"TRIBUTE TO A BARLOW ROAD TRAVELER
Here, in 1924, beneath decades of brush, engineers for the Mt. Hood Loop Highway discovered a grave. An old wooden wagon tongue served as a headboard. Workers dug up a wagonbox casket that held the remains of an emigrant woman. After reburial, a cross was placed in tribute to this unknown pioneer. Once the highway opened in 1925 Mt. Hood Loop travelers stopped to place stones and flowers at the site.
The son of Steven Coalman Former Barlow Toll Road Superintendent adds to the story:
"My father remembered meeting man who had just buried his wife. He buried her in a wagonbox made from the bed of the wagon, and made a crude fence around the grave. She had been very sick, and they had camped there several days before she died. The man had two small children, a boy and a girl, both under five years of age."
Information from the road sign at the site of the grave.