Little is known about the man for whom a river, a dam and two towns (John Day and Dayville) were named. The following story is based on historical fact – some of it may be true. Pictured is an illustration of what John Day might have looked liked.
“John Day,1770-1820, was a hunter from the backwoods of Virginia. He had been employed by Ramsay Crooks for several years when he arrived in Oregon, at about 40 years of age. He was described as “six feet two inches tall, a handsome man with a manly countenance, straight as an Indian with an elastic step ‘as if he trod on springs'”. It was his boast that in his younger days nothing could hurt or daunt him, but he had lived too fast and injured his constitution by excesses. Still, he was strong of hand, bold of heart, a prime woodsman, and an almost unerring shot.”
Website FindAGrave has his biography of him (plus several more pages). He was most surely quite the guy. His death and burial place as noted on FindAGrave states “buried or lost at sea. Specifically: Drowned in Snake River.”
John Day Dam, spanning the Columbia River kinda between The Dalles, Oregon, and Goldendale, Washington, was constructed between 1958 and 1971, costing $511 million dollars. It has a fish ladder and a navigation lock, that lock being 110-feet, the highest lock-lift on the river. The dam forms Lake Umatilla, a 76-mile long reservoir.
Next time you zoom along I-80 in Oregon along the Columbia River, pause to appreciate the John Day dam and remember the hardy frontiersman who was John Day.
My first encounter with John Day was when I lived in Astoria and crossed the “other” John Day River whenever I drove up the Columbia River to Portland. A few years later, I lived near the town of John Day in eastern Oregon. A very familiar name.