A Century of Development - Oregon Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

This history sign is located on the new wetlands walkway at Farewell Bend Park in Bend.

Marker Name: A Century of Development
Marker Text: A Century of Development in central Oregon has changed the river’s natural rhythms. Flowing through the high desert for tens of thousands of years, the Deschutes River waters a thirsty landscape. Beginning as Cascade snowmelt, its life-giving water rushes, pools, and eddies for 250 miles from its headwaters at Little Lava Lake to its mouth at the Columbia RIver.
Long before Bend became central Oregon’s largest city, settlers began to tame the free-flowing river with the development of dams to support logging and agriculture. While dams have many benefits for humans, they impact the river ecosystem by altering the river’s natural flow, channel shape, water quality and habitat.
In 1949, Wickiup Reservoir was built to store irrigation water for agricultural lands north of Bend. As a result, the river’s once steady year-round flow now fluctuates seasonally. Winter flows are reduced as water is stored in the reservoir, and summer flows are increased as the water is released toward downstream agricultural lands. Low winter flows expose barren riverbanks, accelerating erosion along miles of the Deschutes River. Sediment moves downstream toward Bend.
Here in town, the Deschutes River slows behind the Colorado Avenue dam, forming a large pond in an unnaturally wide channel. The sediment that entered the river upstream settles here along the banks, forming mudflats.

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