[3] Publicly owned and privately operated, Timberline Lodge is a popular tourist attraction that draws two million visitors annually.

Oregon woods used throughout the building include cedar, Douglas fir, hemlock, western juniper and ponderosa pine.

Some of the skilled stonemasons on the project were Italian immigrants brought in after working on The Historic Columbia River Highway and other roads in Oregon.

[5]: 338 "All classes, from the most elementary hand labor, through the various degrees of skill to the technically-trained, were employed," reported the WPA's Federal Writers' Project.

"Pick and shovel wielders, stonecutters, plumbers, carpenters, steam-fitters, painters, wood-carvers, cabinet-makers, metal workers, leather-toolers, seamstresses, weavers, architects, authors, artists, actors, musicians, and landscape planners, each contributed to the project, and each, in his way, was conscious of the ideal toward which all bent their energies.

Likely-acquainted with William Gray Purcell, a fellow resident of Portland, Smith saw the Prairie School aesthetic carried through in tables, chairs, sectional sofas, columns, bedspreads, draperies, lampshades, and pendant lighting fixtures.

[5]: 338–339 During an inspection tour of government activities in the western U.S., President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated Timberline Lodge on September 28, 1937.

[13] In his speech, he said: This Timberline Lodge marks a venture that was made possible by WPA, emergency relief work, in order that we may test the workability of recreational facilities installed by the Government itself and operated under its complete control.

Looking east toward eastern Oregon with its great livestock raising areas, these visitors are going to visualize the relationship between the cattle ranches and the summer ranges in the forests.

Looking westward and northward toward Portland and the Columbia River, with their great lumber and other wood using industries, they will understand the part which National Forest timber will play in the support of this important element of northwestern prosperity.

[5]: 339  In her My Day column, Mrs. Roosevelt praised the lodge's architectural features: "It is built exclusively of native products and by WPA labor.

[citation needed] Exterior views of Timberline Lodge were used in The Shining (1980), Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of Stephen King's 1977 novel set at the fictional Overlook Hotel.

[19]: 162 [20][21] Other feature films shot at or around Timberline Lodge include Jingle Belles (1941),[22] Bend of the River (1952), All the Young Men (1960), Lost Horizon (1973), Ski School (1991), Hear No Evil (1993), and Wild (2014).

[23] Brief exterior views of a snowy Timberline Lodge were used as a stand-in for a "Bavarian Ski Resort" in multiple episodes of Hogan's Heroes.

Director Boris Sagal was killed in an accident on the third day of filming the NBC-TV miniseries World War III (1982), after he walked into the tail rotor blades of a helicopter in Timberline Lodge's parking lot.