Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The name, honoring Capt. George Vancouver, who explored the Columbia River in 1792, came from the Hudson's Bay post named
Fort Vancouver. While the city was still part of the Oregon Territory, the Oregon Territorial Legislature named it Columbia City.
However, in 1855, the legislature changed it back to its original name, creating a situation that will always cause confusion. Locals
point out that Vancouver, British Columbia, is a Johnny-come-lately city and if any name should be changed, it should be the Ca-
nadian one. That prospect is doubtful. To help avoid confusion, the city is often referred to as Vancouver, USA, or specifically as
Vancouver, Washington.
The Northwest has no Hearst Castles or Winchester Mystery Houses, no Death Valley Scotties. In that favorite tourist category
of eccentric mansions, the Northwest offers only the
Maryhill Museum of Art,
a place whose evolution from barren hillside to
empty palatial home to museum took 26 years.
The museum-jokingly called “Castle Nowhere” -stands in isolated splendor on a bleak, sagebrush-strewn section of desert
along the Columbia River, 100 miles east of Portland and Vancouver and 60 miles south of Yakima. This was just the setting that
Seattle attorney and entrepreneur Sam Hill wanted when he was searching for a home site early in the 20th century.
Hill's most extravagant venture was an attempt to establish a utopian Quaker town “where the rain of the west and the sunshine
of the east meet.” He purchased 7,000 acres on the north side of the Columbia River south of Goldendale, and in 1914 began
building his concrete palace, which was to be the farm's centerpiece. He named the spread Maryhill, after his wife, daughter, and
mother-in-law, all three named Mary Hill. Hill attempted to interest Quakers in investing in his community. He built them a meet-
ing hall and a few other facilities as enticement, but the Quakers declined. His wife, too, refused to live in this godforsaken place,
taking the children and returning to Minnesota. All of the buildings constructed for the utopian town were destroyed in a fire in
1958.
About three miles upriver from the museum, just east of Highway 97, Hill built a concrete
replica of England's Stonehenge,
as it might have looked when intact, and dedicated it to the Klickitat County soldiers who died in World War I. Hill also built the
Peace Arch
that marks the U.S./Canadian border at Blaine, Washington.
The World War I years saw the mansion incomplete and bereft of inhabitants. After the war, President Herbert Hoover appointed
Hill to a commission to help with Europe's reconstruction. There he met the three women who were responsible for Maryhill be-
coming a museum: Loie Fuller, a modern-dance pioneer at the Folies Bergère; Alma Spreckels, of a prominent California sugar
family; and Queen Marie of Romania, whose country Hill aided during the post-war recovery period.
Fuller was particularly enthusiastic about the project and introduced Hill to members of the Parisian artistic community. Hill
soon bought a large Auguste Rodin collection of sculptures and drawings.
When the 1926 dedication of the still-unfinished museum neared, Queen Marie agreed to come to New York and cross America
by train to attend the ceremonies. She brought along a large collection of furniture, jewelry, clothing, and religious objects to be
donated to the museum. Today her collection is one of the museum's largest.
Hill died in 1931 and was interred just below the Stonehenge monument, overlooking the river. At the time of Hill's death, the
museum still wasn't quite complete. Alma Spreckels took over the project, donating many pieces from her extensive art collection
and seeing to it that the museum was finished and opened in 1940. On that occasion
Time
magazine called it “the loneliest museum
in the world.”
Sam Hill's original 7,000-acre spread remains intact, and the museum of sculpture, art, and trappings of Romanian and Russian
nobility is worth the drive into the hinterlands. Standing on the veranda might feel a bit lonely, but the view is breathtaking and
helps answer the question, “What in Sam Hill was he thinking?”
