buried in a “lonely grave on the banks of the Yakima.” , The party made its way west through Selah then crossed the Naches River 68 times before eventually reaching the Cascade summit. , Along the way, they had to kill oxen to make rope from their hides in order to lower the wagons down a precipitous 300-yard cliff. , The party arrived in the Puget Sound area in October 1853 and established farms and ranches in the shadow of Mt. Rainier., Camp Columbia , The 25-acre Camp Columbia was built by the Federal Prison Industries, opening on February 1, 1944 to hold “minimum-custody-type improvable male offenders.” The Camp consisted of five barracks, an office building, hospital, mess hall, storage and utilities buildings, recreation hall, and many others. , Camp Columbia housed a total of 1,300 prisoners with a maximum of 290 present at any one time. Inmates included conscientious objectors, rationing and price support law violators, and others convicted by military court martial. Because of the proximity to the secret Hanford project, non-Americans were not sent here. , Inmates worked in orchards and vineyards in the White Bluffs, Hanford, and Richland areas. The fruit was shipped to the McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary near Tacoma, where it was processed and mostly canned for military use. 5,669 tons of fruit valued at over $500,000 were processed while the Camp was operational. , Although there was no fence, only 12 prisoners escaped in 4 years of operation. There were 40 guards stationed here. , Camp Columbia was closed on October 10, 1947. It was used in 1949 to house workers who built the levees along the Columbia River as part of the McNary Dam project. After being abandoned in 1950, the buildings were moved elsewhere or dismantled and the materials reused. All that remains today is a foundation. In 1966, the Camp Columbia site and other lands were transferred to Benton County, becoming Horn Rapids Park.