Oregon city, tribes trying to save 2,500-year-old village site

Crumbling asphalt roads and docks still mark where the town of Umatilla once stood, but even deeper are the remnants of the 2,500-year-old tribal village of matalam.

Almost nothing has been done with the 70-acre Umatilla town site, found within 800 acres owned by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The city was moved to its current site in the mid-1960s to make way for the Columbia River to rise behind the John Day Dam.

Now the city of Umatilla and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation have started talking about what can be done to preserve the area and its history.