The Willamette River, the historical heart of western Oregon, flows north through its eponymous valley to join the Columbia at Portland.

It has long been both a north-south highway and a barrier to east-west travel. To this day, the Wheatland Ferry provides the only crossing of the Willamette (wil-LAM-et) between Salem and Oregon State Route 219 outside Newberg, a distance of roughly 25 river miles.

This ferry was started by Daniel Matheny in the 1850s and has been in operation ever since. Indeed, the ferryboat has always been named the Daniel Matheny, followed by a Roman numeral (currently V) denoting the vessel’s generation. It is tethered by two cables across the river, one overhead and upstream, the other downstream and below the water surface.