I found these two pictures of the Fish Creek Airstrip from 1956 - sure looks a LOT different than it did the last time I saw it (which was before the fires). Also interesting was that it was built by the Dwyer Lumber Company which had a mill down by Fish Creek (I'm assuming it was probably in the area where the Fish Creek campground is).
Plane Approaching Airstrip from the Air
This is what it looked like in 2009 when I visited it - I'm sure it looks WAY different now:
Nice find!
The 1966 map has the "DWYER LOGGING CAMP" located about 1/4 mile up Fish Creek from its confluence with the Clackamas River.
I've sometimes wondered why Fish Creek wasn't designated as a river. It seems to have more flow than the Roaring River.
I hadn't looked at that - that area must be the one that they recently blocked off - people used to do dispersed camping there.
I may investigate seeing if I can get permission to download those images to display here - I think they are kind of cool - a bit of background on an oddity in the district....
There's some historical information about the airstrip and logging on Fish Creek in a book about the Dwyers. It's been a long time since I've looked at it but I think there are some photos.
The Dwyers : pioneers in the timber industry by Katherine McCune Hurd. The Estacada library has a copy: https://lincc.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/lincc/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ILS$002f24$002fSD_ILS:24684/ada
I ended up getting one of the copies - I'm still reading it but they also talk about a strip up on La Dee Flats (before the Fish Creek one) and also one out near Peavine Mountain (after Fish Creek was built). I don't see any references on any maps to either of the other two air strips - it sounds like the Fish Creek one was the one that was mostly used since it was near the logging camp.
I also didn't realize the logging up Fish Creek was so long ago - sounds like Dwyer started logging Fish Creek in the late 40's. Given the dates on some of the bridges (70s), I always assumed it was later. Those concrete bridges must have been replacements for log bridges maybe?
I've seen references to the airstrip at LaDee but haven't seen anything about one near Peavine. Here's a newspaper clipping from 1946 about the LaDee airstrip:
Some of the older maps have this circle symbol. I did a little research and am pretty sure this indicates an unpaved runway. This is from the 1952 MHNF map.
