Oregon Experience: Sam Hill

Sam Hill was a zealous evangelist and promoter of good roads, which he saw as a key to progress and economic growth. To sell his Good Roads program to an initially reluctant public, Hill used one of the cutting-edge technologies of his time — the stereoscopic glass slide projector. After the completion of his crown jewel, the Columbia River Highway, Hill went to great pains to have the highway photographed and turned into hundreds of hand-tinted glass slides. He used these slides wherever he traveled, in presentations throughout the Northwest and internationally, to promote roads and road building.

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