"Here by the wayside, where travelers still use the pass at the river side, though no longer coming in canoes that are to be carried around the swift waters at this point, let there be a cippus, with a tablet of enduring bronze, listing a few of the names of the intrepid men and women who brought civilization to the Pacific Coast... In the centuries to come, the youth who sees these names emblazoned here and asks what they did to make them worthy of this honor, may be referred, not to shell heaps and shards, nor to the relics of a primitive and savage race, but to the white man's brilliant and moving tale of the discovery, exploration and settlement of the Columbia River valley."
