For more than three decades, the Rafferty family played an important role in the development of Government Camp. From the Government Camp Hotel to Rafferty’s Hut and the later Mountain View Inn, their businesses served generations of climbers, skiers, and travelers visiting Mount Hood.
Every now and then, a piece of historical material surfaces that doesn’t need to be rewritten or interpreted—it simply needs to be preserved and shared. This list has no source but is only a clipping that was found in a scrap book.
The history of Zigzag Oregon is not the story of a town that failed to grow, although it never did. It is the story of a place that has always been defined by movement – by rivers, trails, roads, and the people who passed through them. Long before there was a town of Zigzag, settlers, businesses or the highway that travels past, this area was already an important place on the south side of Mount Hood.
Henry Steiner was known throughout the Mount Hood region as a master builder of log homes. He and his wife, Mollie, raised their family in Brightwood, where Henry built dozens of rustic cabins that still stand today.
In the early days of the road to Mount Hood, after the immigrant era, the road allowed the burgeoning new city of Portland to access the mountain for recreation. Mountain climbing and hiking the trails in the foothills in those days was the primary activity in the area. Skiing had yet to become an activity on the mountain.
