Chapter IV: The Early Transportation Age (1)

It is but trite and commonplace to say (yet these commonplace sayings embody the accumulated experience of the human race) that transportation is the very A. B. C. of economic science. There can be no wealth without exchange. There is no assignable value either to commodities or labor without markets.

New communities have always had to struggle with these fundamental problems of transportation. Until there can be at least some exchange of products there can be no real commercial life and men's labor is spent simply on producing the articles needful for daily bread, clothing and shelter. Most of the successive "Wests" of America have gone through that stage of simple existence. Some have gotten out of it very rapidly, usually by the discovery of the precious metals or the production of some great staple like furs so much in demand and so scarce in distant countries as to justify expensive and even dangerous expeditions and costly transportation systems. During nearly all the first half of the nineteenth century the fur trade was that agency which created exchange and compelled transportation.

After the acquisition of Oregon and California by the United States there was a lull, during which there was scarcely any commercial life because there was nothing exchangeable or transportable.

Then suddenly came the dramatic discovery of gold in California which inaugurated there a new era of commercial life and hence demanded extensive transportation, and that was for many years necessarily by the ocean. The similar discovery in Oregon came ten years later. As we saw in Chapter Two of this part there came on suddenly in the early '60s a rushing together in old Walla Walla of a confused mass of eager seekers for gold, cattle ranges, and every species of the opportunities which were thought to exist in the "upper country." As men began to get the measure of the country and each other and to see something of what this land was going to become, the demand for some regular system of transportation became imperative.

The first resource was naturally by the water. It was obvious that teaming from the Willamette Valley (the only productive region in the '50s and the first year or two of the '60s) was too limited a means to amount to anything. Bateaux after the fashion of the Hudson's Bay Company would not do for the new era. Men could indeed drive stock over the mountains and across the plains and did so to considerable degree. But as the full measure of the problem was taken it became clear to the active ambitious men who flocked into the Walla Walla country in 1858, 1859, and 1860, and particularly when the discovery of gold became known in 1861, that nothing but the establishment of steamboats on the Columbia and Snake rivers would answer the demand for a real system of transportation commensurate with the situation.

To fully appreciate the era of steamboating and to revive the memories of the pioneers of this region in those halcyon days of river traffic, it is fitting that we trace briefly the essential stages from the first appearance of steamers on the Columbia River and its tributaries. To accomplish this section of the story we are incorporating here several paragraphs from "The Columbia River," by the author: The first river steamer of any size to ply upon the Willamette and Columbia was the Lot Whitcomb. This steamer was built by Whitcomb and Jennings. J. C. Ainsworth was the first captain, and Jacob Kamm was the first engineer. Both of these men became leaders in every species of steamboating enterprise. In 1851 Dan Bradford and B. B. Bishop inaugurated a movement to connect the up-river region with the lower river by getting a small iron propeller called the Jason P. Flint from the East and putting her together at the Cascades, whence she made the run to Portland. The Flint has been named as first to run above the Cascades, but the author has the authority of Mr. Bishop for stating that the first steamer to run above the Cascades was the Eagle. That steamer was brought in sections by Allen McKinley to the Upper Cascades in 1853, there put together, and set to plying on the part of the river between the Cascades and The Dalles. In 1854 the Mary was built and launched above the Cascades, the next year the Wasco followed, and in 1856 the Hassalo began to toot her jubilant horn at the precipices of the mid-Columbia. In 1859 R. R. Thompson and Lawrence Coe built the Colonel Wright, the first steamer on the upper section of the river. In the same year the same men built at the Upper Cascades a steamer called the Venture. This craft met with a curious catastrophe. For on her very first trip she swung too far into the channel and was carried over the Upper Cascades, at the point where the Cascade Locks are now located. She was subsequently raised and rebuilt, and rechristened the Umatilla.

This part of the period of steamboat building was contemporary with the Indian wars of 1855 and 1856. The steamers Wasco, Mary, and Eagle were of much service in rescuing victims of the murderous assault on the Cascades by the Klickitats.

While the enterprising steamboat builders were thus making their way up-river in the very teeth of Indian warfare steamboats were in course of construction on the Willamette. The Jennie Clark in 1854 and the Carrie Ladd in 1858 were built for the firm of Abernethy, Clark and Company. These both, the latter especially, were really elegant steamers for the time.

The close of the Indian wars in 1859 saw a quite well-organized steamer service between Portland and The Dalles, and the great rush into the upper country was just beginning. The Senorita, the Belle, and the Multnomah, under the management of Benjamin Stark, were on the run from Portland to the Cascades. A rival steamer, the Mountain Buck, owned by Ruckle and Olmstead, was on the same route. These steamers connected with boats on the Cascades-Dalles section by means of portages five miles long around the rapids. There was a portage on each side of the river. That on the north side was operated by Bradford & Company, and their steamers were the Hassalo and the Mary. Ruckle and Olmstead owned the portage on the south side of the river, and their steamer was the Wasco. Sharp competition arose between the Bradford and Stark interests on one side and Ruckle and Olmstead on the other. The Stark Company was known as the Columbia River Navigation Company, and the rival was the Oregon Transportation Company. J. C. Ainsworth now joined the Stark party with the Carrie Ladd. So efficient did this reinforcement prove to be that the transportation company proposed to them a combination. This was effected in April, 1859, and the new organization became known as the Union Transportation Company. This was soon found to be too loose a consolidation to accomplish the desired ends, and the parties interested set about a new combination to embrace all the steam boat men from Celilo to Astoria. The result was the formation of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, which came into legal existence on December 20, 1860. Its stock in steamboats, sailboats, wharfboats, and miscellaneous property was stated at $172,500.

Such was the genesis of the "O. S. N. Co." In a valuable article by Irene Lincoln Poppleton in the _Oregon Historical Quarterly_ for September, 1908, to which we here make acknowledgments, it is said that no assessment was ever levied on the stock of this company, but that from the proceeds of the business the management expended in gold nearly three million dollars in developing their property, besides paying to the stockholders in dividends over two million and a half dollars. Never perhaps was there such a record of money-making on such capitalization.

The source of the enormous business of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company was the rush into Idaho, Montana, and Eastern Oregon and Washington by the miners, cowboys, speculators, and adventurers of the early '60s. The up-river country, as described more at length in another chapter, wakened suddenly from the lethargy of centuries, and the wildness teemed with life. That was the great steamboat age. Money flowed in streams. Fortunes were made and lost in a day.

When first organized in 1860, the Oregon Steam Navigation Company had a nondescript lot of steamers, mainly small and weak. The two portages, one of five miles around the Cascades and the other of fourteen miles from The Dalles to Celilo Falls, were unequal to their task. The portages at the Cascades on both sides of the river were made by very inadequate wooden tramways. That at The Dalles was made by teams. Such quantities of freight were discharged from the steamers that sometimes the whole portage was lined with freight from end to end. The portages were not acquired by the company with the steamboat property, and as a result the portage owners reaped the larger share of the profits. During high water the portage on the Oregon side at the Cascades had a monopoly of the business and it took one-half the freight income from Portland to The Dalles. This was holding the whip-hand with a vengeance, and the vigorous directors of the steamboat company could not endure it. Accordingly, they absorbed the rights of the portage owners, built a railroad from Celilo to The Dalles on the Oregon side, and one around the Cascades on the Washington side. The company was reorganized under the laws of Oregon in October, 1863, with a declared capitalization of $2,000,000.

Business on the river in 1863 was something enormous. Hardly ever did a steamer make a trip with less than two hundred passengers. Freight was offered in such quantities at Portland that trucks had to stand in line for blocks, waiting to deliver and receive their loads. New boats were built of a much better class. Two rival companies, the Independent Line and the People's Transportation Line, made a vigorous struggle to secure a share of the business, but they were eventually overpowered. Some conception of the amount of business may be gained from the fact that the steamers transported passengers to an amount of fares running from $1,000 to $6,000 a trip. On April 29, 1862, the Tenino, leaving Celilo for the Lewiston trip, had a load amounting to $10,945 for freight, passengers, meals, and berths. The steamships sailing from Portland to San Francisco showed equally remarkable records. On June 25, 1861, the Sierra Nevada conveyed a treasure shipment of $228,000; July 14th, $110,000; August 24th, $195,558; December 5th, $750,000. The number of passengers carried on The Dalles-Lewiston route in 1864 was 36,000 and the tons of freight were 21,834.

It was a magnificent steamboat ride in those days from Portland to Lewiston. The fare was $60; meals and berths, $1 each. A traveler would leave Portland at 5 A. M. on, perhaps, the Wilson G. Hunt, reach the Cascades sixty-five miles distant at 11 A. M., proceed by rail five miles to the Upper Cascades, there transfer to the Oneonta or Idaho for The Dalles, passing in that run from the humid, low-lying, heavily timbered West-of-the-mountains, to the dry, breezy, hilly East-of-the-mountains. Reaching The Dalles, fifty miles farther east, he would be conveyed by another portage railroad, fourteen miles more, to Celilo. There the Tenino, Yakima, Nez Percé Chief, or Owyhee was waiting. With the earliest light of the morning the steamer would head right into the impetuous current of the river, bound for Lewiston, 280 miles farther yet, taking two days, sometimes three, though only one to return. Those steamers were mainly of light-draught, stern-wheel structure, which still characterizes the Columbia River boats. They were swift and roomy and well adapted to the turbulent waters of the upper river.

The captains, pilots, and pursers of that period were as fine a set of men as ever turned a wheel. Bold, bluff, genial, hearty, and obliging they were, even though given to occasional outbursts of expletives and possessing voluminous repertoires of "cusswords" such as would startle the effete East. Any old Oregonian who may chance to cast his eyes upon these pages will recall, as with the pangs of childhood homesickness, the forms and features of steamboat men of that day; the polite yet determined Ainsworth, the brusque and rotund Reed, the bluff and hearty Knaggs, the frolicsome and never disconcerted Ingalls, the dark, powerful, and nonchalant Coe, the patriarchal beard of Stump, the loquacious "Commodore" Wolf, who used to point out to astonished tourists the "diabolical strata" on the banks of the river, the massive and good-natured Strang, the genial and elegant O'Neil, the suave and witty Snow, the tall and handsome Sampson, the rich Scotch brogue of McNulty, and dozens of others, whose combined adventures would fill a volume. One of the most experienced pilots of the upper river was Captain "Eph" Baughman, who ran steamers on the Snake and Columbia rivers over fifty years, and is yet living at the date of this publication. W. H. Gray, who came to Waiilatpu with Whitman as secular agent of the mission, became a river man of much skill. He gave four sons, John, William, Alfred, and James, to the service of the river, all four of them being skilled captains. A story narrated to the author by Capt. William Gray, now of Pasco, Wash., well illustrates the character of the old Columbia River navigators. W. H. Gray was the first man to run a sailboat of much size with regular freight up Snake River. That was in 1860 before any steamers were running on that stream. Mr. Gray built his boat, a fifty ton sloop, on Oosooyoos Lake on the Okanogan River. In it he descended that river to its entrance into the Columbia. Thence he descended the Columbia, running down the Entiat, Rock Island, Cabinet, and Priest Rapids, no mean undertaking of itself. Reaching the mouth of the Snake he took on a load of freight and started up the swift stream. At Five-mile Rapids he found that his sail was insufficient to carry the sloop up. Men had said that it was impossible. The crew all prophesied disaster. The stubborn captain merely declared, "There is no such word as fail in my dictionary." He directed his son and another of the crew to take the small boat, load her with a long coil of rope, make their way up the stream until they got above the rapid, there to land on an islet of rock, fasten the rope to that rock, then pay it out till it was swept down the rapid. They were then to descend the rapid in the small boat. "Very likely you may be upset," added the skipper encouragingly, "but if you are, you know how to swim." They were upset, sure enough, but they did know how to swim. They righted their boat, picked up the end of the floating rope, and reached the sloop with it. The rope was attached to the capstan, and the sloop was wound up by it above the swiftest part of the rapid to a point where the sail was sufficient to carry, and on they went rejoicing. Any account of steamboating on the Columbia would be incomplete without reference to Capt. James Troup, who was born on the Columbia, and almost from early boyhood ran steamers upon it and its tributaries. He made a specialty of running steamers down The Dalles and the Cascades, an undertaking sometimes rendered necessary by the fact that more boats were built in proportion to demand on the upper than the lower river. These were taken down The Dalles, and sometimes down the Cascades. Once down, they could not return. The first steamer to run down the Tumwater Falls was the Okanogan, on May 22, 1866, piloted by Capt. T. J. Stump.

The author enjoyed the great privilege of descending The Dalles in the D. S. Baker in the year 1888, Captain Troup being in command. At that strange point in the river, the whole vast volume is compressed into a channel but 160 feet wide at low water and much deeper than wide. Like a huge mill-race this channel continues nearly straight for two miles, when it is hurled with frightful force against a massive bluff. Deflected from the bluff, it turns at a sharp angle to be split in sunder by a low reef of rock. When the Baker was drawn into the current at the head of the "chute" she swept down the channel, which was almost black, with streaks of foam, to the bluff, two miles in four minutes. There feeling the tremendous refluent wave, she went careening over and over toward the sunken reef. The skilled captain had her perfectly in hand, and precisely at the right moment, rang the signal bell, "Ahead, full speed," and ahead she went, just barely scratching her side on the rock. Thus close was it necessary to calculate distance. If the steamer had struck the tooth-like point of the reef broadside on, she would have been broken in two and carried in fragments on either side. Having passed this danger point, she glided into the beautiful calm bay below and the feat was accomplished. Capt. J. C. Ainsworth and Capt. James Troup were the two captains above all others to whom the company entrusted the critical task of running steamers over the rapids.

In the _Overland Monthly_ of June, 1886, there is a valuable account by Capt. Lawrence Coe of the maiden journey of the Colonel Wright from Celilo up what they then termed the upper Columbia.

This first journey on that section of the river was made in April, 1859. The pilot was Capt. Lew White. The highest point reached was Wallula, the site of the old Hudson's Bay Fort. The current was a powerful one to withstand, no soundings had ever been made, and no boats except canoes, bateaus, flatboats, and a few small sailboats, had ever made the trip. No one had any conception of the location of a channel adapted to a steamboat. No difficulty was experienced, however, except at the Umatilla Rapids. This is a most singular obstruction. Three separate reefs, at intervals of half a mile, extend right across the river. There are narrow breaks in these reefs, but not in line with each other. Through them the water pours with tremendous velocity, and on account of their irregular locations a steamer must zigzag across the river at imminent risk of being borne broadside on to the reef. The passage of the Umatilla Rapids is not difficult at high water, for then the steamer glides over the rocks in a straight course.

In the August _Overland_ of the same year, Captain Coe narrates the first steamboat trip up Snake River. This was in June, 1860, just at the time of the beginning of the gold excitement. The Colonel Wright was loaded with picks, rockers, and other mining implements, as well as provisions and passengers. Most of the freight and passengers were put off at Wallula, to go thence overland. Part continued on to test the experiment of making way against the wicked-looking current of Snake River. After three days and a half from the starting point a few miles above Celilo, the Colonel Wright halted at a place which was called Slaterville, thirty-seven miles up the Clearwater from its junction with the Snake. There the remainder of the cargo was discharged, to be hauled in wagons to the Oro Fino mines. The steamer Okanogan followed the Colonel Wright within a few weeks, and navigation on the Snake may be said to have fairly begun. During that same time the City of Lewiston, named in honor of Meriwether Lewis, the explorer, was founded at the junction of the Snake and Clearwater rivers.

THE PIONEER STAGE LINES

While the river traffic under the ordinary control of the O. S. N. Company, though with frequent periods of opposition boats, was thus promoting the movements of commercial life along the great central artery, the need of reaching interior points was vital. The only way of doing this and providing feeders for the boats was by stage lines and prairie schooners. As a result of this need there developed along with the steamboats a system of roads from certain points on the Columbia and Snake rivers. Umatilla, Wallula, and Lewiston became the chief of these. And in the stage lines we have another era of utmost interest and importance in the old time days.

J. F. Abbott was the pioneer stage manager of old Walla Walla. It is very interesting to note his advertisements as they appear in the earliest issues of the _Washington Statesman_. But he began before there was any _Statesman_ or paper of any kind between the Cascade Mountains and the Missouri River. For in 1859 he started the first stages between Wallula and Walla Walla. In 1860 he entered a partnership with Rickey and Thatcher on the same route. In 1861 a new line was laid out by Miller and Blackmore from The Dalles to Walla Walla. The stage business went right on by leaps and bounds. In 1862 two companies started new lines, Rickey and Thatcher from Walla Walla to Lewiston through the present Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, and Blackmore and Chase between Wallula and Walla Walla. During the next two decades the stage business became one of the great factors in the growth of the whole vast region from Umatilla eastward into the mining regions of Oro Fino, Florence, Boise Basin, and ultimately into Wyoming and Utah.

The most prominent manager on the longer routes and one of the most prominent and useful of all the business men of early Walla Walla, was George F. Thomas. He laid out a route from Wallula to Boise by way of Walla Walla and the Woodward Toll Gate Road over the Blue Mountains.

In 1864 there came into operation the first of the great stage systems having transcontinental aims and policies. This was the Holladay system. That period was the palmy time for hold-ups, Indians, prairie-schooners, and all the other interesting and extravagant features of life, ordinarily supposed to be typical of the Far-West and so dominating in their effect on the imagination as to furnish the seed-bed for a genuine literature of the Pacific Coast, most prominent in California with the illustrious names of Bret Harte and Mark Twain in the van, and with Jack London, Rex Beach, and many more in later times pursuing the same general tenor of delineation. The Northwest has not yet had a literature comparable with California's, but the material is here and there will yet be in due sequence a line of story writers, poets and artists of the incomparable scenery and the tragic, humorous and pathetic human associations of the Columbia and its tributaries, which will place this northern region of the Pacific in the same rank as the more forward southern sister. Indeed we may remark incidentally that the two most prominent California poets, Joaquin Miller and Edwin Markham, belonged to Oregon, the latter being a native of the "Webfoot State."

The amount of business done by those pioneer stage lines was surprising. In the issue of the _Statesman_ of December 20, 1862, it is estimated that the amount of freight landed by the steamers at Wallula to be distributed thence by wheel averaged about a hundred and fifty tons weekly, and that the number of passengers, very variable, ran from fifty to six hundred weekly. As time went on rival lines became more and more active and rates were lowered as competition grew more keen. The author recalls vividly his first trip from Wallula to Walla Walla in his boyhood in the summer of 1870.

The steamer was jammed with passengers who disembarked and made a rush for something to eat in the old adobe hotel on the river bank at the site of the old Fort Walla Walla. There were a dozen or so stages, the driver of each vociferating that on that day passengers were carried free to Walla Walla. It is asserted that on some occasions competition became so hot that the rival stage managers offered not only free transportation, but free meals as a bonus. Whenever one line succeeded in running off competitors the rates were plumped right back to the ordinary figure. In view of the wagon traffic of that period it is not surprising that sections of the road are yet worn several feet deep and that for years there were four or five tracks. They never worked the roads, but depended purely on nature, Providence, and the movement of teams to effect any changes. With the somewhat strenuous west winds which even yet are sometimes noticed to prevail on the lower Walla Walla it is not wonderful that a good part of the top dressing of that country has been distributed at various points around Walla Walla, Waitsburg, Dayton, "and all points east." How regular teamsters got enough air to maintain life out of the clouds of dust which enveloped most of their active moments is one of the unexplained mysteries of human existence.

The closing scene of the stage line drama may be said to have been the establishment in 1871 of the Northwestern Stage Company. It connected the Central Pacific Railroad at Kelton, Utah, with The Dalles, Pendleton, Walla Walla, Colfax, Dayton, Lewiston, Pomeroy, and "all points north and west." During the decade of the '70s that stage line was a connecting link not only between the railroads and the regions as yet without them, but was also a link between two epochs, that of the stage and that of the railroad.

It did an extensive passenger business, employing regularly twenty-two stages and 300 horses, which used annually 365 tons of grain and 412 tons of hay. There were 150 drivers and hostlers regularly employed for that branch of the business.

THE RAILROAD AGE

But a new order was coming rapidly. As the decades of the '60s and '70s belonged especially to the steamboat and the stage, so the decade of the '80s belonged to the railroad. It is one of the most curious and interesting facts in American history that during the period between about 1835, the coming of the missionaries and the period of the discoveries of gold in Idaho in 1861 and onward, there was an obstinate insistence in Congress, especially the Senate--a great body indeed, but at times the very apotheosis of conservative imbecility--that Oregon could never be practically connected with the older parts of the country, but must remain a wilderness. But there were some Progressives. When Isaac I. Stevens was appointed governor of Washington Territory in 1853 he had charge of a survey with a view of determining a practical route for a northern railroad.

It is very interesting to read his instructions to George B. McClellan, then one of his assistants. "The route is from St. Paul, Minn., to Puget Sound by the great bend of the Mississippi River, through a pass in the mountains near the forty-ninth parallel. A strong party will operate westward from St. Paul; a second but smaller party will go up the Missouri to the Yellowstone, and there make arrangements, reconnoiter the country, etc., and on the junction of the main party they will push through the Blackfoot country, and reaching the Rocky Mountains will keep at work there during the summer months. The third party, under your command, will be organized in the Puget Sound region, you and your scientific corps going over the Isthmus, and will operate in the Cascade range and meet the party coming from the Rocky Mountains. The amount of work in the Cascade range and eastward, say to the probable junction of the parties at the great bend of the north fork of the Columbia River, will be immense. Recollect, the main object is a railroad survey from the headwaters of the Mississippi River to Puget Sound. We must not be frightened by long tunnels or enormous snows, but must set ourselves to work to overcome them."

Growing out of the abundant agitation going on for twenty years after the start given it by Governor Stevens, the movement for a Northern Pacific Railroad focalized in 1870 by a contract made between the promoters and Jay Cooke & Company to sell bonds. It is interesting to recall that Philip Ritz of Walla Walla, one of the noblest of men and most useful of pioneers, was one of the strong forces in conveying information about the field and inducing the promoters to turn their attention to it. In fact Messrs. Ogden and Cass, two of the strongest men connected with the enterprise, afterwards stated that it was a letter from Mr. Ritz that drew their favorable attention to the possibilities of this country. Work was begun on the section of the Northern Pacific Railroad between Kalama on the Columbia and Puget Sound in 1870, but the financial panic of 1873 crippled and even ruined many great business houses, among others Jay Cooke & Co., and for several years construction was at a stand still. In 1879 the Northern Pacific Railroad Co. was reorganized, work was resumed and never ceased till the iron horse had drunk both out of Lake Superior and the Columbia River.

One of the most spectacular chapters in the history of railroading in the Northwest was that of the "blind pool" by which Henry Villard, president of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Co., obtained in 1881 the control of a majority of the stock of the N. P. and became its president. The essential aim of this series of occult finances was to divert the northern road from its proposed terminus on Puget Sound and annex it to the interests centering in Portland.

In 1883 the road was pushed on from Duluth to Wallula and thence by union with the O. R. & N. was carried on down the Columbia. The feverish haste, reckless outlay, and in places dangerous construction of that section along the crags and through shaded glens and in front of the waterfalls on the banks of the great river, constitute one of the dramas of building. Even more spectacularly came the gorgeous pageantry of the Villard excursion in October, 1883, in which Grant, Evarts, and others of the most distinguished of Americans participated, and in which Oregon and the Northwest in general were entertained in Portland with lavish hospitality, and in which Villard rode upon the crest of the greatest wave of power and popularity that had been seen in the history of the Northwest. But in the very moment of his triumph he fell with a "dull, sickening thud." In fact even while being lauded and feted as the great railroad builder he must have known of the impending crash. For skillful manipulations of the stock market by the Wright interests had dispossessed Villard of his majority control, a general collapse in Portland followed, and the Puget Sound terminal was established at the "City of Destiny," Tacoma. Not till 1888, however, was the great tunnel at Stampede pass completed and the Northern Pacific fairly established upon its great route.

Since the completion of the main line of the N. P. R. R. it has sprouted out feeders in many directions. The most interesting and important of these to the Walla Walla Valley is the Washington and Columbia River Railroad, commonly known in earlier times as the Hunt Road. That road was started as the Oregon and Washington Territory R. R. by Pendleton interests in 1887. Mr. G. W. Hunt, a man of great energy and ability, and possessed of many peculiar and original views on religion and social conditions as well as railroads, came to the Inland Empire at that time and perceiving the great possibilities in this region, made a contract to construct the line. Finding within a year that the projectors were not succeeding in raising funds Mr. Hunt took over the enterprise. In 1888-90 he carried out a series of lines from Hunt's Junction, a short distance from Wallula, to Helix and Athena and finally to Pendleton in Umatilla County, Ore., and to Walla Walla, Waitsburg and Dayton, with a separate branch up Eureka Flat, that great wheat belt of Northern Walla Walla County. The hard times of the next year so affected Mr. Hunt's resources that he felt obliged to place his fine enterprise in the hands of N. P. R. R. interests. But it still retained the name of Washington and Columbia River Railroad and was operated as a distinct road. The first president following Mr. Hunt was W. D. Tyler, a man of so genial nature and brilliant mind as to be one of the conspicuous figures in Walla Walla circles during his residence in this region and to be remembered with warm friendship by people in all sorts of connections, afterward living in Tacoma until his lamented death. He was followed by Joseph McCabe who was a railroad builder and manager of conspicuous ability and who continued at the head of the line until he was drawn to important railroad work in New England. The third president of the road was J. G. Cutler who ably continued the work so well begun. In 1907 the line was absorbed by the Northern Pacific and has since that date been managed as a section of that line. Mr. Cutler continued for a time as the general manager until failing health compelled his retirement and to the deep regret of a large circle of friends and business associates he died within a few months of his retirement. S. B. Calderhead, who had been during the presidencies of Mr. McCabe and Mr. Cutler the traffic manager of the original road, became the general freight and passenger agent of the division in 1907 and continues to hold the position at this time. The road has been extended to Turner in the heart of the barley belt of Columbia County. It does an extraordinary business for the amount of mileage and population. Within the year of the completion of the lines to Dayton, Pendleton, and the Eureka Flat branch, a total mileage of 162.73 miles and with a scanty population at that date of 1890, the road conveyed about forty thousand tons of freight into the regions covered and carried out about a hundred and thirty thousand tons of grain and 20,000 tons of other freight.

The other transcontinental line in which the Walla Walla country is especially interested is the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company's line. This acquired the Walla Walla and Columbia River line in 1878 and the property of the O. S. N. Co. in 1879. Henry Villard was the great organizer of the O. R. and N. line, which was a portion of the Union Pacific system, covering the territory between Huntington and Portland. Of Villard's operations in this connection with the N. P. R. R. we have already spoken. Although the attempt to divert that system down the Columbia proved a failure, the O. R. and N. R. R. has become one of the great systems of the United States, and as a part of the present Oregon and Washington system it performs a vast commercial service in the regions covered by its lines. By the acquisition of the Walla Walla and Columbia River R. R. (Dr. Baker's road) and the O. S. N. Co. lines and steamboats (for that was mainly a river system) the O. R. and N. R. R. succeeded practically to the whole pioneer system of steamboats and stage lines of the previous era. It has become a vast factor in the commercial life of the Columbia River region and by its branches north and west has become a competitor with the Northern Pacific and Great Northern systems throughout the state. Its chief lines in the counties covered by this work are that from Pendleton to Spokane, going right through the heart of the region, with branches from Bolles Junction to Dayton and Starbuck to Pomeroy. It joins with the N. P. R. R. in a line from Riparia on the north side of the Snake River to Lewiston, by which the splendid country centering around that city is reached and by which the equally beautiful and productive region of Asotin and Garfield counties on the west and south of Snake River are indirectly touched. To reach that highly productive region the company maintains several steamers which ply during the proper stage of water and convey millions of bushels of grain from Asotin and other points down the river to railroad connections. One of the important developments of the line is the Yakima branch, extending from Walla Walla to that city and projected, as is supposed, to ultimate connections on Puget Sound and possibly through the Klickitat country about the base of Mount Adams to Portland, tapping an entirely new country of great and varied resources. In 1914 the main line between Portland and Spokane was constructed down the Snake from Riparia to Wallula.

The Northern Pacific and Oregon-Washington railroads have not far from the same mileage in these counties, the latter somewhat larger, and do approximately the same amount of local business. A general estimate by one of the best informed railroad men of Walla Walla is that the combined receipts for freight in Walla Walla County alone--the present county--for the last year was about one million dollars for outgoing and about six hundred thousand dollars for incoming freight.

WALLA WALLA AND COLUMBIA RIVER RAILROAD

We have reserved for special consideration the most interesting and from the historical standpoint the most important of all the railroads of Walla Walla, the Walla Walla and Columbia River, Doctor Baker's road. The history of this enterprise is most intimately connected with the development of this region. It is not only a rare example of the growth of a local demand and need, but constitutes a tribute to the genius of its builder, one of the most unique and powerful of all the capable and original builders of the "Upper Country."

To trace the movements leading to the creation of this vital step in the commercial evolution of Walla Walla, we must turn to the files of the _Washington Statesman_. In the issue of May 3, 1862, we find the leading editorial devoted to urging the need of a railroad. It notes the fact that Lewiston and Wallula are endeavoring to divert the trade from Walla Walla and that with $500,000 invested in the city, as much more in the country, and with crops yielding $250,000, besides stock, the people of Walla Walla cannot rest content with the exorbitant expense of freighting by teams to and from the river. It says bitterly that those engaged in freighting have thought it a fine thing to get from twenty dollars to one hundred dollars per ton for carrying freight in from Wallula. It urges people to bestir themselves and provide a railroad, which, it declares, if it cost $750,000 or even $1,000,000 to build, will save that amount in the next ten years.

The issue of June 7 returns to the charge, dealing in more specific figures, estimating the probable expense of the thirty miles of road not to exceed $600,000. It appeared from this article that the Legislature of the previous year had granted a charter for the purpose, and as the editor urges, the people have but to take advantage of the opportunity open to them to secure the results.

The _Statesman_ of August 23, 1862, gives the provisions of that charter with the list of those named in it. The names of these men are worthy of preservation, as showing the personnel of the most active business forces of that date. They are as follows: A. J. Cain, E. B. Whitman, L. A. Mullan, W. J. Terry, C. H. Armstrong, J. F. Abbott, I. T. Reese, S. M. Baldwin, E. L. Bonner, W. A. Mix, Charles Russell, J. A. Sims, Jesse Drumheller, James Reynolds, D. S. Baker, G. E. Cole, S. D. Smith, J. J. Goodwin, Neil McGlinchy, J. S. Sparks, W. A. George, J. M. Vansycle, W. W. DeLacy, A. Seitel, W. A. Ball, B. F. Stone, J. Schwabacher, B. P. Standifer, S. W. Tatem, W. W. Johnson and "such others as they shall associate with them in the project."

It is worth noting that in the issue of September 6th, an item is made of the fact that fares to The Dalles have been lowered, being $10 to The Dalles and only 50 cents from there to Portland. It is declared in the item that that is a scheme of the Navigation Company to crush out opposition. The opposition line of that year was in control of Doctor Baker, who was associated in the enterprise with Captain Ankeny, H. W. Corbett, and Captain Baughman. Their steamer on the lower river was the E. D. Baker and on the upper river the Spray. Doctor Baker had previously undertaken a portage railroad at the Cascades, but had been compelled to retire before the O. S. N. Co. So for the new undertaking they were obliged to use stages over the five miles of portage between the lower and the upper Cascades. The Spray and the Baker, it may be said, carried on a lively opposition but in the _Statesman_ of March 21, 1863, we find that the O. S. N. Co. had bought out the line and once more monopolized the traffic. Affairs and time were both moving on and we find valuable data in three successive issues of the _Statesman_, December 20 and 27, 1862, and January 3, 1863. That of December 20th repeats the names given in the charter and some further provisions of that document. Among other requirements was that forbidding the railroad to charge passengers over 10 cents per mile or over 40 cents per ton per mile for freight. Comparison shows how the world has changed. Railroads in this state at present cannot charge more than three cents a mile for passengers, and as for freight, when we remember how we "kick" now at exorbitant freight rates, and yet remind ourselves that the rate on wheat from Walla Walla to Portland is $2.85 per ton, or less than twelve mills per ton mile, we realize the change. But it must be remembered that building a railroad in 1863 in the Walla Walla country was a very different proposition from the present. The _Statesman_ figures that even if traffic did not increase there would be a weekly income for the road of $2,400 or about one hundred and thirty thousand dollars a year. Allowing the cost to be $700,000, with interest at 10 per cent or $70,000 a year, there would be a margin of $65,000 per annum for operating and contingencies. "Who is there," demands the _Statesman_, "amongst our settled residents that cannot afford to subscribe for from one to ten shares of stock at $100 per share?"

In the paper of December 27th, another editorial urges citizens to attend a meeting the next week to consider the vital subject.

The meeting duly occurred on the last day of December, 1862, and is reported in the _Statesman_ of January 3, 1863. The meeting was called to order by E. B. Whitman and W. W. Johnson acted as secretary. Mention is made of a letter from Capt. John Mullan stating that there was a prospect of securing from two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to three hundred thousand dollars worth of stock in New York. A group of men at money centers was appointed to act as commissioners for receiving subscriptions for stock. A committee consisting of W. W. Johnson, W. A. Mix, and R. R. Rees was appointed to draw up articles of association and by-laws for the company. On March 14th a meeting was held to listen to the report of the committee.

It appears from the issue of April 11, 1863, that a new opposition steamer, the Kius, had made her first trip from Celilo to Wallula, beating the Spray by an hour. Fares had been cut again, being only $3.50 from Celilo to Wallula. The following number of the _Statesman_ notes the interesting item that the Kius had made a trip the previous week to the mouth of the Salmon River on the Snake, and proposed to continue investigations with a view to determining the practicability of a regular route. In the paper of April 25th is an editorial deprecating the "cut-throat competition" on the river, pointing out the fact that heavy stocks of goods had been imported under previous rates and that the carrying in of freight at ruinous rates will embarrass the regular merchants under the old rates. In the same issue announcement is made of the important fact that the railroad portages of the O. S. N. Co. at both the Cascades and The Dalles had just come into operation. By May 9th, it appeared that another rapid change in freight rates had taken place, both lines receipting freight from Portland to Lewiston at $25 per ton. For some time the rate from The Dalles to Wallula had been $3 per ton. But a little time passed and the omnipresent O. S. N. Co. bought out the opposition boats Iris and Kius, and up the rates went with another jump. The figures were:

Freight--Portland to The Dalles $15.00 per ton
Portland to Wallula 50.00 per ton
Portland to Lewiston 90.00 per ton
Passage--Portland to The Dalles 6.00
Portland to Wallula 18.00
Portland to Lewiston 28.00

Meanwhile development in the mines and on the stock ranges and farms and even in horticulture was going on apace. But the railroad enterprise hung fire and several years passed by without results. The community seems to have been waiting for the man with the brains, nerve, resolution, and resources to lead and take the risk. The man was there and he had all the requisites from his first entrance to Walla Walla in 1839 except the resources. This was no less a man than Dr. D. S. Baker. During the years of agitation he had been prospering in business and by 1868 was coming into a position where he could see his way to take the initiative in what he had recognized all the time as the great next step in the growth of the Walla Walla country, as well as one in the advancement of his own personal fortunes. The thought of a sort of community ownership had never left the minds of the original promoters although they had failed to come to a focus. On March 23, 1868, there was a meeting which was the outcome of a second era of popular discussion. That meeting eventuated in the actual incorporation of the Walla Walla and Columbia River Railroad. The incorporators were D. S. Baker, A. H. Reynolds, I. T. Reese, A. Kyger, J. H. Lasater, J. D. Mix, B. Scheideman, and W. H. Newell. They planned to place $50,000 of stock in the city, $200,000 in the county, and $100,000 with the O. S. N. Co. An act of Congress of March 3, 1869, granted a right of way and authorized the county commissioners to grant $300,000 in aid of the road, subject to approval of the people by special election. The election was set for June 21, 1871. Expressions of public opinion made it so clear that the proposal would be defeated at the polls that the order for election was revoked. The incorporators of the road now made a proposition that in case the people of the county would authorize an issue of $300,000 in bonds, they would build a strap-iron road within a year, would place the money from down freights in the hands of the county commissioners as a sinking fund, allow the commissioners to fix freight rates, provided they were not less than $2 per ton nor so high as to discourage shipping, and secure the county by first mortgage on the road. An election was held on September 18, 1871. A two-thirds majority was required out of a total vote of 935, and the proposition was lost by eighteen. Thus the second attempt at a publicly promoted railroad for Walla Walla went glimmering.

Doctor Baker now felt that the time had arrived for pushing the enterprise to a conclusion by private capital. A new organization with the same name was effected, of which the directors were D. S. Baker, Wm. Stephens, I. T. Reese, Lewis McMorris, H. M. Chase, H. P. Isaacs, B. L. Sharpstein, Orley Hull, and J. F. Boyer. Grading was begun at Wallula in March, 1872.

Meanwhile many rumors and proposals as to railroad building were in the air. In 1872 the Grande Ronde and Walla Walla R. R. Co. was incorporated, and a survey made thirty-six miles to the Umatilla River. But there the movement ceased. A very interesting project came into existence in 1873 for the Seattle and Walla Walla R. R., and in the prosecution of plans for this, A. A. Denny and J. J. McGilvra visited this region and held public meetings in Walla Walla, Waitsburg, and Dayton. Five directors, S. Schwabacher, W. F. Kimball, Jesse N. Day, W. P. Bruce, and W. M. Shelton were appointed to represent this section. Great enthusiasm was created, but the project, feasible though it seemed and backed though it was by reliable men, never got beyond the stage of agitation. Another enterprise which occasioned great public interest was the Portland, Dalles, and Salt Lake R. R. designed as a rival to the O. R. & N. system. That never got beyond the promotion era. The most interesting locally of these incipient railroads was the Dayton and Columbia River R. R. incorporated in August, 1874. Its proposal was to build a narrow gauge from Dayton to Wallula via Waitsburg and Walla Walla. The plans contemplated a boat line to Astoria with railroad portages at Celilo and the Cascades. That would have been a great enterprise, but it was beyond the resources of its promoters, and it died "a-bornin'."

While these gauzy visions were flitting before the minds of the people of old Walla Walla County, Doctor Baker was going right on with his own road, in the peculiarly taciturn, quiet and unremitting manner characteristic of him. In March, 1874, the road was completed from Wallula to the Touchet, the first eight miles with wooden rails, capped with strap-iron. Maj. Sewall Truax was the engineer in charge. Strap-iron rails were laid on the "straightaway" sections as far as Touchet, with T-iron on the curves and heavier grades. The expense of getting ties and iron was very great and the execution of the work was costly and harassing. Nothing but Doctor Baker's pertinacity in the face of many obstacles carried the work to a successful conclusion. An attempt to run tie timber down the Grande Ronde River to the Snake and thence to Wallula proving unsuccessful, the doctor turned to the Yakima. That effort proved the winning card, but the cost was great. The ties cost over a dollar apiece at Wallula.

But from the first the road justified its cost and demonstrated its utility. In the year that it was completed to Touchet over four thousand tons of wheat was carried out and 1,126 tons of merchandise was brought in. In January, 1875, Doctor Baker proposed to the people of the county that he would complete the road to the city if $75,000 were subscribed to the capital stock. A meeting was held at which it was decided impossible to raise that sum. The company returned with another proposition; i. e., that they would complete the road if the people would secure a tract of three acres for depot grounds and right of way for nine miles west of town, and subscribe $25,000 as a subsidy. After much wrestling and striving this proposal was accepted. On October 23, 1875, the rails were laid into Walla Walla and during the remainder of that year 9,155 tons of wheat were hauled over them to the river.

Thus that monumental work (monumental considering the times and resources available, though of course of small extent compared with the railways of the present) was brought to a triumphant conclusion.