Chapter IV: The Early Transportation Age (2)

A peculiar condition arose in the next year after completion which has historical bearings of much interest. According to the account as given by Col. F. T. Gilbert the advance of rates from $5 per ton to Wallula to $5.50 caused a revolt on the part of shippers, although the haul by team before was more than twice as much. Shippers urged the county commissioners to put the wagon road in good condition as a weapon to curb railway monopoly. As the directors of the road did not reduce rates, a movement ensued in the Grange Council looking to boycotting the railroad. The feasibility of a canal from Waiilatpu to Wallula was considered. Some wheat and some merchandise were transported by teams at $5 per ton. A movement was started at Dayton to haul freight to the mouth of the Tucanon, where the O. S. N. steamers might pick it up and carry to Portland for $8 per ton. It cost $4.50 to reach the boats. That was the state of affairs which produced Grange City at the point where the Walla Walla-Pendleton branch of the O. W. R. R. now leaves the main line between Spokane and Portland. It was thought at one time that Grange City might become quite a place. One interesting feature of that period was the construction of a steamer named the Northwest at Columbus by the firm of Paine Brothers and Moore and its operation on the Snake River for about two years. The Northwest did a fine business, but like its predecessors was absorbed by the O. S. N. Co.

It was discovered after sufficient experience that teams could not compete with the railroad and the attempts at that method of transportation were abandoned.

In the year 1876, the O. S. N. Co. received at Wallula 16,766 tons of freight, of which 15,266 came by rail and 1,500 by teams. It delivered for conveyance to Walla Walla 4,054 tons, of which all but 513 was conveyed by rail. Doctor Baker's ownership and management of the Walla Walla and Columbia River R. R. was brief but profitable, for in 1878 he sold out a six-seventh interest to the O. R. & N. Co. The remaining seventh was sold to Villard when he bought the O. R. and N. properties.

The pioneer chapter of railroading in Walla Walla was ended. Whatever the personal idiosyncracies of Doctor Baker and whatever may have been thought as to his aggressiveness in business, it becomes evident with the retrospect of history that he was a far seeing, sagacious, energetic, and successful business man and that his career in Walla Walla was one of its greatest constructive forces.

NEW ERA OF WATER TRANSPORTATION

It remains in this chapter only to take a glance at the next great stage in transportation. We have spoken of the old steamer lines as composing the first of those stages, the stage lines the second, and the railroads the third. The fourth may be called the new era of water transportation. This era is as yet only dawning, but it is obvious that the opening of the Columbia and Snake rivers to traffic by means of canals and locks and improvement of channels will create a new development of production and commerce. As far back as 1872 Senator Mitchell of Oregon brought before Congress the subject of canal and locks at the Cascades. The matter was urged in Congress and in the press, and as a result of ceaseless efforts the people of the Northwest were rewarded in 1896 with the completion of the canal at the Cascades. While that was indeed a great work, it did not, after all, affect the greater part of the Inland Empire.

Its benefits were felt only as far as The Dalles. The much greater obstructions between that city and the upper river forbade continuous traffic above The Dalles. Hence the next great endeavor was to secure a canal between navigable water at Big Eddy, four miles above The Dalles, and Celilo, eight and a half miles above Big Eddy. It is of great historic interest to call up in this connection the unceasing efforts of Dr. N. G. Blalock of Walla Walla to promote public interest in this vast undertaking and to so focalize that interest backed by insistent demands of the people upon Congress as to secure appropriations and to direct the speedy accomplishment of the engineering work necessary to the result. Like all such important public matters, this had its alternating advances and retreats, its encouragements and its reverses, but patience and perseverance and the strong force of genuine public benefit triumphed at last over all obstacles. It is indeed melancholy to remember that Doctor Blalock, of whose good deeds and public benefactions this was but one, passed on before the improvements were completed. But it is a satisfaction to remember, too, that before his death, in April, 1913, he knew that the appropriations and instructions necessary to insure the work had been made. In fact, the work continued from that time with no pause or loss.

The Celilo Canal was completed and thrown open to navigation in April, 1915. In the early part of May the entire river region joined in a week's demonstration which began at Lewiston, Idaho, and ended at Astoria, Oregon. Nearly all the senators, representatives and governors in the northwest attended. Schools and colleges had a holiday, business was largely suspended, and the entire river region joined a great jubilee. A fleet of steamers traversed the entire course from Lewiston down, 500 miles. Lewiston, Asotin, and Clarkston were hostesses on May 3; Pasco, Kenewick, Wallula and Umatilla on May 4; Celilo, where the formal ceremonies of dedication occurred, and The Dalles, May 5; Vancouver and Portland May 6; Kalama and Kelso May 7; and Astoria May 8, and there the pageant ended with a great excursion to the Ocean Beach.

As expressing better in the judgment of the author than he could otherwise do, the profound significance of that great step in the history of the commercial development of this section and as giving a view of the historic sequences of old Walla Walla County, he is venturing to incorporate here an address delivered by himself on May 4 at Wallula in connection with that celebration:

Officials and Representatives of the National and State Governments, and Fellow Citizens of the Northwest:

It is my honor to welcome you to this historic spot in the name of the people of the Walla Walla Valley; the valley of many waters, the location of the first American home west of the Rocky Mountains and the mother of all the communities of the Inland Empire. On the spot where we stand the past, the present and the future join hands. Here passed unknown generations of aborigines on the way from the Walla Walla Valley to ascend or descend the Great River, to pass in to the Yakima country, or to move in either direction to the berry patches or hunting grounds of the great mountains; here the exploring expedition of Lewis and Clark paused to view the vast expanse of prairie before committing themselves to what they supposed to be the lower river; here flotillas of trappers made their rendezvous for scattering into their trapping fields and for making up their bateau loads of furs for sending down the river. On this very spot was built the old Hudson's Bay fort, first known as Nez Percé, then as Walla Walla; here immigrants of '43 gathered to build their rude boats on which a part of them cast themselves loose upon the impetuous current of the Columbia, while others re-equipped their wagon trains to drive along the banks to The Dalles. Each age that followed, the mining period, the cowboy period, the farming period, entered or left the Walla Walla Valley at this very point. Here the first steamboats blew their jubilant blasts to echo from these basaltic ramparts, and here the toot of the first railway in the Inland Empire started the coyotes and jackrabbits from their coverts of sagebrush. Wheresoever we turn history sits enthroned. Every piece of rock from yonder cliffs to the pebbles on the beach, fairly quivers with the breath of the past, and even the sagebrush moved by the gentle Wallula zephyr, exhales the fragrance of the dead leaves of history.

But if the past is in evidence here, much more the present stalks triumphant. Look at the cities by which this series of celebrations will be marshalled and the welcome that will be given to the flotilla of steamers all the way from Lewiston to Astoria. Consider the population of the lands upon the river and its affluents, nearly a million people, where during the days of old Fort Walla Walla the only white people were the officers and trappers of the Hudson's Bay Company.

But if the present reigns here proudly triumphant over the past, what must we say of the future? How does that future tower! Where now are the hundreds, there will be thousands. Where now are the villages, will be stately cities. We would not for a moment speak disrespectfully of the splendid steamers that will compose this fleet by the time it reaches Portland; but we may expect that after all they will be a mere bunch of scows in comparison with the floating palaces that will move in the future up and down the majestic stream.

Therefore, fellow citizens of the Northwest and representatives of the National Government, I bid you a threefold welcome in the name of the past, present and future. And I welcome you also in the name of the commingling of waters now passing by us. While this is indeed Washington land on either side of the river, this is not Washington's river. This shore on which we stand is washed by the turbid water of Snake River, rising in Wyoming and flowing hundreds of miles through Idaho and then forming the boundary between Idaho and Oregon before it surrenders itself to the State of Washington. And, as many of you have seen, half way across this flood of waters we pass from the turbid coloring of the Snake to the clear blue of the great northern branch, issuing from the glaciers of the Selkirks and the Canadian Rockies nearly a thousand miles away, augmented by the torrents of the Kootenai, the Pend Oreille, the Coeur d'Alene and Spokane, draining the lakes, the snow banks, the valleys and the mountains of Montana and Idaho. And two or three miles below us this edge of river touches the soil of Oregon, to follow it henceforth to the Pacific. This is surely a joint ownership proposition. And, moreover, this very occasion which draws us together, this great event of the opening of the Celilo Canal, is made possible because Uncle Sam devoted five millions of dollars to blasting a channel through those rocky barriers down there on the river bank. It is a national, not simply a Northwest affair.

But while we are thus welcoming and celebrating and felicitating and anticipating we may well ask ourselves what is, after all, the large and permanent significance of this event. I find two special meanings in it: one commercial and industrial, the other patriotic and political. First, it is the establishment of water transportation and water power in the Columbia Basin on a scale never before known. Do we yet comprehend what this may mean to us and our descendants in this vast and productive land? It has been proved over and over again in both Europe and the United States that the cost of freightage by water is but a fraction, a fifth, a tenth, or sometimes even a fifteenth of that by land--but, note this is under certain conditions. What are those conditions? They are that the waterways be deep enough for a large boat and long enough for continuous long runs. The average freight rate by rail in the United States is 7.32 mills per ton mile. By the Great Lakes or the Mississippi River it is but one-tenth as much. Freight has in fact been transported from Pittsburgh to New Orleans for half a mill a ton a mile, or only a fifteenth. Hitherto, on account of the break in continuity in the Columbia at Celilo, we have not been able to realize the benefits of waterway transportation. The great event which we are now celebrating confers upon us at one stroke those benefits. Not only are the possibilities of transportation tremendous upon our river, but parallel with them run the possibilities of water power. It has been estimated that a fourth of all the water power of the United States is found upon the Columbia and its tributaries. By one stroke the canalization of rivers creates the potentialities of navigation, irrigation and mechanical power to a degree beyond computation. Our next great step must be the canalization of Snake River, and that process at another great stroke will open the river to continuous navigation from a point a hundred miles above Lewiston to the ocean, over five hundred miles away. Then in logical sequence will follow the opening of the Columbia to the British line, and the Canadian Government stands ready to complete that work above the boundary until we may anticipate a thousand miles of unbroken navigation down our "Achilles of rivers" to the Pacific. Until this great work at Celilo was accomplished we could not feel confidence that the ultimate end of continuous navigation was in sight. Now we feel that it is assured, the most necessary stage is accomplished. It is only a question of time now till the river will be completely opened from Windemere to the ocean. We welcome you, therefore, again on this occasion in the name of an assured accomplishment.

The second phase of this great accomplishment which especially appeals to me now is the character of nationality which belongs to it. While this is a work that peculiarly interests us of the Northwestern States, yet it has been performed by the National Government. Uncle Sam is the owner of the Celilo Canal. It belongs to the American people. Each of us owns about a ninety millionth of it and has the same right to use it that every other has. This suggests the unity, the interstate sympathy and interdependence, which is one of the great growing facts of our American system. In this time of crime and insanity in Europe, due primarily to the mutual petty jealousies of races and boundaries, it is consolation to see vision and rationality enough in our own country to disregard petty lines and join in enterprises which encourage us in the hope of a rational future for humanity. It is a lesson in the get-together spirit. Every farm, every community, every town, every city from the top of the Rocky Mountains and from the northern boundary to Astoria shakes hands with every other this day. And not only so but every state in the Union joins in the glad tribute to something of common national interest. But while we recognize the significance of this event in connection with interstate unity we must note also that the Columbia is an international river. It is, in fact, the only river of large size which we possess in common with our sister country, Canada. About half of it is in each country. Its navigability through the Canadian section has already been taken up energetically by the Canadian Government. Think of the unique and splendid scenic route that will sometime be offered when great steamboats go from Revelstoke to Astoria, a thousand miles. Scenically and commercially our river will be in a class by itself.

Such are some of the glowing visions which rise before our eyes in the welcome with which we of the Walla Walla Valley greet you. I began by a threefold welcome in the name of the past, present and future. I venture to close in the name of the native sons and daughters of Old Oregon. There are many of these within the sound of my voice. Perhaps to such sons and daughters a few lines of "Our Mother Oregon" may come with the touch of sacred memory. Let me explain that Old Oregon includes Washington and Idaho, and in composing these lines I used the name "Our Mother Oregon" to include our entire Northwest:

Where is the land of rivers and fountains,
Of deep-shadowed valleys and sky-scaling mountains?
'Tis Oregon, our Oregon.
Where is the home of the apple and rose,
Where the wild currant blooms and the hazel-nut grows?
'Tis Oregon, bright Oregon.
Where are the crags whence the glaciers flow,
And the forests of fir where the south winds blow?
In Oregon, grand Oregon.
Where sleep the old heroes who liberty sought,
And where live their free sons whom they liberty taught?
In Oregon, free Oregon.
What is the lure of this far western land,
When she beckons to all with her welcoming hand?
It is the hand of Oregon.
Oh, Oregon, blest Oregon,
Dear Mother of the heart;
At touch of thee all troubles flee
And tears of gladness start.
Take thou thy children to thy breast,
True keeper of our ways,
And let thy starry eyes still shine
On all our coming days,
Our Mother Oregon.

ERA OF GOOD ROADS

In closing this chapter we may express the conviction that while this fourth era of transportation--a new period of steamboat traffic--is surely coming, though yet but in its dawn, there is now taking shape still a fifth era of transportation. This is to be nothing less than an era of good roads and transportation by auto trucks as feeders to steamboat lines. The most conspicuous fact at the time of publication of this work in this section as in the country at large is the movement in the direction of good roads as the logical sequence of the development of automobiles. This movement will inevitably become coupled with that of improvement of rivers as of cheap water transportation. With this improvement of rivers will be another sequence, that is, the creation of cheap electric power.

We are at the dawn of a day in which the two most vital needs of mankind, after production, that is, transportation and power, are to be provided at a low degree of cost not hitherto conceived of. As a backward glance in our own section it is well nigh incredible to call up that the cost of transporting a ton of freight by steamer with portages at certain points from Portland to Wallula has run from $10.00 to $60.00, and from Wallula to Walla Walla, by wagon, from $8.00 to $20.00 or $30.00, and by the first railroad from $4.00 to $5.50, while at the present time the railroad rate (which we think is high) on wheat from Walla Walla to Portland is $2.85 per ton, and only $1.65 by steamer from Wallula to Portland. Our imaginations are strained almost to the breaking point when we recall that experience on improved rivers in Europe and the older America shows that by continuous improved rivers, supplemented by good roads, it may cost not to exceed a dollar, possibly not more than half a dollar from Walla Walla to Portland. That new era is near at hand.