# Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 16/Number 2

THE OPEN RIVERS NUMBER
Foreword
In the making of Oregon its waterways have ever been a dominant factor. The earliest attention of the white man to the Pacific Northwest was centered on the hope of finding here a water passage leading through the continent. On the first maps the "Strait of Anian" is a conspicuous feature. The "Oregon" or "The River of the West" was the second source of attracting influence the region possessed. With Thomas Jefferson the leading object for projecting the Lewis and Clark exploration was to secure a "direct and practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce."
The rivers were the white man's main highways when he first occupied the country as a fur trader. When the home-builders came and began agricultural development the obstructions that interrupted the navigation of these rivers became more and more serious handicaps to progress. The building of railroads was a partial relief, but the realization of the full serviceableness of these natural highways of commerce was a consummation from which a resolute people was not to be deterred.
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Photo by Gifford. CELILO FALLS OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER (The Main Fall)
THE QUARTERLY
of the
Oregon Historical Society
The Quarterly disavows responsibility for the positions taken by contributors to its pages
THE CELEBRATION OF THE OPEN COLUMBIA
The Dalles-Celilo Canal removes the last bar to continuous navigation on the Columbia River from the Pacific Ocean to Lewiston, Idaho.
The completion and opening of the canal were celebrated by communities of Washington, Oregon and Idaho during the week of May 3–8, 1915.
The Canal is nearly nine miles long, is located on the Oregon shore of the Columbia near the city of The Dalles and circumvents from east to west, Celilo or Tumwater Falls, Ten-Mile Rapids, and Five-Mile Rapids or The Dalles. A total fall of about eighty feet is overcome. The Canal has been under construction since 1905 and its cost (including the open river improvement of Three-Mile Rapids, just west of the lower end of the canal) has been about $4,800,000.
Incident to the week of celebration was the first continuous trip to be made by a steamer from Portland to Lewiston, Idaho, and return. The Steamer Undine left Portland on the night of April 29, having been chartered by the Portland Chamber of Commerce, and bearing about 100 excursionists. This vessel arrived safely at Lewiston on the morning of May 3 where the first of the series of celebration programs was held, characterized by pageantry and rejoicing, attracting a large attendance, including the governors of Oregon, Idaho and Washington, a number of United States senators and representatives.
​Pasco and Kennewick, Washington, united in a celebration on May 4, the chief feature of which was the allegorical wedding of the Snake and Columbia Rivers.
Wallula, Washington, site of the historic Fort Walla Walla, was a celebration center for Walla Walla, Dixie, Freewater and other towns. Survivors of the Steptoe massacre threw the gang plank of the first vessel to arrive of the celebration fleet.
Umatilla County, Oregon, was well represented in the celebration at Umatilla, such towns as Pendleton, Stanfield, Echo, Hermiston and others sending large delegations. The spectacle of the burning and destruction of Fort Umatilla was presented as chief feature of the program.
Maryhill (formerly Columbus), Washington, was reached by the celebration fleet on the morning of May 5 and citizens of Goldendale escorted visitors on a tour of the model roads built in the vicinity under leadership of Mr. Samuel Hill.
The formal dedication of The Dalles-Celilo Canal occurred at a point on the canal known as Big Eddy on the afternoon of May 5. Hon. Joseph N. Teal, chairman of the Oregon Conservation Commission, and a leader in the public movement for the building of the canal, presided.
Nearly all craft in the Portland Harbor joined in the celebration at the metropolis of Oregon which followed an early morning program at Vancouver, Washington.
The Steamer Georgiana was made the flag ship of the celebration fleet, succeeding the Undine, on the remainder of the run from Portland to Astoria and the sea was reached aboard the Government light house tender, Manzanita, thus making it possible for participants to say that they had completed the first uninterrupted journey from tide water to the Inland Empire of Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
Photo by Crego. CELILO FALLS AND UPPER END OF DALLES-CELI LO CANAL
THE CELILO CANAL—ITS ORIGIN—ITS BUILDING AND MEANING
By Marshall N. Dana.
Thirty-five years ago when Columbia river steamboats were still being trained to run up hill, a government engineer planned a giant's staircase to get the ambitious craft over The Dalles and Tumwater falls at Celilo.
The next scheme was to install an elevator operated by water power at the foot of The Dalles, and by it lift steamboats to the level of a railroad track, where they would be hauled on cars by locomotives the eight and a half miles to the head of Tumwater falls, to be lowered into the water again by another elevator. An alternate proposal was a canal to be dug around the falls and the rapids at the level of the head of Tumwater falls. At Big Eddy, below The Dalles or Five-Mile Rapids, a drop of 72 feet was to be overcome by a hydraulic elevator carrying a caisson in which the boat making passage would remain afloat. This canal was to have two locks with lift of 15 feet each between Celilo and Big Eddy and a third at Celilo with a lift of 20 feet. The Columbia as a source of water for the canal was ignored; the supply was to be brought in a 13,000 foot feeder from the Deschutes river.
There was also a good deal of talk during 1893 of a dam at the head of The Dalles which would pond the water back to the foot of Tumwater falls, drowning out Ten-Mile Rapids, and the idea had a good deal of favor until Colonel G. H. MendelL, corps of U. S. engineers, recommended the construction of a boat railway from Celilo to Big Eddy. The board of engineers had approved a portage railway from The Dalles city to Celilo, and he included this in his recommendation, saying it could be used as a part of the boat railway to be constructed later.
The estimate for the boat railway from The Dalles or Five-Mile rapids to Celilo at the head of Tumwater falls, together with an open river improvement of Three-Mile rapids between ​Five-Mile rapids and The Dalles city was $2,264,467, and congress, enthusiastic, appropriated $100,000 toward the cost in August, 1894.
By June of 1899 no actual construction had been accomplished but most of the right of way for the boat railway had been secured. Then the navigation interests who were to use the boat railway when complete were heard from. They said the scheme didn't appeal to them at all. So the authorities not being irretrievably committed and not having had any appropriation since 1896, decided to defer action.
Captain Harts, who had called attention to the attitude of navigators toward a boat railway, then submitted a plan for a canal and locks around Tumwater falls, for a dam at FiveMile rapids that would drown out Ten-Mile rapids and for open river improvements between the two points, a canal and locks from the dam to the foot of Five-Mile rapids and open river improvement of Three-Mile rapids.
Congress liked Captain Harts' plan and approved the project, but demanded a further examination with a view to modifying the estimate of cost, $3,969,371.
The result of the re-examination was a recommendation for The Dalles-Celilo canal, about as built today, continuous from the head of Tumwater falls to the foot of Five-Mile rapids at Big Eddy.
Before congress would make any appropriation for the new canal, however, it demanded the delivery of all necessary right of way free of charge. The Oregon legislature appropriated $100,000 for this purpose in 1905 and deeded the right of way to the government. Actual construction was begun in 1905, just 31 years after the first examination was made.
As you look upon The Dalles-Celilo canal at the time of its formal opening and dedication to commerce and navigation, May 5, 41 years after the first examination and 10 years after the beginning of actual construction, do not take it as a matter of course.
​Its location and form are the product of the government's best engineering talent after consideration of all possible, and some impossible, methods. Into the nearly nine miles of its length have been poured more than four and a half millions of government dollars to pay for construction.
Its use will extend water navigation and competition from the sea uninterruptedly into the great inland empire of Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
And its existence is a monument to and an evidence of one of the finest exhibitions of persistent patriotism and untiring public spirit in the memory of the west.
The human history of the Celilo Canal is an epic of development and the romance of an undiscouraged faith.
The man whose influence is most intimately associated with the tedious and now successful effort for the Celilo Canal from the public viewpoint is Joseph N. Teal. He is a lawyer, but it is as a citizen and for the Columbia basin that he has held his greatest brief. The Portage railway and the Celilo Canal have bulked in his mind as means to the development of the broad interior. The, stamp of his leadership is upon much that has been done to this end. He has represented and spoken the faith of a little group both here and at Washington, when only the most exact information and the strongest arguments could defeat failure.
As you read into the minute books and records of the Open River Association, the Portage Railway, the Open River Transportation Association and the Portland Chamber of Commerce, the names of a few men recur time and again. They constitute the group always at the center of the fight for the open river. Without any reference whatever to notes, the names of Dr. N. G. Blalock, W. J. Mariner, Arthur H. Devers, the late Herman Wittenberg, L. A. Lewis, Joseph T. Peters, Henry Hahn and others come to me. Nor is it improper to say that the steadfast newspaper champion of the open river campaign has been The Journal.
​I have searched the records in vain to find who first proposed The Dalles-Celilo Canal. It may be that as the founders of the Oregon Steam Navigation company in the seventies planned their northwest monopoly of transportation, they chafed more and more under the delays and cost of the portages, first made by Indians and laborers, a backload to each, and later by wagons. At any rate, the thought of a canal came long before the portage railway, which was built first.
George H. Himes of the Oregon Historical Society suggests that it lay within the statesmanship of Rev. George H. Atkinson to make the suggestion. Atkinson gave to the great country east of the Cascade range in the Columbia basin the name, "Inland Empire," and was called a "visionary idealist" for it. He also conducted the experiments that demonstrated the wheat growing fertility of the Palouse country and other sections of the Inland Empire. Another who is suggested as the possible author of the canal idea is Dr. D. S. Baker, who built the first little railroad from the Columbia river at Wallula to Walla Walla.
E. E. Lytle was exceedingly active in securing the initial appropriations for the portage railway.
The general impression is, however, that the Celilo canal grew into the community consciousness, inspiring the plan by the need.
Major M. Michler of the United States engineers made the initial examination in 1874, at what prompting record discloseth not.
The first survey was not ordered by act of congress until 1879. It was found that the Columbia, the only river of the west with power to cut through the mountain ranges that lay beween its head waters and the sea, had, at a point about 90 miles from Portland, encountered four rock reefs, named in their down stream order, Tumwater or Celilo falls, Ten-Mile rapids, The Dalles or Five-Mile rapids and Three-Mile rapids. The rapids were named in accordance with their distance from Dalles City.
​The total drop in the 8½ miles from Tumwater falls to the foot of Five-Mile rapids is 81½ feet at low water. Steamboats have run the series in time of high water, when the drop is about 50 feet.
A few of the many proposals for circumventing the rapids have been spoken of. I mentioned in the beginning a giant's staircase. To make this reference clearer, the recommendation was for a canal from the head of Tumwater falls grade to a place above Big Eddy, where boats were to be brought to the lower grade by a flight of locks like stairsteps.
Nothing is accomplished for the development of a country without conscious, organized effort in the direction of the potentialities revealed by vision into the future.
Consideration of method and government appropriation insufficient to do anything delayed action for many years. February 5, 1886, I find Mr. Teal writing from Pasco Junction to the editor of a Portland paper:
"A free people should have a free river. Can the chains with which nature has seen fit to bind its waters, be broken? Can the lock which controls its usefulness, which only lets it fret and fume away its life betwen the rock-ribbed walls of The Dalles be opened? It can, and the people hold the key."
It was seen that delay in building the canal was giving the railroads dangerous opportunity to establish rates to all the interior unregulated by water transportation. January 30, 1903, the Portland Chamber of Commerce adopted a resolution of its open river committee pledging support of a $165,000 legislative appropriation with which to build a portage railway. The bill had been passed, but nothing was done by the state board, which feared the right of way could not be secured and that the railway could not be built within the appropriation.
May 17, 1904, the Open River Association was organized with members from Washington, Idaho and Oregon, to carry on the open river campaign to a definite result. Members of the Association subscribed a sufficient fund to guarantee the state authorities in proceeding with contracts. The State turned ​over the entire building and construction of the portage railway to Mr. Teal, who built it in the time specified within the amount fixed.
Nearly all the right of way was contributed without cost. Most of the lower portion was given by F. A. Seufert and T. J. Seufert, the O. R. & N. Co. and I. N. Taffe.
Under the auspices of the Open River Association, the portage railway was finished and opened June 3, 1905.
It was a day of celebration.
The Mountain Gem, under command of Captain W. P. Gray, brought a steamboat load of rejoicing people from Lewiston, Idaho, arriving at 10 o'clock in the morning. A trainload arrived from The Dalles an hour later. Spokane, Walla Walla and other towns were represented. A special train came from Portland, arriving just before noon.
Governor George E. Chamberlain (now United States Senator) took the first three blows at the last spike. Governor Mead of Washington struck five; Governor Gooding of Idaho, three; J. N. Teal, three; William D. Wheelwright, then president of the Portland Chamber of Commerce, nine; Senator Clark of Oregon, three; W. J. Mariner, secretary of the Open River Transportation company, four. It was a spike well driven with 30 dignified blows. Immediately afterwards a train carrying 250 people passed over the road. The first portage locomotive, was called the C. H. Lewis in honor of the father of L. A. Lewis.
The speakers were: W. D. Wheelwright, who presided; Governor Chamberlain, Governor Mead, Senator Heyburn, Senator Fulton, Dr. N. G. Blalock of Walla Walla, President G. B. Dennis of the Spokane Chamber of Commerce, Joseph N. Teal. Some of those who came from the interior were Dr. J. B. Morris, Colonel Judson Spafford, T. C. Elliott of Walla Walla, E. H. Libby of Lewiston. From Portland came S. M. Mears, Henry Hahn, S. Frank, L. A. Lewis, W. J. Burns, Joseph Morris, T. B. Wilcox, Tom Richardson, Mark Langfitt, F. I. Dunbar, secretary of state; Charles S. Moore, ​state treasurer; Binger Hermann, Senator Overman of North Carolina, Senator Clark of Wyoming, Congressmen Henry of Texas, Small of North Carolina, Southwick and Littauer of New York, Patterson of New Jersey and Hedge of Iowa. J. P. O'Brien, general manager of the then, O. R. & N. Co., came with a number of prominent railroad men. The co-operation of the railroad in the construction of the Portage Railway is frequently spoken of. Malcolm A. Moody of The Dalles attended. Hood River furnished a large delegation.
On the return the steamer Spencer with 175 passengers made a record run from The Dalles to Portland, time five hours and eight minutes, an average speed of 20 knots an hour.
The Portage Railway was at first under the control of a commission consisting of the governor, secretary of state and state treasurer. Then the legislature authorized a Portage Railway Commission. Joseph T. Peters, L. Allen Lewis and W. J. Mariner served continuously and efficiently, until at the last session of the legislature, they called attention to the fact that the completion of the Celilo Canal had rendered unnecessary both their services and further use of the railway.
The Portage Railway was made to serve a three fold purpose: First, to demonstrate such volume of independent traffic as would keep a not always eager congress appropriating for the Celilo Canal; second, to exercise a regulative influence on railroad freight rates; third, to transfer steamboat freight between The Dalles and Celilo. Incidentally it served valuably in transporting structural material for the canal.
From any one of these viewpoints, the Portage Railway many times paid for itself. Without it and the open river line, of which I shall speak presently, it is doubtful if we would now be celebrating the completion of the Celilo Canal, "the Panama Canal of the Northwest."
Unquestionably the Portage Railway saved consumers and shippers more through reduction of freight rates than they ever realized or appreciated. Cascades Canal and Locks were opened ​in 1896. The railroad then charged 7½ cents a hundred-weight to carry salt in carload lots to The Dalles, and 37½ cents a hundredweight to Umatilla, 90 miles farther. The rate per hundredweight in less than carload lots was 15 cents to The Dalles and 60 cents to Umatilla. The same disparity applied in the shipment of sugar, canned goods, loose wool and other commodities. After the Portage Railway was opened, the rate, on salt to Umatilla was reduced from 37½ cents to 21 cents a hundredweight, sugar from 51 cents to 35 cents, canned goods from 51 cents to 35 cents, grain from 15 cents to 13¼ cents. An active factor in bringing about these reductions, supplementing the Portage Railway, was the open river line of the Open River Transportation Company. The company was incorporated April 20, 1905. In its incorporation you find the names of the same little group that had been carrying on the Portage Railway and Celilo Canal campaigns. Henry Hahn, J. A. Smith and A. H. Devers were the incorporators. The first directors were William J. Mariner, Arthur H. Devers, T. D. Honeyman, L. Allen Lewis, J. A. Smith, Leo Friede, D. C. O'Reilly, Herman Wittenberg and W. H. Moore. The first officers were L. Allen Lewis, president; Herman Wittenberg, vice president, and Joseph N. Teal, secretary and treasurer.
Frankly, all the records and comments seem to show that the open river line came into existence because the campaigners realized it was not enough to have a portage railway. There had to be boats to bring business to the portage railway, so that the reports on river commerce which went back to Washington might be favorable. Whenever I discuss the matter with the organizers, I find them speaking rather injuredly of their surprise at finding it necessary to go into the river transportation business in order to justify the portage railway.
Not that there was then or at any time question or doubt of the warrant for the long striving to make the Columbia free and open to all navigation from the sea to its uppermost reaches ​
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in Idaho and British Columbia. In a report of the transporta- tion committee of the Chamber of Commerce for 1906 (the committee consisting of T. D. Honeyman, L. A. Lewis, A. H. Devers, Henry Hahn, Edward Newbegin, S. M. Hears and J. N. Teal, counsel), I find these paragraphs:
"This committee is more convinced than ever that if Port- land is to be a great commercial seaport, if the interior is to receive the benefits of reasonable rates, and to reach its proper development, it will be brought about only through a deep and safe channel to the sea and the opening to navigation of the waterways of the Northwest.
"This committee will further all they can an intelligent understanding of the subject to the end that the works affecting the Northwest may be speedily completed, and it confidently relies upon the support of the entire Northwestern country in its efforts to bring about a condition which will result in such enormous and continuing benefits to all the people."
The first boat of the Open River line was purchased in 1906, the little steamer Columbia, afterwards rebuilt and called the Relief. She carried about 120 tons of wheat, but lacked power to go above Umatilla rapids. She did succeed in fur- nishing the Portage Railway some business, and she was bought after Theodore Burton, then chairman of the river and harbors committee of the house, had declared the Portage Railway must show some business or the appropriations for the Celilo canal would cease.
The Mountain Gem, second boat of the line, made her first trip in September, 1906, bringing 566 sacks of wheat from the Arlington Interior Warehouse Company. It was the under- standing that these boats would make lower river connections with the Regulator line, controlled by the Northern Pacific, but the fallacy of depending upon a railroad for co-operation in opening up a river to navigation was shown first by fitful and irregular service, and next by a one-day notice that con- nections could not be made. Immediately the J. N. Teal, which was to have been built above Celilo, was built at Portland. ​
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The Teal was burned October 23, 1907, but rebuilt on the old hull in time to be operating again by April 20, 1908. The company also put the Inland Empire and Twin Cities into upper river service in 1908.
Frank J. Smith was selected as first superintendent of the Open River line, and in December, 1906, he made his first report. In it he showed full appreciation of the purposes of the service, saying:
"During the present season of the fall of 1906, the Open River Transportation Company handled considerable grain at a rate ranging from 30 cents to 40 cents per ton less than rates in effect on rail line.
"Merchandise was transported to river towns and also to interior points that were reached by wagon haul. The con- signees at river points received their shipments at a saving of 30 to 50 per cent below rail rates to the same point. Interior towns have used the water haul for over 250 miles and hauled by team 20 miles inland at a saving over rail rates.
"The farmers and merchants on the banks of the river have received large, benefits. It has enabled them not only to market their produce locally but to procure supplies promptly and at reasonable prices. Unused land that has been in pasturage for years is now being farmed since the boats have given the purchaser means of transportation. A number of new towns have been started along the banks of the river at points where wagon roads reach out to the farm lands of the interior. Old towns that have retrograded since the early steamboat days have been inspired with a new lease of life.
"Electric lines from the interior reaching to the Columbia and Snake rivers have been organized and in many cases much of the right of way has been freely given.
"The open river movement has been directly responsible for these projects. The names and locations of roads are as fol- lows: Spokane Inland Railway from Spokane to the Snake river ; Walla Walla and Columbia Electric Railway, from Day- ton to Wallula on the Columbia ; Bickelton and Northern Rail- way, from a point near Mount Adams to Alderdale on the ​
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Columbia. The Columbia and Northern Railway has surveyed a line from Hardman through Gilliam and Morrow counties to Blalock and secured some right of way. A line has also been surveyed from Prosser on the Yakima river, through the noted Horse Heaven wheat belt, reaching the Columbia at Paterson opposite Irrigon."
Then follows a statement showing in dollars and cents the reductions in rates that gave the Open River line actual value to the upper river country as a transportation agency. And a digest of the O. R. & N. Co. tariff, effective January 1, 1907, shows how the railroad reduced its rates after competition on the river became a fact. The admonition on the title page of the report reads :
"The question of whether or not the river is to be opened to free and unobstructed navigation, and the people receive the benefit of water rates, rests with themselves."
After the portage railway had been built and the Open River line inaugurated, there was a general feeling that work on the Celilo Canal should go forward without the delays due to exhaustion of appropriations by congress. In a report of the Open River Association's executive committee for October 9, 1907, I find this assertion :
"The Celilo Canal, if placed upon a continuing contract basis, can be completed within three years. When completed it means a free river followed by continued improvement until from British Columbia and from Le wist on to the sea, the people of the Inland Empire will be forever protected from excessive freight rates and freight congestion by nature's own great reg- ulator of traffic."
Five years later than the date indicated if built under con- tinuing contract, the Celilo Canal is ready for use, having been constructed under the biennial appropriations of Congress. Had a continuing contract been adopted the Celilo canal could have been built at less cost and in five years instead of ten. In the jetty and canal work of the Columbia River, we of the North- west are given evidence of the delays and unwisdom incident ​
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to making appropriations for undeniably meritorious pro- jects the footballs of successive congresses. Under the present plan, extravagance of cost and deferred completion are not the only evils; as long as the present system continues every good and needed project will rest in the balance until actually completed, and there will be biennial opportunity for proponents of indefensible projects to contend for the money which this government has for the improvement of its rivers and harbors. May experience hasten the day when Congress will provide at one and the same time for the beginning, the continuous work upon, and the com- pletion of needed improvements.
A special committee of the Chamber of Commerce in a re- port made in 1910 indulged in a bit of retrospection to prove the point that under the present plan of appropriating for gov- ernment improvements, the accompanying public effort is in- dispensable :
"We believe the building of the Portage Railway exercised a profound influence to furthering the commencement of the canal. Whether this be true or not, it is a fact that the third project was approved in the year 1904 and adopted in 1905 ; that work started at Three-Mile rapids, April 12, 1904, one contract was let in 1905, another last year, and that appropria- tions totaling $1,250,000 have been made up to April 29, 1908, and the project now stands on the recommendation for suf- ficient appropriations to complete it and have the work go on continuously until it is finished."
The Open River Transportation Company continued with its service, invading even the Snake river country which had been neglected by steamboats since the seventies and the days of the O. S. N. Company. Under the beneficent competitive influence, the railroads steadily became more accommodating in the matter of cars and shipments and rates. The little group that had subscribed many thousands of dollars were called upon for still more and there was little suggestion of loyalty in the hearts of shippers that would keep them patronizing the line ​
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after the railroads had met the competition. In 1912 the company took up with The Dalles, Portland and Astoria Navigation Company, owned by the S., P. & S. Railway, the possibility of its vacating the trade between Portland and The Dalles and letting the Open River line handle the business. The D., P. & A. N. Company did not, however, leave the business until the recent order of the Interstate Commerce Commission under the general ruling that a railroad may not maintain a boat service parallel to its own lines.
I shall never forget the last days of the Open River Trans- portation Company. There was one attempted rally after another, but to no effect. Friday, the thirteenth day of Sep- tember, 1912, the company voted to discontinue business. Serv- ice was continued on the river until October 31, 1912. Sub- sequently the boats of the Open River comnamr "/ere so ld. With the opening of the Celilo Canal there is to be an extended, uninterrupted service into a territory again active in advocacy of feeder lines, both rail and highway, between river and pro- ducing districts.
The government engineers reported at one time a production of 36,000,000 bushels of wheat east of the Cascade range, of which they estimated that 22,000,000 bushels would be ex- ported. The production should now be in excess of 2OO,ooo,,ooo bushels a year in wheat, without reference to the many other commodities which may also be shipped more cheaply by reason of the Celilo Canal. The records of the Portage Railway and the Cascade Locks show as principal articles of shipment, berries and fruit, cattle, horses, fish, flour, hay, lumber, grain, powder, sheep, wheat and wool.
The Celilo Canal is but just completed and already citizens and newspapers are saying, "It is not enough." There must be canals and locks around Priest rapids and other obstructions that prevent continuous navigation into British Columbia. It is even said that the purposes of commerce will not have been served until the Great River of the West itself is canalized, the electric energy thereby developed used in aid of agriculture ​
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and industry the splendid river subdued to assist the ends of transportation and the progress of civilization. In a state- ment by Captain W. P. Gray, a veteran open river campaigner and navigator, president of the Columbia and Snake Rivers Waterways association, and admiral of the Celilo Canal Cele- bration fleet which moved from Lewiston to the sea via Celilo canal, May 3-8, occurs this assertion:
"An open river does not mean merely the completion of the Celilo Canal, blowing out a few rocks at the rapids and scraping the gravel off a few shoals. It means a 40-foot channel across the Columbia river bar, a 30-foot channel from Astoria to Portland and Vancouver and a low water channel 10 feet deep from Vancouver to The Dalles, six feet deep from Celilo to Pasco, five feet deep from Pasco to the Canadian boundary on the Columbia and four and a half feet to the head of naviga- tion on the Snake, the Willamette and other smaller rivers. It means canals and locks around Priest Rapids, Rock Island Rapids and Kettle Falls. It means dams with locks on the Snake and other rivers to submerge the rapids, reefs and bars, and it means that where dams or canals and locks are built, cheap electric power will be generated and the water that now flows useless by our thirsty plains will be raised to give them life. The verdant field, the orchard and the vineyard will soon re- place the cactus thorns and sagebrush. The busy hum of factory wheels will wake the echoes of our rock-ribbed canyons. Cities will grow beside the rapid streams. Trolley cars and automobiles will replace the buckboard and the broncho."
May it be as spoken !
The purpose of this review was to direct attention, partic- ularly, to the efficiency of untiring public spirit, applied in forwarding such a project of community benefit as the open river, even though centered in a small but indefatigably loyal group. Yet the best of patriotism would have availed little in the construction of the Celilo Canal had not the government possessed engineering talent more than usually able. Big men ​
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capable of doing things in a big way are essential to the de- velopment tasks of the Columbia basin. From the engineering viewpoint the Celilo Canal is no less a triumph than from the public viewpoint.
Major Michler, who made the preliminary examinations in 1874, was succeeded by Major C. F. Powell, who made ex- haustive surveys in 1879. Then came Major Handbury and Captain W. W. Harts, who, in 1900, submitted his plan for the locks and canal around Tumwater falls and the dam at The Dalles or Five-Mile rapids, designed to drown out Ten- Mile rapids.
The board of engineers which was instructed in 1903 to make detailed surveys with a view of modifying Captain Harts' estimate of cost ($3,969,371) consisted of Colonel W. H. Heuer, Major W. L. Marshall, Major Edward Burr, Captain Cassius E. Gelett and Captain C. H. McKinstry. Major W. C. Langfitt was in charge of field work, with James S. Polhemus assisting as supervising engineer, W. E. Morris, assistant en- gineer, and W. G. Carroll, junior engineer.
Colonel S. W. Roessler followed Major Langfitt, and Major James E. Mclndoe succeeded Colonel Roessler, with Mr. Polhemus as assistant in direct charge of the work. For a brief interval Major Cavanaugh was in charge of the district, then came Major (now Lieutenant Colonel) Jay J. Morrow, who has continued in charge of upper river improvements since, with Captain Robert, Captain Dillon and Frederick C. Schubert, successively, in charge on the ground.
The year 1915 will not be forgotten in the water trans- portation records of the Pacific Northwest. In this year we celebrate the fact that the opening of the Panama Canal turns this coast toward Europe and brings us 6,000 miles nearer the markets of the old world, as well as closer to the Atlantic coast. By completing the purchase of the Willamette River Locks at Oregon City the toll imposed by private ownership is lifted on all the traffic in or out of the Willamette valley, not only by water but by rail.
​And by the completion of the Celilo Canal the navigability of the Columbia and Snake rivers is established; a channel has been opened through which may flow the traffic of that great hinterland east of the Cascade Range called the Inland Empire.
What will these facts mean in the developing of ports, in the settlement and cultivation of now unoccupied lands and in the building of cities and the strengthening of Portland as the great distributing center of the Northwest?
Use alone can answer the question.
The opportunity is almost beyond computation. Civilization may well make here its most splendid achievements.
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Photo from Government Engineers' Office.
THE DALLES OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER
ADDRESS OF JOSEPH N. TEAL
As Presiding Officer at the Formal Opening of The Dalles-Celilo Canal of the Columbia River, at Big Eddy, May 5th, 1915.
Nearly ten years ago, to be exact, on the 3rd day of June, 1905, a number of "open river" enthusiasts of the Northwest celebrated the completion of the Oregon Portage Railway around the obstructions of the Columbia River. The last spike was driven home by the Governors of the three Northwest states, Chamberlain of Oregon, Mead of Washington and Gooding of Idaho. In addition to these gentlemen directly representing the states concerned, Mr. W. D. Wheelwright, Mr. W. J. Mariner, and the speaker, also lent their aid in tying down the rail that allowed the first locomotive, the "C. H. Lewis," to pass over an unbroken line of steel from Celilo to the Big Eddy. The "Mountain Gem," under the command of Captain W. P. Gray, made the trip from Lewiston to Celilo loaded with men and women, among them Senator Heyburn. The significance of that occasion lay quite as much in what was hoped for in the future as in what had been accomplished. The construction of a railroad nine miles long was not of much consequence; but the spirit behind its building carried a lesson which all could understand.
Today we have come together to celebrate the consummation of the efforts, the hopes, the dreams of more than forty years. From the peerless city of Spokane, from Idaho's seaport Lewiston, from the twin cities of the Columbia, Pasco and Kennewick, from Umatilla, from Walla Walla, from Pendleton, representatives of the Inland Empire have come to rejoice. From The Dalles, from Portland, from Astoria by the Sea, from city and farm in every section drained by the mighty Columbia River, this throng has gathered, moved by a common impulse to commemorate an event of the utmost consequence to the Northwest—the opening of The Dalles-Celilo Canal. While the, completion of this great engineering work—great even in this day of great things—is in itself well worthy of ​being celebrated, the reasons which have brought us together lie far deeper. This mighty work symbolizes the stern, unfaltering determination of the people that our waters shall be free—free to serve the uses and purposes of their creation by a Divine Providence. It means that our unyielding purpose to secure a free river from the mountains to the sea will ultimately be realized. It means the recognition by all that throughout this vast territory there is no division of interest. This is a common country with a common purpose, a common destiny; and this stream,, from its source to where it finally weds the ocean and is lost in the mighty Pacific, is one river—our river—in which we all have a common share.
I must record, if only in passing, the pleasure and satisfaction it is to see here many of those who for many years have stood manfully shoulder to shoulder in an unselfish effort to unshackle this river, to afford greater oportunities to the people, to free commerce from heavy burdens. I delight to congratulate them upon the success of their efforts. And I desire also to speak a word in memory of those who are gone. When I think of the years men like Dr. N. G. Blalock of Walla Walla and Mr. Herman Wittenberg of Portland, as well as others I have, not time to mention, gave to this work, I can but hope that they are here in spirit rejoicing with us.
It is not my purpose to make an address, but it is my desire at this time to give you a few facts in connection with this canal. Although the improvement of this stretch of the river has been under consideration for more than forty years, actual construction was not commenced until October, 1905. Since then work has progressed as rapidly as appropriations by the government would permit.
The estimated cost of the canal was $4,845,000. The first work done was under contracts and at a very favorable figure. Thereafter, beginning in July, 1910, the work was done by hired labor, and, except for the construction and installation of lock gates and small bridges, the canal was ​completed under this method. This work furnishes, therefore, an excellent opportunity to test the statement so often made that work undertaken by the government and done by it direct is more costly than the same work done under contract. As a matter of fact the total cost up to May I of this year, including all retained balances on contracts and other outstanding liabilities, will be about $4,745,000, or about $100,000 less than the estimate. Included in this cost, however, is about $300,000 in plant, out of which there will be considerable salvage, which will be credited back to the appropriation. It also includes a number of buildings originally not provided for; and it is perfectly safe to say that the cost of the canal is at least $250,000 under the estimate.
The proportion of work done by contract was a little less than one-fifth, and the average cost of the work done by the government, including all items, was less than that done by contract, even though the contract price was very low. But the chief saving was in the greater flexibility and ease in changing plans to effect economies; and from information I have received I think I am quite within the mark when I state that such changes as have been made have, resulted in a saving of $300,000, and possibly more.
The officers in charge of this work from 1902 to 1915 were as follows:
Major W. C. Langfitt. Lt.-Col. S. W. Roessler. Major J. F. McIndoe. Major J. B. Cavanaugh (temporarily for four months). Lt.-Col. Jay J. Morrow (from March, 1910, to date).
Assistants:
Capt. A. A. Fries (under Col. Langfitt). Capt. Henry H. Robert (1910-1913). Capt. Theo. H. Dillon (1913-1915).
Civilian Engineers:
Mr. Fred C. Schubert, Assistant Engineer. Mr. G. E. Goodwin, Assistant Engineer.
Mr. F. E. Leefe, Junior Engineer.
Mr. W. G. Carroll, Junior Engineer.
Mr. Jas. Brownlee, Junior Engineer.
Mr. J. H. Polhemus, Junior Engineer.
Mr. Frank Saunders, Junior Engineer.
Mr. A. Seymour Fleet, who designed the gates for Cascades Lock, also designed these gates.
It is but due to Mr. Fred C. Schubert to state that he has been with the work throughout its entire life, and a more enthusiastic and devoted officer it would be hard to find. I have gone into these details at some length in order that justice might be done to the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army, which corps has in charge, in addition to its other duties, the work of the river and harbor improvement of this country.
The result of this particular improvement demonstrates that where the engineers have the opportunity they secure results. The handicap they labor under, what with intermittent operation and various limitations, both under the law and otherwise, is but little realized by the public generally; and I am glad to have this opportunity to express my respect and honor for them, representing as they do a branch of the service that has been distinguished throughout its entire life for honor, integrity and ability.
On October 22, 1805, and again on their return on April 19 of the following year, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, inaugurated and made possible by that great statesman, Thomas Jefferson, made a portage around Celilo Falls. It is interesting to note that the obstruction to navigation at this point has been used as a never-failing means of extorting tribute in one form or another from the public, for its control meant not only the control of the traffic in general but at times of men as well.
From the time of the first settlement on the Columbia River at Astoria by the Pacific Fur Company on April 12, 1811, until after the arrival of Dr. John McLoughlin as ​Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1824, there was trouble with the Indians at Celilo. Their control of the portage practically prohibited other Indians from traveling between Celilo and the lower Cascades. They acted as traders, purchasing commodities from the Indians above Celilo and other commodities from those below the lower Cascades, thus acting as both buyers and sellers, making a profit out of both ends of the transaction, and keeping the trade wholly in their own hands. Until about 1883 transportation companies had and exercised substantially the same control as did the Indians in the earlier days. Prior to the time of the completion of the railway along the Columbia River traffic could be handled only by steamer, and a portage around Celilo Falls was necessary. Competition on the river was impossible, as the company controlling the portage would not transport goods over its road for steamboats other than its own. Even with the completion of the railway and the substitution of rail for water transportation, this obstruction in the river continued dominant, and not only prevented the use of the river for navigation, but also helped to maintain high rates by rail.
Thus we find that whether the portage was in the hands of Indian or Anglo-Saxon it served its hold-up purpose equally well. Indeed it would be difficult to capitalize and put in exact figures the value which in the past this obstruction to commerce has represented to those in control of it. It would run to a magnificent amount, and, if it could have been continued indefinitely, with the growth and development of this country it would have become a prize well worth striving for. Perhaps the history of this portage will serve to explain why so much opposition to similar projects, such as the Panama Canal, and indeed to the improvement of waterways generally, is made.
So far as Celilo is concerned, however, the shackles are broken. The river is free at last, and tolls based on the control of this portage will no longer be levied either by red ​man or white man. One chain was sundered at the Cascades; another we are breaking today; soon Priest Rapids will be freed, and then our dream will almost be realized.
I may also say that we have not been idle in other directions, and that while the engineers were clearing channels, building locks, and digging canals, others were working on the no less important work of freeing our rivers from a control that tended to make these improvements of no avail, even after our millions were spent. I refer to railroad-owned and controlled boat lines, which throttled real competition and prevented all true use of our waterways as instrumentalities of commerce. We are celebrating not only the opening of this Celilo Canal, but a river free in truth and in fact; for now, after all these years of struggle, the steamboat will have a fair chance, and the river will be able to serve its purpose unhampered by the domination which has heretofore stifled competition and restricted service.
Before closing I wish to say a few words on the future of our rivers. Our work is not finished. It has only begun. Above Celilo the improvement presents a problem the successful solution of which will entail results so vast and far-reaching as to be almost beyond our minds to grasp. At this time I can but refer to it very briefly. From Priest Rapids on the Columbia and from Lewiston on Snake River as far west as Arlington and possibly farther, on both sides of the river, lie hundreds of thousands of acres of lands needing but the magic touch of water to transform the desert into a garden. The contour of the country is such that but a small percentage of these lands can be irrigated by gravity. They can only be watered by pumping. This method, while the best, can be successfully carried out only by using cheap power. Above Celilo there are many rapids which ultimately will be improved by means of locks and dams, and the general canalization of the river. With every dam, water power will be created, and this power should be utilized. In other words, the use of our rivers for navigation should not be the only ​one considered. All beneficial uses of these streams should be taken advantage of, and when they can be made available in connection with the improvements for navigation, it is worse than a blunder not to do so.
While I have not time to elaborate this thought, the slightest consideration will disclose the magnificent possibilities that await the proper improvement of the Columbia and Snake Rivers. When it is accomplished, as in the not distant day it will be, the Inland Empire will be an empire in fact as well as in name—an empire of industry, of commerce, of manufacture and agriculture; and the valleys of the Columbia and the Snake will have become one vast garden, full of happy homes and contented and industrious people.
THE DALLES–CELILO PORTAGE; ITS HISTORY AND INFLUENCE
By T. C. Elliott.
The year 1915 will mark in history the completion of the Panama Canal, by which two oceans are commercially joined together. It will also mark the completion of what is known as The Dalles-Celilo Canal by which a large portion of the Columbia River Basin is afforded open river connection with tide water. The dominant note sounded in honor of these great public enterprises is economic; but of equal interest to many is the historic note, the story of the past. It is the purpose of this narrative to pass in brief review the history of the famous Dalles and Falls of the Columbia River, and to note important instances of the retarding influence of these great obstructions to navigation during the various periods of dis- covery, exploration, trade, settlement and growth of what is now known as the Inland Empire of the States of Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
The Columbia River is between twelve hundred and thirteen hundred miles in length, from Columbia Lake in British Co- lumbia to Cape Disappointment at its mouth. It is the second river of the Continent of North America in average volume of water discharged, and the first in the magnificence of its scenery. It forms the western portion of the first trade route ever established across the Continent, Latin America ex- cepted. The existence of the Columbia River was recognized for several years before its formal discovery ; Jonathan Carver heard of it upon the plains of Minnesota in 1766-68 and Capt. Bruno Heceta observed and charted evidences of its mouth in 1775. It was actually discovered by Capt. Robert Gray, a fur trader from Boston, Mass., who sailed into it on May nth, 1792, and was re-entered in October, 1792, by Lieut. Broughton of the British Royal Navy, and by him explored as far inland as Point Vancouver, which is situated not far above ​
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the mouth of Big Sandy River in Oregon. The source of the Columbia River was discovered in July, 1807, by David Thompson, an English fur trader from east of the Rocky Mountains, to whom belongs the honor of first traversing the entire river, between source and mouth. That event took place in 1811 and has not been often repeated since.
The first serious obstruction to the navigation of the Co- lumbia river is the stretch of rapids 160-165 miles from its mouth, which has been curiously misnamed "The Cascades." These rapids were designated by Lewis and Clark in 1805-6 as "The Great Shutes," but were as early as 1811 known to the fur traders as The Cascades. This hindrance has been re- moved by a system of government locks, which were begun in 1878 and formally opened for use on November 5th, 1896. The next serious obstruction begins at the foot of The Dalles (Big Eddy), practically two hundred miles from the mouth of the river, and extends ten miles to include Celilo Falls, and has now been overcome by the Dalles-Celilo Canal, eight and a half miles in length. The river is now open for navigation as far as Priest Rapids, 420 miles from its mouth; and its principal tributary, the Snake River, to points beyond Lewis- ton, Idaho, more than 500 miles from the ocean. Both the locks at the Cascades, and the Dalles-Celilo Canal are located on the south or Oregon side of the river.
There are numerous rapids and falls in the Columbia river, which were given their original names by the French- Canadian or mixed-blood voyageurs who manned the canoes and bateaux affording the first means of transportation on the river; Les Dalles des Morts, or Death Rapids (in British Columbia), Les Chaudiere or Kettle Falls, Isle de Piere or Rock Island Rapid, Rapide du Pretre or Priest Rapid. Several other parts of the river were designated as Les Petite or Little Dalles, but to this part was originally given the name of Grande Dalles. Here the mighty river turns literally upon edge and through two successive rock-ribbed channels (more clearly described as sunken mill races) together measuring nearly two and a half ​
THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 135
miles in length, averaging about 200 feet in width (only two- thirds the width of the Panama Canal), the water rushes sea- ward with fearful violence. A mountain gorge or canyon with rugged walls rising toward the heavens in majestic silence is awe-inspiring, but this submerged gorge in the solid rock and filled with seething, whirling, rushing water is especially at seasons of flood terrifying.
The name DALLES is very correctly said to be a corruption of the French words "d'aller" meaning TO GO, but there is another French word of similar spelling meaning flagstone. So we have Father DeSmet's authentic statement in his book entitled "Oregon Missions" that dalles is "a name given by the Canadian Voyageurs to all contracted running waters, hemmed in by walls of rock."
The name CELILO attaches to the rather low but romantic horseshoe shaped falls at the rock reef composing the upper end of this obstruction, below which the Indian was accustomed to stand with his spear to pierce the jumping salmon. Like all other river falls these were known to the fur traders as The Chutes and when the name CELILO 1 was first used or whence it came is not known. The name does not appear in print before 1859, as far as yet discovered. The earlier journals and letters of fur traders and travelers do not mention it.
The Dalles-Celilo Canal then will remind the culture of com- ing generations of both the graceful figure of the Indian who originally held sway over these fishing rocks and river chan- nels and gathered there in such numbers, and the vivacious French-Canadian voyageur whose boat songs were periodically re-echoed from the surrounding hillsides.
Tribes of the Chinookan family of Indians inhabited the country adjacent to the Columbia from its mouth as far inland as Celilo Falls, and there were met by tribes of the Shahaptin family from the interior. The Chinookan family traveled for
i Suggestive meanings of the names are, in order of preference: (i) tumbling waters, (2) shifting sands, (3) an Indian chief; all of which presume it to be of native origin. A recent explanation that it is a corruption of the French "Cela 1'eau" by the Voyageurs is untenable. There is a suggestion that it first applied to the boat-landing, the falls being known as Tumwater. ​
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the most part in canoes and lived upon and trafficked in fish. The Shahaptins were "horse Indians" and many of them annually went to the buffalo country to obtain meat, but many others came to the Celilo Falls and The Dalles to trade for fish and to enjoy a season of gambling and visiting with their neighbors. Both the Dalles and the Falls, and also The Cascades below, were then as now valuable as fishing resorts where salmon were caught in large quantities. A tribe of the Chinookans known to us as the Klickitats maintained almost permanent habitations at both The Cascades and The Dalles and dominated the fishing privileges. With the advent of the white men these Indians found themselves in a position to demand tribute of any passing up or down the river and were not slow to enforce that demand. The fur traders for many years were at times in danger of their lives, and quite reg- ularly subject to crimes of petty larceny committed upon their goods, provisions, clothing or arms. From the first coining of white men then these obstructions in the river had to be taken into serious account by all who would pass up or down stream. The control of the portage has always affected the commerce upon the river.
The Dalles-Celilo Canal has been constructed in historic ground. It passes directly through the site of some of the nomadic villages of Wishram, so designated by the golden pen of Washington Irving in his book entitled "Astoria." The population of Wishram was very large, and was of two dis- tinct species of the animal kingdom, Indians and fleas. The Indians thronged here most numerously during the fishing seasons, and the fleas thronged here during all seasons ; so the chronicles tell us. The inhabitants of Wishram, both Indian and insect, preyed without ceasing upon those who were com- pelled to travel past their door and perforce to remain awhile. The name of WISHRAM is probably a corruption of the name of a band of E-NEE-SHUR Indians who were so named by Lewis and Clark, though at first thought it savors more of
Photo by Crego.
THE DALLES OF THE COLUMBIA (Part of the Five-Mile Rapid at medium stage of water. and showing uncompleted portion of Dalles-Celilo Canal on left)
​The first white men to traverse this stretch of the Columbia River were the explorers, Lewis and Clark and their companions. They arrived from the vicinity of Lewiston, Idaho, on October 22nd, 1805, traveling by water in pirogues hewn and burned from the trunks of trees cut near the forks of the Koos-koos-kee or Clearwater River. Captain Clark personally guided the passage of those clumsy canoes through the, "Short and Long Narrows" (now known as Ten and Five Mile Rapids) without mishap, his men being stationed at intervals on the rocks with ropes made of elk skin to lend assistance if necessary, while the Indians lined the edge of the channel staring in wonder at both men and boats. Their equipment and scientific instruments were all carried for the sake of safety along the trail on the north side of the River. The following spring when returning these explorers did not attempt to bring their canoes above Three Mile Rapids below The Dalles, but proceeded along the north side of the River, some on foot and some upon horses.
The first white man to portage on the south side of the River where the Dalles-Celilo Canal has been dug was also an explorer at the time, although a fur trader associated with the North- West Company of Canada. This was David Thompson, already mentioned, and the first to build any trading post upon its waters, and a very remarkable man. He upon that occasion traveled down stream in a large canoe built of boards sawed from cedar trees near Kettle Falls and sewn (not nailed) together, and manned by a crew of seven experienced voyageurs, but did not dare to run through these Dalles during the extreme high water of that year. His canoe was carried over the portage and put into the water at Big Eddy about 8 A. M. on July 11th, 1811, and on July 3ist he returned across the same path, but had to stand guard all night to prevent serious depredations by the residents of Wishram. He had been on a visit to the mouth of the River where "Fort Astoria" ​
138 T. C. ELLIOTT
had been begun the preceding April. Of all the men ever on the River probably no one ever had more experience with canoe travel than David Thompson and his description of these Dalles is therefore interesting: "I have already mentioned the Dalles of the Saleesh and Spokane Rivers; these Dalles (of the Co- lumbia) were of the same formation, steep high walls of Basalt Rock, with sudden sharp breaks in them, which were at right angles to the direction of the wall of the River, these breaks formed rude bays, under each point was a violent eddy, and each bay a powerful, dangerous whirlpool ; these walls of rock contract the River from eight hundred to one thousand yards in width to sixty yards or less ; imagination can hardly form an idea of the working of this immense body of water under such a compression, raging and hissing as if alive."
Lewis and Clark and David Thompson were the discoverers and explorers of this Portage and have left valuable scientific record of their visits here.
The shipment of freight across The Dalles-Celilo Portage was N begun on the 2nd day of August, 1811, and consisted of fifteen or twenty packages of trading goods, ninety pounds to the package, belonging to the Pacific Fur Company of New York, of which John Jacob Astor was the controlling partner. These goods were being taken up the River for use at the first trading post ever established in the Inland Empire by American capital, namely Fort Okanogan. The party was in charge of David Stuart, a trader of wide experience, and included three clerks, Alex. Ross, Francis Pillet and Donald McLennan, four Canadian voyageurs and one Sandwich Islander, traveling in two heavy Chinook canoes. There were also in their company, for protection, but in another canoe, two Indian women mas- querading in men's apparel, who had been visiting at the mouth of the River and were returning to their own tribe. That this small party escaped without serious losses at the hands of the "chivalry of Wishram" speaks well for the tact and bravery of Mr. Stuart, for nearly three days were consumed carrying goods and canoes over six miles of these sands and ​
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rocks, and there were Indians to the right of them, Indians to the left of them, and Indians in front of them Mr. Ross tells us in his account of the journey.
Connected with the fur trade was the first mail route across the continent (Latin America excepted). Beginning with 1813 annually in March the "Express" (so called) from Fort George or Vancouver crossed this Portage en route via the Athabasca Pass to the Red River settlement, Fort William and Montreal. In October it returned bringing letters from Montreal, Boston, New York, and England. This "Express" was used by the early settlers in Oregon before the establishment of other reg- ular means of communication.
The first attempt to carry letters across this Portage was in April, 1812, when John Reed, an Irishman belonging to the Pacific Fur Company, started across the continent to New York with dispatches to Mr. Astor, announcing the arrival of all of his party at Astoria. For preservation Reed carried these letters in a tin box, and the glistening tin was too great a temptation to the Indians. He was knocked down and the tin box stolen, together with his rifle and other equipment. The following year Donald MacKenzie, one of the most audac- ious fur traders ever on the River, boldly entered one of their lodges in an attempt to recover the rifle. The account of these events and much else of interest regarding the Falls and the "Narrows" and the Indians residing here will be found in Washington Irving's book entitled "Astoria."
In 1811 there had already been trade on the upper waters of the Columbia for four years but from far away Fort William on Lake Superior as a base. But with this first shipment of goods to the Interior began the period of the fur trade in the Columbia River Basin from Fort Astoria, and later from Fort Vancouver as a base. The extent of this trade in terms of tonnage or pounds sterling it is not the province of this narra- tive to compute, but measured in the passage of time it con- tinued to cross this Portage (though in diminishing volume after 1840) until the Indian Wars of 1855-6. The trade ​
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for furs above this Portage was very large and important and the profits proverbial. It extended from Southern Idaho to Northern British Columbia. Annually in the early summer the "brigade" (so called) descended the Columbia upon its flood waters carrying the season's catch or purchases. The "brigade" included traders from Fort St. James and other posts of the Upper Fraser River, from Fort Kamloops on Thompson River, from Flathead House on Clark Fork, Kootenai Fort on the Kootenai, Spokane House or Fort Colville. They rendezvoused at Fort Okanogan, were joined by the trader at Fort Walla Walla on the way, and in one joyous and hilarious company arrived at this, the first obstruction in the River where the skill and daring of the voyageur yield to the discretion of the officers, and both furs and bateaux were carried across the sandy and rocky road to be launched and loaded again in Big Eddy. Occasionally the attempt to run these Dalles at the high water stage was made, but too surely with loss of life and property. After two weeks or so of balancing accounts and conviviality at Fort George (Astoria) or Vancouver the return trip was made and the boat loads of goods for another year's trade were carried across this portage.
These brigades always passed down and up the River at the high water season but other parties of traders passed at other seasons and at times risked taking their bateaux through the Dalles but in such stage of the water always had to "carry" around the Falls. On the up river trip they occasionally lined up through the Dalles and a very graphic account of that meth- od is given by Mrs. Narcissa Whitman, who was going from Fort Vancouver to the Walla Walla Valley in the Fall of 1836 and who wrote under date of November 8th, as follows : "8th Breakfasted just below The Dalles. Passed them without unloading the boats. This was done by attaching a strong rope of considerable length to the stern of the boat, two men only remaining in it to guide and keep it clear of the rocks while the remainder, and as many Indians as can be obtained, draw it along with the rope, walking upon the edge of the ​
THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 141
rocks above the frightful precipice. At the Little Dalles, just above these, the current is exceedingly strong and rapid, and full of whirlpools. Not recollecting the place particularly, at the request of the bowsman I remained in the boat, being quite fatigued with my walk past the other Dalles. It is a terrific sight, and a frightful place to be in, to be drawn along in such a narrow channel, between such high, craggy, perpendicular bluffs, the men with the rope clambering sometimes upon their hands and knees upon the very edge, so high above us as to appear small, like boys. Many times the rope would catch against the rocks and oblige someone to crawl carefully over the horrible precipice to unloosen it, much to the danger of his life. When my husband came up, in passing this place, the rope caught in a place so difficult of access that no one would venture his life to extricate it, for some time. At last, an Indian ventured. When he had ascended sufficiently to un- fasten it, he was unable to return, and did not until he was drawn up by a rope. They had another accident which threatened both the lives of some of them^ and the property, and but for the protecting hand of God would have been lost. While the men with the rope were climbing up a steep and difficult ascent, the rope lodged upon a rock, which held it fast, and had it remained there until all hands had gained their point and commenced hauling, all would have been well but one of the men above prematurely shoved it off. The current took the boat down stream rapidly, in spite of every effort to save it, prostrating all hands upon the rocks, and some of them were nearly precipitated down the precipice by the rope. The boat received no injury, but was safely moored below The Dalles, on the opposite shore. Our husbands, with the men, obtained an Indian canoe and crossed to the boat. Thus they were preserved. It was just night as we succeeded in passing this difficult place in safety, for which we desired to be grateful. Many boats have been dashed to pieces at these places, and more than a hundred lives lost. The water was very low at this time, which makes the danger much less in passing them. ​
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No rain to-day. Thursday we made the portage of the chutes 3 and were all day about it."
In the summer of 1841 Lieut. Charles Wilkes was on the Columbia River in command of the exploring expedition sent by the U. S. Government to examine the country in anticipation of final action as to the boundary question between the United States and British North America, and his subordinate, Lieu- tenant Drayton, was sent up the River with the Hudson's Bay Company's brigade returning then, Peter Skene Ogden being the Chief Factor in charge. Mr. Drayton has left a very vivid account of the Dalles and the Falls, the Indians then fishing there, and the surrounding country. His description of the method of crossing the Portage during the high water season is, as follows : "On the morning of the 4th of July they began to pass the portage, which is a mile (?) in length. It is very rugged, and the weather being exceedingly warm, many of the Indians were employed to transport articles on their horses, of which they have a large number. It required seventy men to transport the boats, which were carried over bottom up- wards, the gunwale resting on the men's shoulders. By night all was safely transported, the boats newly gummed, and the encampment formed on a sandy beach. The sand, in conse- quence of the high wind, was blown about in great quantities, and everybody and thing was literally covered with it."
It will be noted that in 1836 and 1841 the Indians at this Portage had become less impudent and dangerous to passers by and this largely was due to the wise but firm policy of Doctor John McLoughlin, Chief Factor of the H. B. Co. at Vancouver after 1824. This change of mien is mentioned by Sir George Simpson in his book eintitled "A Journey Around The World." Possibly there has been no business man ever connected with the commerce of the River equal in ca- pacity and skill to Sir George Simpson, who was known as the Governor but really was the Deputy Governor in charge of all the affairs of the Hudson's Bay Company on the continent ​
THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 143
of North America from 1821 to the time of his death in 1860. His book states under date of August, 1841 :
"As we descended, the rocks became loftier, and the current stronger. About two in the afternoon, we reached Les Chutes, where we made, a portage, after having run nearly four hundred miles without even lightening our craft. As my own ex- perience, as well as that of others, had taught me to keep a strict eye on the "Chivalry of Wishram," always congregated here in considerable numbers, I marshalled our party into three well-armed bands, two to guard either end of the portage, and the third to transport the, baggage."
Here follows a graphic account of Gov. Simpson's experi- ence at this Portage in the spring of 1829 when four or five hundred Indians planned an attack upon his party, and then the Governor continues :
"But now these pirates had degenerated into something like honesty and politeness. On our approaching the landing-place, an Indian, of short stature and a big belly the very picture of a grinning Bacchus waded out about two hundred yards, (?) in order to be the first to shake hands with us. We were hardly ashore, when we were surrounded by about a hundred and fifty savages of several tribes, who were all, how- ever, under the control of one chief ; and on this occasion the "Chivalry of Wishram" actually condescended to carry our boat and baggage for us, expecting merely to be somewhat too well paid. The path, about a quarter of a mile in length, ran over a rocky pass, whose hollows and levels were covered with sand, almost the only soil in this land of droughts.
"The Chutes vary very much in appearance, according to the height of the waters. At one season may be seen cascades of twenty or thirty feet in height, while, at another, the current swells itself up into little more than a rapid, so as even to be navigable for boats. At present, the highest fall was scarcely ten feet; and as the stream, besides being confined within a narrow channel, was interrupted by rocks and islets, its foam- ing and roaring presented a striking emblem of the former ​
144 T. C. ELLIOTT
disposition of the neighbouring tribes. At the lower end of the portage we intended to dine on salmon, which we had procured from the Indians; but, after cooking it, we felt so incommoded by the crowd, that we pushed off to eat our dinner, while we were drifting down the river. Our meal was brought to an abrupt termination by our having to run down Les Petites Dalles Rapid. Some Indians on the bank were watching, spear in hand, for salmon ; and so intent were they on their occupation, that they never even raised their eyes to look at us, as we flew past them.
"A short space of smooth water, like the calm that precedes the storm, brought us to Les Dalles or the Long Narrows a spot which, with its treacherous savages of former days and its whirling torrents, might once have, been considered as embodying the Scylla and the Charybdis of these regions. At the entrance of the gorge, the river is suddenly contracted to one-third of its width by perpendicular walls, while the surges, thus dammed up, struggle with each other to dash along through its narrow bed. Our guide, having surveyed the state of the rapid, determined to run it, recommending to us, how- ever, to walk across the portage in order to lighten our craft."
Three distinct companies were engaged in the fur business on the Columbia: The Pacific Fur Company controlled by Mr. Astor during 1811-12 and part of 1813; the North-West Com- pany of Montreal during 1814-1820, and the Hudson's Bay Company of London during 1821 to June 14th, 1860, at Van- couver but at Colville, Washington, until 1872. During a part of this period Vancouver, Washington, was the metropolis of the Pacific Coast : Yerba Buena on San Francisco Bay, as well as Sitka in Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands drew their flour, lumber and other supplies from Vancouver. For many years the Hudson's Bay Company occupied the position of the first monopoly to exist on the Columbia River.
And there was one alleged or would-be fur trader who has left a good account of the Dalles-Celilo portage, Mr. Nathaniel
THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 145
Massachusetts, who passed down the Columbia in October, 1832. Mr. Wyeth was a man of great pluck and thorough integrity although he did "dream dreams and see visions" and failed in his attempt to compete with the Hudson's Bay Company. One of these dreams was a peculiar sort of boat he manufactured at Cambridge, a boat equipped with wheels to carry it on dry land, and in turn to be carried when in the water. In the actual experience he left the boat on the East slope of the Alleghanies, crossed the plains on horseback, and traded his horses with Chief Trader Pierre Chrysologue Pam- brun at Fort Walla Walla for a bateau and arrived at the portage on October 24th, 1832. His account is as follows :
"24th Started about 9 and after about [6 miles] passed the grand falls of the Columbia just above which a small river [Des Chutes] puts into the Columbia about the size of the small rivers above, the Wallah [Wallah] for instance. These falls now the water is low are about 25 feet; when the water is high these falls are covered. The water not have a sufficient vent below the water here rises about 40 feet. Just before arriving at the falls are considerable rapids. The falls are easily passed in boats at high water ; we hired the Indians about 50 for a quid of tobacco each to carry our boat about I mile round the falls the goods we carried ourselves. Shortly after passing the falls we passed what are called the dalles [small] or where the river is dam (m)ed up between banks steep and high of not more than 100 feet apart through which the whole waters of the mighty Columbia are forced with much noise and uproar. I passed through with some Indians while my men went round they not being good boatmen enough to trust and f right ( en )ed withall. We are now camped at the Great Dalles which are still narrower and more formidable than the small, having stop(p)ed after making 20 miles the wind being high and unfavorable for passing. At the gorge of this pass the water rises by the mark on the rock at least 50 feet, form- ing a complete lock to the falls above, the back water covering them entirely. The Indians are thieves but not dangerous. ​
146 T. C. ELLIOTT
Before us and apparently in the river rises the most formidable mountain (Mt. Hood) we have seen. The country ahead is clothed with forest to the river side which has not been the case before and the western horizon is covered by a dense cloud denoting the region of constant rain during the winter. 25th Made this day 6 miles and passed the great dalles similar to the small ones which we passed yesterday but still narrower being 75 feet about in width. Through this pass we went with an unloaded boat at an immense speed the goods and baggage were carried past on the backs of my men and some Indians hired for that purpose. My men not being good boat- men and timorous I hired Indians to work ours through going with them myself to learn the way. During part of this day we had a fair wind the river still W. by S. Here we saw plenty of grey headed seals. We bought some bear meat from the Indians which we found very fine. We encamped for the first time on the river among timber among which I saw a kind of oak and ash. Indians plenty. One chief at whose lodge we stopped a short time gave me some molasses obtained from (the) fort below to eat. He had a large stock of dried fish for the winter, 4 tons I should think, roots &c. He was dressed in the English stile, blue frock coat pants & vest, com- ported himself with much dignity enquired my name partic- ularly and repeated it over many times to impress it on his memory. His sister was the squaw of an American of the name of Bache who established a post on the river below the great dalles three years ago last fall and who was drowned in them with u others the following spring. The remains of the fort I saw as also the grave of the woman who died this fall and was buried in great state with sundry articles such as capeau, vest, pantaloons, shirt, &c. A pole with a knob at the top is erected over her remains. At the foot of the Dalles is an island called the Isle of the Dead on which there are many sepulchers. These Indians usually inter their dead on the Islands in the most romantic situations where the souls of the dead can feast themselves with the roar of the mighty and ​
THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 147
eternal waters which in life time af(f)orded them sustenance, and will to all eternity to their posterity."
During this fur trade period there were some interesting visitors along the Columbia; scientific men and travelers, the most of whom have left a record as to these Dalles. Among these were Paul Kane and John H. Stanley making sketches and portraits of the Indians; Thos. Nuttall and J. K. Town- send collecting specimens of natural history; Samuel Parker, spying out the country in behalf of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The limits of this nar- rative admit mention of only one of these, selected because of the intimate connection of his name with an important article of our commerce, DAVID DOUGLAS, after whom our Doug- las Fir or Pine is named. David Douglas came from England to gather the flora of this region in behalf of the Horticultural Society of London. In the summer of 1826 he was descending the Columbia in a canoe, accompanied only by his dog and In- dian servant, and spent the night of Aug. 28th near the Dalles Portage. He was safe in wandering alone among the Indians because they believed he had some supernatural power over the flowers and trees, but the residents of this locality could not overlook their opportunities and after supper he discovered that his tobacco box had been stolen. His journal states : "As soon as I discovered my loss I perched myself on a rock, and in their own tongue, gave the Indians a furious reprimand, ap- plying to them all the epithets of abuse which I had often heard them bestow on another ; and reminding them that though they saw me only a Blanket Man, I was more than that, I was the Grass Man, and therefore not at all afraid of them. I could not, however, recover my box, but slept unmolested after all the bustle."
The first white people to reside in the interior of the Co- lumbia River Basin (not meaning those connected with the Fur Companies) were missionaries. In the year 1836 at Lapwai Creek a few miles above Lewiston, Idaho, Mrs. Eliza Spalding and Rev. H. H. Spalding, and at Waiilatpu a few ​miles from Walla Walla Mrs. Narcissa Whitman and Dr. Marcus Whitman, simultaneously settled as Protestant Missionaries. Associated with them was W. H. Gray as secular agent and mechanic. Mr. Gray was the father of several sons, who in later years became prominent in steamboating on the Columbia. One of these, Capt. Wm. P. Gray of Pasco, is still an active participant in Open River activities.
Two years later another mission station was started in the Spokane country at Tsimakime. In mentioning these mission stations the names of the wives are given prominence because these were the first two white women who ever crossed the plains and mountains from "the States" and the first who ever passed over the Dalles-Celilo Portage. That event was on the 9th of September, 1836, when on their way to Fort Vancouver. Mrs. Whitman rode across the portage on a pony loaned by a gallant young chief of the Indians, but her experience with the fleas was far less courteous. She suddenly found herself covered with them. Her letter says : "We brushed and shook and shook and brushed for an hour, not stopping to kill for that would have been impossible." These women gladly, zealously and faithfully joined their devoted husbands in the attempt to teach the Indians the fundamentals of Christianity, education and civilized living. Their eleven years continuous residence, removed from the society of their sex and exposed to attempted outrage and death, marks an epoch in our history, and it served to practically direct the attention of the pioneers of the Willamette Valley to the fertility and natural advantages of the great region in the Interior. For it was from the Willamette and not from the East that the Inland Empire received its first population. The massacre at Waiilatpu( Nov. 29-30, 1847) which marked the end of this epoch served to emphasize its influence. That tragedy was the occasion of Peter Skene Ogden, an honored name on this Columbia River, passing hurriedly over this Portage early in December, 1847, en route to Fort Walla Walla and his return one month later with three bateaux carrying more than fifty women and children ​
THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 149
ransomed from the captivity of Cayuse Indians. The record is that on the return trip, the river being low, Mr. Ogden risked the passage by water and swept down through the Dalles with- out portage in his anxiety to place his passengers beyond the reach of the Indians. Had this obstruction not existed the risk to these helpless people would not have been necessary. Neither would there have been occasion for some criticism against Mr. Ogden for, on his way up the river, distributing to the Indians at the Portage the usual toll of a small amount of powder and ball for their assistance.
Beginning with the forties the "tramp of the pioneer" began to be heard along the Columbia, and with the pioneer came the development of a wagon road. The first wagon to come through to the Columbia from across the plains was that of Dr. Robert Newell in 1840, and it is said to have been shipped down the river (the following year) by boat from Fort Walla Walla. In 1843 the first large wagon train came through, a migration of more than eight hundred people. Upon arrival at Fort Walla Walla they were told both by Mr. McKinlay, the trader in charge, and by Dr. Marcus Whitman, that no road existed along the river bank, which was literally true. In a MS. in the Bancroft Library Mr. Jesse Applegate has written; "All of the immigrants of 1843 did not reach the Dalles in wagons. A company including the Burnetts, Applegates, Hembrees, etc., 71 souls in all, built boats at Walla Walla (now called Wallula) and descended the Columbia by water." [See Mrs. Victor's "River of the, West" pp. 335-7.]
Jesse Applegate was one of the most influential of the Ore- gon pioneers ; and Peter H. Burnett afterward became governor of California. The Applegates lost members of their family by drowning in these Dalles, and their goods not carried across the portage were lost.
But a larger number of the immigrants drove through by land and pioneered the first wagon track south of the river, which became the road for later migrations. This road climbed the hills after crossing the Des Chutes river and came upon ​
150 T. C. ELLIOTT
the Columbia again between Big Eddy and the present city of The Dalles ; the path along the river's edge below the Des Chutes river was not suitable for wagons, and was never so used.
The arrival of the pioneers marks the beginning of a period of transition in the use of this stretch of the river in that there was travel from the interior by land which did not pass over the river portage. The Hudson's Bay Company continued to use it and their trade assumed a more general character, but in 1846 the Treaty of Washington placed the Oregon boundary at the 49th parallel and left that company with only possessory rights instead of permanent ownership of their trading posts and business. This transition, broadly speaking, was from com- merce between white men and Indians to commerce between white men and white men ; and speaking specifically it was the transition from the monopoly or "big business" of the Hudson's Bay Company to the next monopoly or "big business" in the name of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company.
As a part of that transition period came the Indian war of 1855-6, known as the Yakima War because Kamaiakin of the Yakima tribe was the chief instigator of it. The influence of the Celilo Falls and the Dalles of the Columbia during this Indian war is best explained in the language of Isaac I. Stevens, first governor of the Territory of Washington. Gov. Stevens also held the office of Supt. of Indian Affairs in the Territory and in that capacity during the spring and summer of 1855 held a series of councils with various tribes and ob- tained treaties under which a large part of the Inland Empire was freed from any claim of the Indians and its settlement by white people made possible. But under the lead of the crafty and brave Kamaiakin the Indians soon repudiated their signatures to the treaties and in the fall began war upon the few whites already in the country. While making his way back to Olympia under the protection of a band of friendly Nez Perces and when seated in his tent on December 23rd, 1855, near the present city of Walla Walla, Gov. Stevens wrote ​
THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 151
a long letter to Gen. John E. Wool, then at Fort Vancouver in command of the U. S. Troops in the Columbia River district, from which the following is taken:
"As to transportation, I would urge that a line of barges be established on the Columbia ; that supplies be hauled in wagons from the Dalles to the mouth of the De Chutes, and thence by water to Fort Walla Walla."
"The Hudson Bay barge should be adopted, only be in- creased in size. The barge most commonly in use carries 6,000 pounds and requires seven men. But the great difficulty in the river is at the Falls (Celilo) at the mouth of the De Chutes river, which is avoided by hauling in wagons to above that point. A barge could be constructed which would carry 12,000 pounds, require eight men, and make two round trips a month from the De Chutes to Fort Walla Walla. Supplies for 500 men, say four pounds per day, including clothing, ammunition, &c., and forage for 500 animals, 12 pounds a day, each animal, would require 10 of these barges, 80 men, about ten (10) three-yoke ox teams, running from the Dalles to the De Chutes. An ox team could not make more than three round trips from the Dalles to Fort Walla Walla, in two months, and this would be more than ought reasonably to be expected. To transport the above amount of supplies and forage in wagons would require 100 ox teams and 100 men. Unless foraged on the road, oxen, after making one round trip must have rest, and a large number of spare oxeri must be at hand at both ends of the line to keep the teams con- stantly in motion." * * *
"I believe it is practicable to run stern-wheel steamers from the mouth of the De Chutes to above Walla Walla, and as far as the Priest Rapids ; but time will be required to get a suitable one on the route, and establish wood yards. There is nothing but drift wood on the immediate banks of the Columbia, below the mouth of the Wee-natchap-pan."
Readers of our history know well that Gen. Wool did not take kindly to any advice from Gov. Stevens and conducted ​
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his campaign against the Indians with some deliberation. This letter is dated December, 1855 an d it was December, 1858, before by proclamation of Gen. Nathan E. Clarke, successor to Gen. Wool, the Inland Empire was thrown open to settle- ment by the whites. The policy of the commanding general must not be disregarded as a factor, but the conclusion is clear that had there been no obstruction at The Dalles and Celilo the steamboats then operating on the middle river could have carried troops and supplies to the heart of the Indian country and the war terminated much earlier. As it was the methods outlined by Gov. Stevens as to transportation were adopted by the quartermaster's department and nearly every pound of munitions and supplies from Fort Vancouver to the upper country was carried across a portage road of about fifteen miles, from the present city of The Dalles over the hills to the mouth of the Deschutes river, and then transferred to boats for river transport to the government warehouse at Wallula, and else- where.
The present city of Walla Walla had its beginning com- mercially and physically with the sutler's store opened for the accommodation of the needs of the soldiers sent to establish the military post, since known as Fort Walla Walla, in the Fall of 1856. The Fort Walla Walla familiar to everyone along the Columbia up to that time was the trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company at the mouth of the Walla Walla River and which was abandoned by the Company and pillaged by the Cayuse Indians in December, 1855. The Quarter- master's Department later established a supply depot or ware- house in the buildings of the old trading post and called it Old Fort Walla Walla in distinction from the military post thirty miles to the eastward. But much confusion resulted and this led to the adoption about 1858 of a new name for the river landing, to-wit WALLULA, the origin and meaning of which is equally as mysterious as that of the name CELILO. Wallula of the present day is one and a half miles distant from the river landing. ​
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Mention has been made of the wagon road opened in the fall of 1843, by the immigrants of that year, and the western end of that road with minor deviations in 1856 became the Dalles-Celilo Portage road ; its upper end, however, for a time was Deschutes Landing at the eddy just below the mouth of the river of that name. From the boat landing at the present city of The Dalles the road followed very closely the present line of railroad tracks along the river grade and across Three-Mile Creek, then turned to the right through a gap in the hills to a crossing of Five-Mile Creek at its confluence with Ten-Mile Creek, then eastward to a crossing of "Ten-Mile" at the Fulton Ranch, then over what was known as "Nigger Hill" to the landing. Later it reached the River through a natural gap in the rocky bluff opposite the steamboat landing at Celilo. For several years this was the most active, as well as the most important wagon road in the state of Oregon. Its usefulness as a portage road ceased with the building of the rail portage along the river in the year 1863.
Over this sandy and dusty or muddy hilly road fifteen miles in length were transported practically all the supplies, munitions and equipment from army headquarters at San Francisco and Vancouver to the troops stationed in the interior. Up to 1859 the business was largely the hauling of government freight, also that for army sutlers and traders licensed by the Indian agents. Partners named "Green, Heath and Allen" were engaged in that trade ; also Friedman and McGlinchy. But with 1859 general merchandise began to be carried in large quantities, and that term included whiskey and rum as well as pins and needles. After the discovery of gold in 1860 both freight and passenger traffic became enormous. With the beginning of steamboating on the upper river a regular stage for passengers was put on; in July, 1859, Deschutes Landing consisted of a store, an eating house, a stone fort or warehouse and four or five other buildings, according to the Oregon Argus, of Oregon City. ​
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Transportation over this road was controlled by Mr. Orlando Humason, who appears to have been actively connected with nearly everything then going on at The Dalles. Associated with him were a Mr. Fairchild and others not so publicly known but currently understood to include an Indian agent, and at least one army officer. Samuel Johnson, in later years an honored resident of the Walla Walla Valley, was wagon- master; "Chic-chic" Johnson the Indians called him. The equipment consisted of pack trains and large freight wagons drawn by six, eight or ten yoke of oxen. Afterward the Oregon Steam Navigation Co. bought out Mr. Humason and expended one hundred thousand dollars in mules, wagons and other equipment to handle the traffic. This can be better appreciated when it is explained that the charges were $20 per ton or $1.25 per ton per mile for carrying goods over this portage, and except for solids that ton meant forty cubic feet by measurement, not actual pounds avoirdupois. A detailed account of this stretch of road would consume the time of an entire narrative; the oaths uttered by drivers and passengers along its grades and crossings have doubtless sent many a soul to purgatory.
During this transition period farming and stock raising and organized communities began to appear in the Inland Empire. To what extent measured by months and years the Dalles- Celilo obstructions to river navigation held back the beginning of the settlement of the upper Columbia River Basin cannot be stated with exactness, but it is probable that an open river would have meant more to the people then, taking into con- sideration the conditions then, than at any time since. The settlement of the interior country began very slowly. The legislature of Oregon established the county of Wasco during the winter of 1854 (January 11) to include all the territory lying east of the Cascade Range, and Maj. Gabriel J. Rains, who was then stationed at Fort Dalles, said in opposition to this action that only thirty-five white people then actually resided within the proposed county. The legislature of the Territory ​
THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 155
of Washington that same winter established the county of Walla Walla with its western boundary at the summit of the Cascade Range and its eastern boundary at the summit of the Rocky Mountains, and in all that stretch of country Gov. Stevens in coming from Fort Benton to Olympia the previous Fall had found only straggling settlers in the Bitter Root, the Colville and the Walla Walla Valleys, engaged in stock raising or trade with the Indians. But when the formal an- nouncement that the country was open was made at army head- quarters on December 9th, 1858, it found many settlers already on the way or ready to start. The Dalles Journal of April 23rd, 1859 savs : "quite a town is growing up in the Walla Walla Valley; it is the county seat of that county and has been named Steptoeville by the county commissioners."
As has been suggested the early settlers in the interior were the original pioneers, or the sons of the pioneers of the Willamette Valley ; they first headed toward the famous Walla Walla Valley, glimpses of which they or their fathers had seen in passing, because of the existence there of Fort Walla Walla and the Indian agency. There were no railroads and even the steamboat facilities on both the middle and upper Columbia were very inadequate. These settlers were com- pelled to leave the river at The Dalles and proceeded over- land, with their household goods and stock; they had little money; and while establishing homes here and there they were subjected to the high prices incident to expensive trans- portation around the river obstructions at the Cascades and the Dalles and Celilo. Had it been possible to run boats even from the Cascades to river points on the upper Columbia and Snake rivers and unload freight and immigrants within reach of the Walla Walla and Palouse districts, for instance, the develop- ment of these states would have been much more rapid.
The last act of this transition period partakes of that at- tribute common to the whole human family, the thirst for gold. Who first discovered gold in the Inland Empire does not con- cern this narrative but the honor of starting the rush of gold ​
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hunters to the "Nez Perces Mines" belongs to E. D. Pierce; Capt. Pierce so called, though the title was not of official origin. This man had known mining life in California and British Columbia, had in some manner, possibly as a trapper, acquired an acquaintance with the Nez Perces Indians, could speak their language well and was allowed some freedom in their part of the country. That acquaintance probably ac- counts for his having been allowed by the army officers a nominal residence near Fort Walla Walla during the summer of 1858 where he lived for a while in a tent near the springs joining Garrison Creek on land now a valuable part of the City of Walla Walla. He owned fifteen head of cattle, but these were disposed of in the early fall to Lewis McMorris; and his squatter's right was sold to John Singleton and he himself departed for the Nez Perces Country. The word he sent out, or brought out in 1859 and the discovery of the rich camps of Pierce City and Oro Fino in 1860 caused the mining rush, which began in 1861 and reached its flood in 1862-63.
Prospectors and miners rushed into the mining districts of the Inland Empire literally by the thousands. The boats from San Francisco to the Columbia River were crowded to the guards, and the farming in the Willamette Valley suffered from lack of labor. It has been carefully estimated that in June, 1862, there were thirty thousand people in the various mining camps of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. While all of these did not reach the Interior country by way of the Columbia River a great proportion of them did. The boats from Port- land up river often carried more than two hundred passengers to the trip. In March, April and May, 1862, the tickets sold at The Dalles for passage on the three boats then plying on the upper river totaled over fifty thousand dollars. The "Tenino" took in eighteen thousand dollars for freight and passengers on one trip. These passengers all passed over the portage.
And if the gold hunters did not all go in by way of the Columbia, nearly all the freight which included the tools nec- essary for their work, the clothes necessary for them to wear, ​
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and the food and drink necessary for them to consume (and the average miner was not a total abstainer by any means) did go in by that route, and the business done at the cities of Port- land, The Dalles, Walla Walla and Lewiston was entirely out of proportion to their populations and fabulously remunerative. At Portland in the spring of 1862 drays with goods for ship- ment by up-river steamers are said to have, remained in line nearly twenty-four hours in order to get a chance to unload. All this freight had to be carried over the Dalles-Celilo portage, and the physical ability of the equipment to handle it was taxed to the uttermost. Those were lively times on the old immi- grant road of 1843 an d at the terminals at The Dalles and Celilo, not mentioning the bar rooms of the steamboats plying on the River. The result was the building of the rail portage fourteen miles in length between The Dalles and Celilo, legally known as The Dalles and Celilo Railroad Company, but really a part of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, which was in the spring of 1862 just perfecting its strangle hold upon river traffic.
The rails for the construction of the Dalles-Celilo Portage railroad were purchased by President J. C. Ainsworth, of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, early in 1862. By some happy circumstance Wm. T. Coleman & Co. of San Francisco happened to have on their hands railroad iron to build twenty miles of road which they were glad to sell, all or none. This was more iron than was needed at the time for the Oregon Steam Navigation Company had not yet acquired the control of the portage at The Cascades, but ownership of it all also happened to become a happy circumstance.
The following item appears in the Oregonian of April 2ist, 1863, "We learn from the Dalles Journal that the passenger cars of the Dalles & Celilo railroad were to leave the depot of the O. S. N. Co. yesterday morning at nine o'clock, for Celilo, there to connect with the steamer Tenino for Wallula, Lewiston and all intermediate points FOR THE FIRST TIME." This depot at The Dalles stood very near the Uma​
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tilla House at the head of the incline to the wharf boat which was the scene of so many greetings and farewells in early days.
Under date of April 25th, 1863, speaking editorially, the Oregonian states that the Cascade road, six miles long, was begun May 21st, 1862, and the Celilo road was begun March 1 7th, 1862 and the cost of each was $50,000.00 a mile, or $950,000.00 and the rolling stock $150,000.00 additional; and adds : "So there is an investment of more than a million dollars to secure safe and pleasant portage for passengers at points which have hitherto been the dread and annoyance of all who traveled or forwarded goods from the west of the Cascade Range to the Interior."
Just why the building of these two Portage railroads of six and fourteen miles respectively should have taken so much time partakes of the history of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company itself, and emphasizes the value of both portages in the control of the River.
The preliminary step to the formation of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company was really a pool or gentlemen's agree- ment between the steamboat men of the lower and middle river and the owners of the portages at the Cascades ; this began in April, 1859, and lasted for about a year. It was not satisfac- tory to the portage owners. The first formal organization of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company under special charter by the legislature of Washington Territory and corporate agree- ments dated December 20th, 1860, combining ostensibly the interests of the steamboat owners on all three stretches of the River, from Portland to the Cascades, from the Cascades to The Dalles, and from Celilo to Wallula and Lewiston, had been in effect earlier in 1860. The original list of stockholders [fifteen in all, and shares worth $500.00 each] is as follows:*
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Shares Shares
R. R. Thompson 120 Ladd & Tilton 80
Jacob Kamm 57 T. W. Lyles 76
L. W. Coe 60 J. C. Ainsworth 40
A. H. Barker 30 S. G. Reed 26
Benjamin Stark 19 Josiah L. Myrick 12
Richard Williams 7 J. W. Ladd 4
G. W. Pope . ., 4 J. M. Gilman 2
Geo. W. Hoyt 3
The names of none of those engaged in the portage business, either at The Cascades or at The Dalles-Celilo, appear openly upon the published list, but those owners must have been included because the first board of directors of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, elected on December 29th, 1860, were J. C. Ainsworth, J. S. Ruckle, D. F. Bradford, S. G. Reed and L. W. Coe, and five months later R. R. Thompson succeeded to the place of Mr. Coe. (These were the directors who very soon afterward voted to purchase from Orlando Humason, et al., the equipment and good will of the portage business between The Dalles and Celilo, and spend the large sum of $100,000.00 for new equipment.) The portage at the Cascades, on the south or Oregon side of the River, was owned by J. S. Ruckle and Harrison Olmstead, and that on the north or Washington side by Bradford and Company, and each of these rivals held a five year contract with the Oregon Steam Navigation Co. under which they would receive one- half the freight charges between Portland and The Dalles, then $30.00 per ton, upon everything transferred across each respective portage.
The manager of the Oregon Steam Navigation Co., Capt. J. C. Ainsworth, then really played these rival portage owners at the Cascades against each other. The purchase of the rail- road iron for the Dalles-Celilo portage was authorized at a meeting which Mr. Ruckle, because of some jealousy against the Bradfords, failed to attend and the arrival of the rails from San Francisco was a surprise to him. Three miles of the ​
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Dalles-Celilo Portage were at once constructed and then the Bradfords realizing the temporary character of their wooden tramway and mule drawn cars exchanged their property for stock in the Oregon Steam Navigation Co., but with the sardonic expectation of indirectly still reaping some harvest from their rivals across the River by reason of the five year contact. The construction crew of the Oregon Steam Naviga- tion Co. (some 200 men) was at once transferred to the Cascades and the rebuilding of the Bradford Portage Road begun making use of the six miles of extra rails. Messrs. Ruckle and Olmstead soon after decided to sell and did so for the sum of $155,000.00, the deal being closed on November 4th, 1862. This all took place during the phenomenal year of 1862 when freight was moving up the River in such quan- tities that it was impossible to handle it at times. The Oregon Steam Navigation Co. perfected its legal organization under the laws of Oregon, October 18th, 1862, and surrendered its special Washington charter in December, 1862.
It becomes pertinent to here make mention of the man who more than any other seems to have influenced the use of this portage for at least 25 years and whose early career has not yet been written into the annals of Oregon. The active mind in the organization of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company and its development and current business relations was the keen and skillful and genial Capt. J. C. Ainsworth, its presi- dent, but the dominant personal influence on the board of directors in determining matters of policy and of transporta- tion rates and of settlements with competitors was that of R. R. Thompson, the principal stockholder.
Robert R. Thompson, a native of Pennsylvania, came to Oregon City with the migration of 1846 and eked out a bare living there for two years doing odd jobs at blacksmithing, carpentering and tinkering of all sorts; and his wife did her part toward family support. In 1847 Mr. Thompson was one of those elected a Justice of the Peace in Clackamas County; in 1848-9 he joined the rush of gold hunters to California and ​
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returned from there with "a long purse" to use his own expression full of gold he had dug with his own hands. This was the beginning of what came to be known among the steamboat men on the River as "the Thompson Luck." He then moved his family to The Dalles, where he settled, and (on August 15th, 1854) entered 640 acres of land under the Oregon Donation Act ; a part of this land later became Thomp- son's Addition to the City of The Dalles. In 1852 he visited "the states," and in 1853 returned across the plains with a band of sheep he had purchased (D. P. Thompson, another prominent pioneer of Oregon, assisted in driving the sheep) and when upon the upper Umatilla River was met with the request to hurry on to The Dalles because he had been ap- pointed Indian Agent there, which office he held during the Indian wars. In the triple capacity of land owner, grower of wool and mutton, and salaried officer of the government, the future seemed fairly well provided for, but paths to more rapidly acquired wealth were opened up. His acquaintance with the quartermaster at Fort Dalles was quite intimate and contracts for transporting government freight to the "Upper Country" had to be awarded to someone and he engaged in that business, becoming the controlling owner of the largest fleet of bateaux on the upper river, and of the first steamboat to be operated there ; and possibly interested also in the portage business with Mr. Humason. The statement appears in print that the price for carrying government freight from Des Chutes Landing to Wallula was $100.00 per ton by bateaux and $80.00 per ton by steamboat and that the boat paid her entire cost during the first month or two of operation.
In 1860 although only a two-thirds owner in this steamboat and another then in course of construction, Mr. Thompson was taken into the Oregon Steam Navigation Company upon his own terms, namely $18,000.00 cash bonus and 120 shares of stock, that being the largest amount of stock held by any one person, which preponderance he continued to hold during the life of the company. After this rather substantial start he ​
162 T. C. ELLIOTT
became one of the early millionaires of Oregon, at a time when that classification was rather limited. For his services as director, which were advisory and not administrative, he was paid $1,000.00 per month and as a forceful man of affairs, whose judgment was nearly always correct, especially as to how much the traffic would bear, he was very infrequently opposed. His later years were spent in California. When asked by Hubert Howe Bancroft as to the cause of his success he replied that it was because he had always from the very start believed very strongly in a certain man named Thompson.
Coincident with and necessary to the use of the portage was the use of the river below and above, and brief mention will now be made of the beginnings of navigation on the middle and upper stretches of the Columbia River up to the time the Oregon Steam Navigation Company assumed full control.
The first steamboat to stem the current of the Columbia above the. Cascades was the JAMES P. FLINT, probably so named after a gentleman in San Francisco who was prominent in steamship interests, and possibly had a small interest in her ownership. Her appearance on the river is best indicated by the following item copied (by Mr. Geo. H. Himes) from the Oregon Weekly Times, Portland, Sept. 4th, 1851; "The New Steamer J. P. Flint We learn that this fine steamer, J. O. Van Bergen, Commander, is now making her regular trips between the Cascades and The Dalles, on the upper waters of the Columbia. She is 60 feet long, 12 feet beam, and five feet deep in the hold. Her hull was modeled by Capt. Hanscom, who modeled the steamer Whitcomb. D. A. Plummer, Esq., who was also engaged in building the Whitcomb, has been master constructor of the Flint, and receives great credit for the skill and ability he has evinced, as do all those who were engaged with him and worked under his directions. Such mechanics as Hanscom and Plummer are justly appreciated in Oregon."
Evidently the FLINT did not make enough money above the Cascades for she was taken down over the rapids about ​
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New Years, 1852, and did service between river points and Portland; was sunk on a rock near Cape Horn on September 22nd, 1852 ; was afterwards raised and rebuilt and named "The Fashion" and operated for many years.
The next steamboat to appear was the ALLAN, owned by the firm of Allan, McKinlay & Co., H. B. Co. agents at Oregon City, and who are said to have operated the store at The Dalles for a time. She was a small boat of the propeller type, brought into the River on the deck of some sailing vessel, and used rather for freighting and towing than for passenger service. Thomas Gladwell was her captain and she was hauled up over the Cascade portage from the lower river early in 1853. This boat towed scows carrying Maj. Rains and his command to Fort Dalles when they arrived in the fall of 1853 after a trip around the Horn from New York by sailing vessel.
The steamer MARY was built in the late summer of 1854 at the Cascades by the Bradfords (Dan. and Put.) and L. W. Coe ; and that same year the WASCO by Isaac McFarland and his brother, pioneers of 1852. These were small side wheelers and came into important notice during the Indian wars of 1856, and later. Next, in 1857, the HASSALO was built by the Bradfords, the first stern wheeler on the middle river, and did service for many years. The captain of the Hassalo was Eph. W. Baughman, who had also been in command of the MARY, and who is still an honored resident of the Columbia river basin following many years of service upon its waters.
Turning now to the upper river, during the years 1856-7-8, the only transportation was by bateaux or barges of the pattern already described by Gov. Stevens, but rigged with masts and sails and called "sail schooners ;" the prevailing wind being inland permitted of very good time upstream, and the current brought them back. The freight carried was almost entirely government supplies under contract with the then quarter- master at Fort Dalles, Capt. Thos. Jordan, who was afterward courtmartialed for suspected participation in these contracts. ​
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The first steamboat which should have ascended the upper river was named the Venture, built at the Cascades by Mr. R. R. Thompson and Lawrence W. Coe in 1858, and intended to be dragged over the Dalles-Celilo Portage upon timbers loaded upon her for the purpose. But she accidently ran into the current above the Cascades on her very first trip and was carried over the rapids. Not at all discouraged the same partners at once built the famous "Col. Wright" at the mouth of the Deschutes. She was launched in November, 1858 and made the first trip up the river in April, 1859, Capt. Len. White in command. The lumber to build her hull was partly brought from the saw mill of Jonathan Jackson on Ramsey Creek just off Fifteen Mile Creek and partly from the Cascades, and all her machinery was hauled over the Dalles- Deschutes Portage. This boat made "big money" from the very start and was the only steamboat on the upper river when the Oregon Steam Navigation Company took Messrs. Thomp- son and Coe into their combination. The Tenino was in process of construction however.
With the purchase of the portages at the Cascades and from the City of The Dalles to Celilo, fourteen miles, the control of the whole River including the particular stretch of it was completely in the hands of the Oregon Steam Naviga- tion Company, the second monopoly in Oregon, and pos- sibly greater than its great predecessor, the Hudson's Bay Company. It would be interesting to contrast the policy to- ward their customers, the inhabitants of the great interior of "Old Oregon," of these two great commercial organizations. Quite possibly it would be found that the first of the two was more just and less selfish than the second. But that examina- tion cannot fall within the limits of this narrative, nor does any extended account of the career of the Navigation Company. Its wonderful financial success was due to its ability to control the River, and when reduced to the lowest terms that meant the control of the Dalles-Celilo Portage. At the Cascades two portage roads could and two actually did exist, one on either ​
THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 165
side of the River, and the problem of competitive boats to the wheat fields of the Inland Empire would have been com- paratively easy had the Cascades been the only obstruction. But along the north side of the Dalles-Celilo obstruction the physical conditions would permit of no portage road being built to connect the middle and the upper stretches of the River without prohibitive expenditure of money, and no attempt to do so was ever made during the existence of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company.
But this narrative would not be complete without other ref- erence to the Oregon Steam Navigation Company during its skillful and energetic control of the Portage and the River. No one has left a better pen picture than Mr. Samuel Bowles, the famous editor of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican, who in company with Hon. Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the National House of Representatives, and other distinguished men, visited The Dalles and Celilo on July 21st, 1865, and as the guest of the Company was given facts and figures which appear to have since been verified by examination of their books. His written account is as follows:
"The Dalles marks another interruption to the navigation of the river, and another railway portage of fifteen miles is in use. The entire water of the Columbia is compressed for a short distance into a space only one hundred and sixty feet wide. Through this it pours with a rapidity and a depth, that give majestic, fearful intensity to its motion; while interfering rocks occasionally throw the stream into rich masses of foam. Through these second rapids of fifteen miles, the rock scenery at first rises still higher and sharper, and then fast grows tame ; the mountains begin to slink away and to lose their trees ; the familiar barrenness of the great interior basin reappears ; and the only beauty of the hills is their richly rounded forms, often repeated, and their only utility pasturage for sheep and horses and cattle. The fifteen miles of railway, which, with the lower portage of five miles, are built as permanently, and serve as thoroughly, with the best of locomotives and cars, as any ​
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railroads in the country, landed us on still another large and luxurious steamboat, "and still the wonder grew," built way up here beyond the mountains, but with every appointment of comfort and luxury that are found in the best of eastern river craft, large state-rooms, long and wide cabins, various and well-served meals. From this point (Celilo), there is unin- terrupted navigation, and daily or tri-weekly steamers running, to Umatilla, eighty-five miles, Wallula, one hundred and ten miles, and to White Bluffs, one hundred and sixty miles, farther up the stream. For six months in the year, boats can and do run way on to Lewiston, on the Snake River branch of the Columbia, which is two hundred and seventy miles beyond Celilo, or five hundred miles from the mouth of the Columbia, as White Bluffs, the head of navigation on the main river, is four hundred miles from the mouth.
"We spent the night on the boat at Celilo, and during the evening the most of the party went back by rail to The Dalles for speeches to the people from Speaker Colfax and Governor Bross. One of the best bits of fun on our journey was im- provised on their return late in the night. Those who had remained on the boat suddenly emerged from their state-rooms, wrapped in the drapery in which they had laid themselves down to sleep, and proceeded to give formal welcome to the entering party. Mr. Richardson addressed the Speaker in an amusing travestie of some familiar points in his own speeches. Mr. Colfax seized the joke, and replied a la Richardson with equal effectiveness. The whole scene and performance was picturesque, and amusing in the highest degree ; and the cabin resounded with boisterous laughter from all sides.
"The next morning, we proceeded thirty or forty miles still farther up the river, till we had got beyond all traces of the collision of the stream with the mountain, and the scenery grew tame and common. Then we turned back, having reached a point two hundred and sixty miles above the mouth of the river, and retraced our passage through the mountains renew- ing our worship and our wonder before the strange and beauti​
THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 167
ful effects produced by this piercing of these eternal hills by this majestic river of the West. * * *
"The navigation of the Columbia River is now in the hands of a strong and energetic company, that not only have the capacity to improve all its present opportunities, but the fore- sight to seek out and create new ones. They are, indeed, making new paths in the wilderness, and show more com- prehension of the situation and purpose to develop it than any set of men I have yet met on the Pacific Coast. Organized in 1861, with property worth one hundred and seventy-five thou- sand dollars, they have now, with eighteen or twenty first class steamboats, the two railroads around the Cascades and The Dalles, and their appointments, warehouses at all the principal towns on the river, including one nine hundred and thirty-five feet long at Celilo, and real estate in preparation for future growth, a total property of rising two million dollars, all earned from their business. Besides this great increase of wealth from their own enterprise, they have paid to themselves in dividends three hundred and thirty-two thousand seven hun- dred and fifty dollars. * * *
"So large have been the travel and trade in this direction in the last few years, that the Oregon Steam Navigation Com- pany has carried to the Upper Country sixty thousand three hundred and twenty tons in the last four years, beginning with six thousand tons in 1862 and rising to nearly twenty- two thousand tons in 1864. In the same time, their boats have carried up and down on the river nearly one hundred thousand passengers, increasing from ten thousand in 1861 to thirty-six thousand in 1864."
It is assumed that the famous Umatilla House at the City of The Dalles was considered too lively (fleas) for the com- fort of this distinguished party during the hours usually devoted to sleep, but the reason for their being taken to Celilo for the night may have been regard for their early morning nap, as will be understood from the following schedule of trains on the Portage Railroad, published under date of De- cember ist, 1866: ​
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OREGON STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY WINTER ARRANGE- MENT
"Steamers Nez Perce, Chief, Webfoot, Tenino, Owyhee, Yakima, Spray and Okanogan; Captains E. F. Coe, C. C. Felton, J. H. D. Gray and Thos. J. Stump.
"One of the above boats will leave Celito for Umatilla and Wallula on each Monday and Thursday and Saturday. The Passenger Trains to connect with steamers at Celilo will start from the Railroad Depot, Dalles City at 4:30 A. M., Returning, a steamer will leave Wallula . . at 5 A. M. on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
"For Portland : Through in one day. Steamers Oneonta or Idaho; Capt. McNulty will leave Dalles daily (Sundays excepted) at 5 A. M., connecting by Cascade Railroad with Steamers New World, Cascade, or Wilson G. Hunt; Capt. J. Wolf, Commander.
Frank T. Dodge,
Agent."
The Oregon Steam Navigation Company played a conspic- uous and important part in the pioneer growth of the Inland Empire. It took much from the people but it rendered service when service was hard to render. It should be judged in the light of the conditions then existing and in the knowledge that corporate greed exists today in the same proportion that it did then. And while it is true, as stated in a "Brief History of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company" in the Oregon His- torical Quarterly for June, 1904, that the members of the corpo- ration "took every possible advantage of one of the most ex- traordinary opportunities that ever fell into the hands of men to amass fortunes for themselves," some of that gain has already come back to the people through direct and indirect benefactions: Reed College at Portland is the most notable instance. Any censure should be against the greed of the individual member rather than against the monopoly itself. ​
THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 169
Mention of the heavy shipments over the Portage thus far has been with relation to up-river freight and it is well to record when the tide began to turn the other way, from the Interior to tide water. The first wheat to be sent out from the Walla Walla Valley was in the form of flour. The editor of the Dalles Mountaineer, on March i6th, 1867, wrote; "We have received a sample of bread made of Walla Walla flour at the City Bakery, and believe it to be of an extra quality." The papers of Walla Walla and The Dalles during the next two months bristle with protests against the rate of freight on flour from Wallula to The Dalles of $17.50 per ton as against $22.50 per ton on flour from Portland to Wallula ; and "Cumtux" (J. M. Vansycle) then residing at Wallula, sent the following communication to the Walla Walla Statesman under date June 2nd, 1867: "By a little foresight of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company in putting down their charges on down frieght from this point trade has turned upon them, and where they heretofore had nothing to carry down they now have thousands of pounds of flour by every steamer. The road from Walla Walla to Wallula is literally lined with heavy freight teams, eight or ten yoke of cattle and four, six, eight and ten mule teams, all heavily loaded with flour are coming in every day. Two ten-mule teams are at present time unload- ing 20,000 pounds of flour alone. This is as it should be, but let me ask, how many pounds of flour would the steamer have to take down to The Dalles tomorrow had the Company stuck to their old price of $17.50 per ton? Not a pound! But six dollars per ton gives teamsters something to do, gives our farmers and mill men a market, and puts money in the hands of the O. S. N. Co. Tomorrow's trip will give a clear gain to the company of at least $300.00. It don't cost them one cent more to take down a three or five hundred dollar freight than it does to go down, as they have done heretofore empty." Wheat itself began to be shipped in the fall of 1867.
For sixteen years, 1863-1879, this narrow gauge Portage railway from The Dalles to Celilo was operated by the Oregon ​
170 T. C. ELLIOTT
Steam Navigation Company, and its history is that of the larger company. For a time it was the longest stretch of railroad between the entire Pacific Northwest and Missouri River points, when passengers made use of the River to con- nect with the daily stages from Umatilla or Walla Walla for Boise, Salt Lake City and Council Bluffs or Saint Joe. After 1868 these stages connected with the Central Pacific Railroad at Kelton, Utah. It played a part in the efforts of the mer- chants of Portland to distribute their goods in far away Mon- tana in competition with shipments from San Francisco by wagons over what was known as the "Chico Route." It fur- nished the rapid transit for bridal couples from Walla Walla and Lewiston, and it carried the families of the prosperous residents of the Inland Empire when they journeyed to the Seaside House or Grimes Hotel for a smell of the Pacific Ocean air in summer time. Much of keen interest incidental to travel and shipment over its rails might be gleaned from the written records of those years, did the limitations of this nar- rative permit.
Its legal identity was preserved; it was The Dalles and Celilo Railroad Company, and as such, was one of the corpora- tions taken over by its successor, The Oregon Railway and Navigation Company in 1879, when Mr. Henry Villard and associates purchased the stock of the Oregon Steam Naviga- tion Company at practically the price named by its owners. After that the Portage Road became the first link in railway construction to the Inland Empire. Grading on this construc- tion began at Celilo the first week in August, 1880, and con- nection was made at Wallula with the Walla Walla & Columbia River Railway Company (the famous D. S. Baker road from Walla Walla to the River) on April 16-17, 1881. Connection of The Dalles with Portland by rail was not completed until October 3rd, 1882, when the last spike was driven at a point three hundred yards above Multnomah Falls. With the com- pletion of the railroad steamboating upon the upper river was practically at an end, there being no independent portage between Celilo and The Dalles or at The Cascades. ​
THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 171
During and following the days of activity on the Upper River it became necessary to transfer steamboats over the Falls and through The Dalles to the Middle River ; and when- ever attempted this has been accomplished successfully, though with great risk. The plan usually followed was that of running the falls and upper stretch of The Dalles during the extreme high water of June when the rock reef at the lower stretch of The Dalles acted as a dam and held the river back so as to submerge the upper obstructions, and of tieing up at what was called the "mess house" there until lower water in Sep- tember or October before running through the more tortuous and dangerous lower gorge. The upper Dalles (Ten-Mile Rapids) measure about 2500 feet in length, and the lower (Five-Mile Rapids) measure about 9500 feet in length.
The first boat to be brought down in this way was the OKANOGAN in the summer and fall of 1866. Capt. Thomas Stump was her commander, and the usual significance of his name is certainly in rather direct contrast with the speed of that initial and adventurous trip. In the year 1870 the Nez Perces Chief and the Shoshone were both brought over the Falls on the same day, June 28th, by Capt. Sebastian Miller, known as "Bass Miller" among the elect. This was rather tame sailing for him because he had earlier in the year piloted the Shoshone through the Box Canyon of the Snake River, that boat having been built by the Oregon Steam Navigation Com- pany near old Fort Boise.
The next to go through was the largest boat of all, the Har- vest Queen, of 200 feet length and 37 feet beam, and the entire distance was made during eleven days and was attended with some romance. It was made in mid-winter, Feb. 8th-i8th, 1 88 1, Capt. Jas. W. Troup being in the pilot house and Chief Engineer Peter DeHuff at the throttle. It was upon that occasion that Capt. Troup in a moment of either anxiety or rapture is said to have called down through the tube to his engineer; "Pete, if you love me back her, back her hard." This incident is not literally vouched for, however, either as ​
172 T. C. ELLIOTT
to language or occurrence. It happened that winter that one of the balmy breezes known as a "chinook" melted the snows on the mountains sufficiently to cause a very sudden and unusual rise of the River, which was the occasion for the sudden movement of the boat from Celilo to the "mess house." Then followed almost immediately the usual low water stage of water which permitted taking her through the Lower Dalles.
In 1888, June-September, inclusive, Capt. Troup piloted the steamer D. S. Baker through in the same manner; and now (May, 1915), Capt. Troup is a guest on the first boat to descend through the Dalles-Celilo Canal, so that it is possible for him to say that he has passed from the Upper to the Middle River by water three times, once in three months, again in eleven days, and again in two and a half hours.
It has been stated that at no time during the ascendency of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company was any attempt made to construct a portage railroad on the north side of the Columbia around Celilo Falls and The Dalles. With the marvelous development in the production of grain in the Inland Empire and the increase in its population the River again began to be thought of as a means of transportation, and a very progressive gentleman named Paul Mohr, of Spokane, obtained title to points of land along the north bank with the purpose of again connecting the two parts of the river by rail portage. His first organization was called the Farmers' Railway Trans- portation and Steamboat Portage Company in the year 1885, consisting of two residents of Spokane and seven from Walla Walla, none of whom were horny-handed tillers of the soil, however. The Government Locks at the Cascades were then in process of construction and it was aimed to make use of these. One or two reorganizations followed, but without evidence of physical activity; the last was called The Columbia River Railway and Navigation Company and included capitalists from Chicago, New York and Boston. But in 1899 the project was revived and the Central Naviga- tion and Construction Company (really the construction end ​
THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 173
of the other company) was organized at Spokane, promi- nent capitalists there being associated with Mr. Mohr. Much grading was done and three steamboats were purchased or built, named the Frederick Billings, the Klickitat and the Uma- tilla, and plans were laid to transport the wheat crop of 1900. But in July of that year the Billings was wrecked, and with it any further progress of the Company ceased. According to the Oregonian of May 2/th, 1892, about eight hundred thousand dollars was expended on the Mohr Projects, five hundred thousand before 1900 and three hundred thousand after. The right of way fell into> the possession of the Northern Pacific Railway in July, 1902, and became the first graded portion of the North Bank Road of today.
But with this same increase in the wealth and production and population of the Inland Empire came the demand of the people for an open river to the ocean and the Open River Association came into being. In July, 1901, the Rivers and Harbors Committee of the National House of Representatives visited the River, under the chairmanship of Theodore E. Burton of Ohio. The verdict of Mr. Burton after this visit seemed to be that the opening of a way through the Dalles- Celilo Portage must wait until the bar at the mouth of the river had been permanently deepened. Largely as a protest against this decision and as an attempt to show in a practical way what an open river would mean the leaders in the Open River Association capitalized themselves to build and maintain steamer service on both the Upper and the Lower Rivers, and the State of Oregon erected a Portage Railroad from Celilo to Big Eddy at a cost of $165,000.00, which amount had to be supplemented by public subscription and later by further appropriation by the State. This Portage Railroad was for- mally opened on June 3rd, 1905, and was operated until leased by the government engineers for use in the construction of the Canal which is now completed.
Commercially this enterprise did not measure up to expecta- tions, and financially it was a loss to both the State of Oregon ​
174 T. C. ELLIOTT
and the individual investors ; but it was of value in hastening the completion of the Canal and in opening the way to resump- tion of regular boat service on the Upper River.
Another chapter in the history of this particular stretch of the River will be written at some time in the future when its on-rushing waters shall have been harnessed and electric lamps of a million candle power shall reveal by night the beauty of the Falls and the swirling current of The Dalles. But even now in thought it is possible to hark back to the year 1803 when that far-seeing statesman, Thomas Jefferson, the President of the United States, sat at his table, in Washington and in the dim light of the candles then in use with his own hand penned in- structions to Capt. Meriwether Lewis, who was soon to explore a way to "communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado, or any other river may offer the most direct and practicable water communication across the continent, for the purposes of commerce."
And while commercial expansion was the motive of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, President Jefferson in his won- derful letter was exceedingly minute in reference to informa- tion to be gathered as to the people, the flora, the geology, the natural history and the climate of the country to be passed through. Thus did culture go hand in hand with commerce in the first contemplation of the Columbia River region ; and as participants in its present growth and achievements it is well that we do not forget to recall and retell the deeds and
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ADDRESS OF WELCOME AT THE DALLES
CELILO CANAL CELEBRATION,
WALLULA, MAY 4th
By WILLIAM D. LYMAN.
Officials and representatives of the National and State gov- ernments, 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 Moun- tains 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 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 ex- panse 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 bateaux loads of furs for sending down the river. On this very spot was built the old Hudson's Bay fort, first known as Nez Perce, then as Walla Walla; here the 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 those basaltic ramparts, and here the toot of the first railway in the Inland Empire startled the coyotes and jackrabbits from their coverts of sage brush. Wheresoever we turn history sits enthroned. Every piece of rock from yonder ​
176 W. D. LYMAN
twin 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 welcomes 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 the thousands. Where now are the villages, will be stately cities. We would not for a moment speak disrespectfully of the 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 representa- tives of the National government, I bid you a three-fold wel- come in the name of past, present and future. And I welcome you also in the name of the commingling of waters now pass- ing 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 five hundred miles through Idaho and then forming the boundary between Idaho and Oregon before it surrenders itself to the State of Wash- ington. 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 ​
ADDRESS OF WELCOME 177
the Kootenai, the Pend d'Oreille, the Coeur d'Alene and Spo- kane, draining the lakes, the snow banks, the valleys and the mountains of Montana and Idaho. And two or three miles be- low us this edge of the River touches the soil of Oregon, to fol- low 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 North- west 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 in- dustrial, 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 but a fifteenth, of that by land; but, note, this is under certain conditions. What are those conditions? They are that the water ways 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 per 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 ​
178 W. D. LYMAN
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 con- tinuous navigation from a point a hundred miles above Lewis- ton to the ocean, over six 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 thou- sand 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 accomplish- ment.
The second phase of this great accomplishment which espec- ially appeals to me now is the character of nationality and even of inter-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 pople. Each one 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 inter-state sympathy and inter- dependence, 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 a consolation to see vision and rationality enough in our own country to disregard petty lines and join in enterprises which will conduce to the general weal. This Celilo ​
ADDRESS OF WELCOME 179
achievement is one of that large class of facts which encourage us in the hope of a rational future for humanity. It is a lesson in the get-together-spirit. Every farm, every com- munity, every town, every city from the top of the Rocky Mountains and from the northern boundary to Astoria shakes hands with every other on this day. And not only so but every state in the Union joins in the glad tribute in something of common national interest. But while we recognize the sig- nificance of this event in connection with inter-state unity we must note also that the Columbia is an inter-national 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 Gov- ernment. Think of the unique and splendid scenic route that will sometime be offered when great steamboats can go from Revelstoke to Astoria, a thousand miles. Scenically and com- mercially 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 three-fold 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 to our Mother Oregon may come with the touch of sacred memory. Let me explain that Old Oregon includes Washington and Idaho, and when I use the name "our Mother Oregon" I 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. ​
180 W. D. LYMAN
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. ​
STORY OF THE RIVER-ITS PLACE IN NORTHWEST HISTORY
By HENRY L. TALKINGTON.
"Where rolls the Oregon" (the Columbia) is a query raised by a great American poet nearly a century ago, and the question today remains only partially answered. Two countries Canada and the United States and seven states, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada, are, the sources of this mighty river and its various tributaries. The Columbia basin has a watershed of 250,000 square miles, embracing most of Oregon and Washington, all of Idaho, and parts of the other four states just mentioned.
At the close of the American Revolution England sought to crush the commercial energies of the American Republic. While she drove the traders of this country from the Eastern shores and the Great Lakes, their restless activities found new fields on the Pacific Coast and in the trade with China.
DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA.
To develop this trade some Boston merchants in 1787 sent out two trading ships. One of these was commanded by Captain Robert Gray. In the summer of 1792 as he was sailing along the Coast, a little north of the forty-sixth parallel of latitude, he on the llth of May entered the mouth of the great river which today becomes of so much commercial importance to this Northwestern country. He sailed up the river about thirty miles, giving it the name of his ship. He thought the river might be navigable for fifty miles, but today, a little more than a century afterwards, there are in the harbors of Lewiston boats which have navigated the river ten times that distance, and it is to be hoped that at no distant day the river may become navigable for many miles more. ​
182 HENRY L. TALKINGTON
THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION.
It was a law among nations that that nation which discovered the mouth of a river thereby came into possession of all the country drained by it and its tributaries. But little was done to maintain this claim by the United States for many years after its discovery.
In 1804-5 the Lewis and Clark expedition was organized. It has been characterized as "the most hazardous and most significant journey ever made on the Western continent a journey that rivalled in daring and excels in importance the expedition of Stanley and Livingstone in the wilds of Africa a journey that is related to the greatest real estate transaction ever recorded in history and gave to the world riches beyond comprehension and was piloted by a woman Sacajawea.
"It was an epoch-making journey; a journey that moved the world along; that pushed the boundaries of the United States from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific; that gave us the breadth of the hemisphere from ocean to ocean ; the wealth of its mountains and plains and valleys a domain vast and rich enough for the ambition of kings."
THE FUR TRADING ERA.
This nation has been noted for its citizens of vision in every walk of life, science, philanthropy, religion, invention, educa- tion, and commerce can all point to names of American citizens renowned for their great work wherever civilization has gone.
Few of these exceeded in their far-sightedness John Jacob Astor. He conceived a plan for fur-trading far more reaching in its scope than any thought of up to that time. His scheme embraced a line of forts and posts reaching from Saint Louis to the mouth of the Columbia, embracing all the tributaries of that river as well as those of the Missouri, but his conception meant more than a transcontinental fur-trading route; it was to include a sea route to the Orient as well. ​
PLACE OF RIVER IN NORTHWEST HISTORY 183
To carry out this idea a central post was established at Astoria as a supply point for the Pacific Coast trade, while Saint Louis or New Orleans would serve as a base of opera- tions at the other end of the line.
But Astor's great enterprise was short lived. The war of 1812 came, with its menaces. Disasters befell in relations with the Indians, and his competitor, the North-West Company stood ready to take over his affairs.
But the debt which the people of the Northwest owe to his British successors is quite as great as that which they would have owed to Astor himself had he continued in business.
The fur trader mapped out regular routes and at regular intervals located posts consisting of store, as well as block houses, all of which were surrounded by palisades. These palisades included about one hundred yards square and were made of logs sunk into the ground eighteen inches or two feet, and rising some fifteen or twenty feet above it. Watch towers were erected at opposite corners. In these were main- tained two to six guns, four to six pounders. Every one en- tering the gates was first examined by the keeper and only one at a time was admitted. Here was kept the merchandise needed by the trapper in his work as well as in trade with the Indians. Here were also stored the bales of furs until ready for shipment to some central point.
Some of the more noted of these forts were Fort Hall near Pocatello, Fort Boise near the mouth of that river, Fort Colville north of Spokane, Fort Walla Walla, now Wallula, and Fort Vancouver, the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany.
The fur traders were our nation's first great topographers. There is not a river, a creek or a branch which they did not ascend and descend repeatedly not a mountain, a range, a hogback or a hill which they did not cross not a pass which they did not find, a wilderness which they did not penetrate, or a desert which they did not cross. ​
184 HENRY L. TALKINGTON
The fur trader with his Indian wife and half-breed children did much to prepare the Indian for the coming of the white man. Peter Skene Ogden's ransom of the survivors of the Whitman Massacre, and McLoughlin's noble benefices to the early missionaries, and early immigrants, have few parallels in the world's history.
THE ERA OF MISSIONS.
In 1830 the whole of the Oregon country was inhabited by roaming bands of Indians who were continually at war with each other. The story of the four Flathead Indians and their trip to Saint Louis in search of the white man's Bible is too well known to need mention here. Sufficient is it to say that the Methodist Mission in the Willamette Valley near Salem, Oregon, the Whitman Mission near Walla Walla, the Spald- ing Mission at Spalding, ten miles east of Lewiston, and the Saint Mary's Mission near Coeur d'Alene, were all estab- lished in response to that request.
Space will not permit of speaking in detail of all of these missions; only the Spalding and the Saint Mary's, or as it is sometimes termed, the DeSmet Mission, will be noticed, as the others will doubtless receive due consideration by those in the vicinity of their location.
The Spaldings were met at Fort Walla Walla by a delega- tion of the Nez Perces, who took them to the site of their future work. They arrived in November and began life in a tepee, where they remained until the January following, when a little log house had been constructed. Later a larger building used for church and school was erected.
While the work of the Spaldings was primarily religious yet they taught the Indians all the arts of civilization. Spald- ing began by teaching the men how to sow, cultivate, reap, thresh and grind grain, as well as to raise other food products and livestock. Mrs. Spalding taught the women how to carve, spin and weave cloth, and make clothes ; how to cook and keep house, care for the sick, etc. ​
PLACE OF RIVER IN NORTHWEST HISTORY 185
The Indians made rapid progress in all of the white men's ways even to his sharp practices. As an illustration of this, when Spalding had by infinite toil and patience quarried the stones which he shaped into the burrs for his grist mill, to be used in grinding the Indians' corn, the Indian wanted Mr. Spalding to pay for the stones.
The missionaries soon learned the Indian language and the
here by Mr. Spalding to be used in translating some of the books of the New Testament into the Nez Perce language. Mrs. Spalding drew readily and she illustrated many scenes of the Bible in this way. The mission grew in power and num- bers until the Whitman massacre when it was abandoned for about twenty-five years.
The Spaldings lie buried in a little cemetery within a few rods of where they began their work. Considered from a material standpoint, not a vestige of their work remains. The printing press is held by the Oregon Historical Society. The old mill stones are in the rooms of our State Historical So- ciety. The fences which enclosed the farm have long since fallen into decay. The houses and other buildings are in ruins, but the good which these noble missionaries did will shine out in the lives of the Nez Perce Indians until the end of time.
Another Christian to answer the Macedonian cry for help was Father DeSmet, a Jesuit priest stationed at Council Bluffs when the Flatheads previously mentioned were on their way east. In 1840 he left Westport, Missouri, for the Flathead country. He went with a fur trading party which was met at Green River, Wyoming, by a band of Indians. On Sunday, July 5th, mass was celebrated and an altar was erected on an elevated place and decorated with the boughs of the cotton wood and fresh flowers of the plains.
From here DeSmet was escorted by a party of Flatheads to their country, when he was met by a band of sixteen hundred Indians at Pierre's Hole, some of whom had come eight hundred miles and were from Northern Idaho. The Sunday after his
"'See note'on page 195 ​
186 HENRY L. TALKINGTON
arrival he taught them the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Com- mandments, and within two months six hundred were bap- tized. But this restless priest went on into Western Montana to the Bitter Root country where he established a mission, and in 1842 he established another mission in Northern Idaho, which he called Saint Mary's and where today remains an old building erected in connection with this mission.
A recent writer in speaking of the Coeur d'Alenes says there is no record of their ever having violated any treaty made by them with our government or of their being at any time un- friendly with the whites.
With the exception of the War of 1878, when Chief Joseph was the leader of the Nez Perces, these Indians, too, have kept the faith with our national government, and their friendship with the whites.
, DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN NORTH IDAHO.
In the spring of 1860 E. D. Pierce, a trader, discovered gold on Orofino Creek near where it empties into the Clearwater. An account of the discovery was soon known at Walla Walla. From there it was passed to The Dalles and on to Portland and San Francisco. Thousands rushed to the new mines and soon prospectors were to be found on every tributary of the Clear- water and Salmon rivers. Rich mines were discovered at places afterwards known as Pierce City, Elk City, Florence and Warren. The miners crossed over the mountains to the south and the famous placer mines of the Boise Basin were soon yielding up their millions, to the miner's pan, the rocker, the "Long Tom" and the sluice box. Fabulous sums were taken out in an incredibly short time. A man named Misener rocked out eighty thousand dollars in six weeks, and another man thirty-six thousand dollars with little effort. The ac- counts of these rich mines soon brought many to central and northern Idaho. ​
PLACE OF RIVER IN NORTHWEST HISTORY 187
THE COMING OF THE "COLONEL WRIGHT/' COMMANDED BY
LEONARD WHITE, WITH E. W. BAUGHMAN
AS MATE AND PILOT.
Some one has described these early days as the coming and going of thousands of miners. They at first all came up the Snake river. The steamboat was the most practicable method of taking care of this new transportation of both men and freight. Former Governor of Washington, George E. Cole, thus describes the trip of the first steamboat to Lewiston :
"In the spring of 1861 the Colonel Wright, the first steamer navigating the Columbia river above The Dalles, left Celilo on a trip to ascertain the practicability of navigating the Snake and Clearwater rivers, so as to transport freight and passengers as near as possible to the newly discovered mines of Oro Fino. Captain Len White, an experienced pilot of the upper Willam- ette river, was in charge of the boat. He had previously gone from Wallula via Walla Walla to the mouth of the Clearwater, and procuring a skiff, he went down the Snake river to its mouth and thence to Wallula.
"Living at Walla Walla at the time, and having a short time before made a trip by land to the mines, I was requested by Captain White, who had previously been in my employ as pilot on the Willamette river, to meet the "Colonel Wright" at Wallula and make the contemplated trip with him. I went aboard the boat at that point. Quite a number of passengers from Portland and some freight were on board. Among them I recall the names of Captain Ankeny, Lappeus, McMillan, Slater and Vic. Trevitt of The Dalles. The first day we reached the foot of Palouse rapids. On the following day we entered the Clearwater and tied up at a point near the mouth of the Lapwai for the night.
"Making the big eddy in the morning, we encountered much difficulty and made slow progress. It was necessary to get out a long line with which the boat had been provided. The passengers and the boat's crew attempted to propel the ​
188 HENRY L. TALKINGTON
boat farther up the stream, as the desire was to get as near the mines as possible and select a point for debarkation, hoping to make the forks of the Clearwater, which were about 40 miles from the new El Dorado.
"Failing in this and not finding a suitable landing spot, we returned to one we had passed and landed the passengers and freight. Slater put up his tent and opened a store, which we called Slaterville.
FOUNDING OF LEWISTON.
"It was soon seen that the Clearwater was not practicable for navigation, and that its junction with the Snake river was the logical location for a town to supply the mines in the inland country. The steamboat "Tenino," a new and more powerful boat than the "Colonel Wright," came up on the second trip and landed its cargo at the place above mentioned. There were on board, among others, the following persons, who agreed upon a name for the new town: George E. Cole, Vic Trevitt, manager of Ladd & Company's store, John Silcott,
Carr, Doctor Buker, Tom Beall, Captain Ains-
worth, Captain E. W. Baughman, Colonel Lyle and Lawrence Coe, the last three being owners in the transportation com- pany. The names Lewisville and Lewistown were suggested but finally they agreed on the present name, Lewiston.
"But the site selected was on an Indian reservation and per- mission would have to be obtained before any settlement could be made. The services of Colonel Craig, who had a Nez Perce woman for a wife and who lived a few miles away, and Doctor Newell, who also had a Nez Perce wife, were enlisted to obtain the desired lease, so a temporary lease was obtained and the town begun.
"At first it was a city of tents, and its population often reached 7,000 or 8,000, but of so shifting and transient a nature that it is hard to strike an average. However, as time went on permanent buildings were gradually erected, among the first being the old Luna House, a famous hotel of those days, which ​
PLACE OF RIVER IN NORTHWEST HISTORY 189
supplied the members of the first and second territorial legis- lature with a home and later became the courthouse of Nez Perce county."
THE PACK TRAIN.
Lewiston became the commercial center for supplying the new mines of North Idaho as well as Montana, with pro- visions and mining equipment. In a new country, without roads or means of transportation, the pack train was a logical necessity and Lewiston was the logical center from which to operate.
The old packers' sheds from which these trains started were located where now are the book store of Thatcher & Kling and the Lewiston Hardware Company. Hundreds of these trains wended their way annually to Pierce and Elk City, Florence and Warren, and even to the towns of Western Montana.
THE STAGE COACH.
Freight wagons were too slow and pack trains imprac- ticable to provide means for safely carrying passengers into the mines or the gold from them, so the stage coach came here as elsewhere at the proper time. While these coaches are familiar to many in attendance, yet others may not have seen them. The following description is given:
"They were jaunty enough in their day, with their cavernous bodies extended behind into a platform or boot for the recep- tion of baggage, and were built high up in front to furnish a throne for the driver, who needed a high seat not only that he might keep a better lookout for the Indians and road agents, but also that he might the better supervise the six horses bound- ing along under his skilful management. They were not un- comfortable, those old coaches, for the bodies swung on great leather straps which softened the jolt and gave a gentle sway- ing motion to the heavy contrivance." ​
190 HENRY L. TALKINGTON
THE EMIGRANT WAGON.
This historic vehicle has been doing duty since the settle- ments were first made on the Atlantic Coast. It has served the pioneer in his following the course of empire westward. Sometimes it has been alone and sometimes it has been one of the thousand, but it has always meant the same ; the coming of families and the permanent settlement of the country. So it was when the wagons began to come into the Palouse country, the Camas and the Nez Perce Prairies. It marked the close of the transient man and the beginning of the permanent settler.
IDAHO TERRITORY ORGANIZED AND LEWISTON MADE THE FIRST
CAPITOL
The Champoeg Convention of May 2, 1843, passed the Declaration of Independence for the Oregon country. "When the vote was about to be taken, George W. LeBreton, believ- ing there was a fair chance for the adoption of the report of the committee, said : 'We can risk it let us divide and count.' As quick as tongue could utter the words, William H. Gray emphasized the proposition by saying with great animation, 'I second the motion/ Jo. Meek thundered out with an earnest- ness not less than that he would manifest in an attack upon a grizzly bear 'Who's for a divide ?' and as he stepped quickly and nervously in front of the settlers, he added in a voice that rang clear out as though it was the death knell to anarchy, 'All for the report of the committee and organization will follow me/ This move was sudden and quite unexpected at that stage of the proceedings, and it was electrical in its effect. Americans followed the patriotic and large-hearted trapper and his Rocky Mountain companions and their allies, and they counted fifty-two, while their adversaries numbered but fifty. Then in the 'three cheers for our side/ proposed by Meek, there went up such a shout as Champoeg never heard before and never will again."
In June, 1846, a little more than three years after the con- vention above named, Great Britain and the United States ​
PLACE OF RIVER IN NORTHWEST HISTORY 191
compromised on parallel 49 degrees north latitude. All the territory gained by the latter was organized into a territory called Oregon in 1848. Five years later this territory was again divided, the northern half forming the Territory of Washington, and ten years later the eastern part of both of these territories as well as that of Montana, Wyoming and the western parts of North and South Dakota, and Nebraska were organized into a Territory called Idaho.
The familiar tradition as to the origin and meaning of the name "Idaho" is natural and plausible, but so far as is known there is no authentic evidence to support it. The Indian word supposed to mean "gem of the mountains" has never been found, but whether fact or fiction the explanation will have to serve at present for lack of anything more satisfactory.
Section 12 of the Organic Act provided: "The legislative assembly of the Territory of Idaho shall hold its first session at such time and place in said Territory as the Governor thereof shall appoint and direct ; and at said first session, or as soon thereafter as they shall deem expedient, the governor and legislative assembly shall proceed to locate and establish the seat of government for said Territory at such place as they may deem eligible."
Governor W. H. Wallace named Lewiston as the first place of meeting and here were held the first and second sessions of the legislature. At the latter the location of the capital was changed to Boise where it has since remained.
THE SURVIVORS OF THE NEZ PERCE INDIAN WAR.
Time has thinned the ranks of the veterans of the War of 1878 but in nowise dimmed the lustre of their heroic deeds. We who today are numbered by the thousands and living in thickly settled communities, towns and cities, in the presence of the telegraph, telephone and the railroad, have little con- ception of what that Indian war meant : Few people, widely scattered, over a hundred miles to the nearest army post, which ​
192 HENRY L. TALKINGTON
could be reached only by courier ; a strong tribe of Indians led by the greatest Indian warrior known in history Chief Joseph. The little rifle pit near our city library and the location of the, old stockade at Mount Idaho are about the only grim re- minders of those stirring times, but only the few survivors can tell us of the brave deeds of the brave men and equally brave women who participated in that conflict. History has recorded little,
THE CELILO CANAL.
On October 12, 1877, the, Secretary of War approved of a plan for a canal and locks on the Columbia River where it passes through the Cascade Range. This project was completed and opened for navigation in 1896, but this did not aid very materially in up-river navigation, as it was ob- structed again at The Dalles-Celilo, 45 miles further east. The latter project has begun by an Act of Congress of March 3, 1905, and has just been completed. The original act pro- vided for a canal about eight and one-half miles long, with four locks 250 feet long and 40 feet wide, with a depth of seven feet over miter sills. The plan, however, was subse- quently changed, making the depth eight feet, the width sixty- five, the length of locks 300, with a width of forty-five feet (50 feet for Ten-Mile Lock). The canal has a lift from the lower river to that above the falls of 81 feet, this elevation being overcome by the locks.
WHAT THE COUNTRY MAY MEAN TO THE OPEN RIVER.
There are eight counties, three in Washington and five in Idaho, tributary to the headwaters of navigation. At present these counties are served by four railroads, and the upper Snake, all leading to this section.
The Northern Pacific runs through Whitman and Latah counties, the one the largest grain-producing county in Wash- ington, the other one of the largest in Idaho. ​
PLACE OF RIVER IN NORTHWEST HISTORY 193
The Stites road runs up the Clearwater, passing through the county of the same name. This road by its proposed branches and the rafting possibilities of the northern tributaries of the Clearwater will be in touch with one of the largest bodies of standing white pine in the United States. It is estimated that there are thirty billion feet of standing timber tributary to the Northern Pacific, and its Stites branch.
The Camas Prairie road serves parts of Nez Perce and Lewis counties, and all of Idaho, the greatest grain producing section of this state. It is also connected by branch line, with Win- chester, the home of the Craig Mountain Lumber Company, with a mill of a capacity of 100,000 feet a day.
The Nez Perce & Idaho road (Johnson road) starting from Lewiston and terminating at Nez Perce, the county seat of Lewis county, serves the Tammany section at this end of the line and Lewis county at the other, while there is an area of about 5,000 square miles on Craig Mountain intervening. When this is opened up it will throw on the market a large body of standing timber as well as some of the finest farming and stock-raising country in Central Idaho.
Upper Snake river serves the famous Salmon and Grand Ronde rivers' stock countries, as well as the mines, timber, etc.
But this is the day of good roads. (Lewiston is located on both the Idaho and Washington Highways.) The auto, the jitney bus, the gasoline truck, and hundreds of passengers and thousands of tons of freight will reach the river by these means. It is estimated in the eight counties above mentioned that there are grown annually about 16,000,000 bushels of wheat, about 5,250,000 bushels of barley, 5,750,000 bushels of oats, and about 20,000 tons of hay. There are in this section also about 100,000 head of cattle, 75,000 horses, and 150,000 head of sheep, and many hogs. There are also located in this section two of the largest sawmills in the United States and hundreds of smaller ones, besides many and various other interests. Just what this may mean in dollars and cents each one can estimate for himself by examining the following traffic tables, the one representing the rates to Portland by rail and the other by water. ​
194 HENRY L. TALKINGTON
Per 100 Ibs. on less than carload lots :
Classes of
Freight 12345 ABCDE
By rail ..1.03 .88 .72 .62 .52 .52 .41 .31 .26 .21
By boat . .90 .80 .65 .55 .35 .45 .40 .35 .30 .25
Carload rates per 100 Ibs.
Rail Boat
Grain .$0.17 $0.15
Potatoes 17 .15
Salt 36 .17^
Hay ig% .15
Lime (min. 5 tons) .26 .22^
As an illustration of some articles that come in the different classes the following are cited :
Rail Boat
Soap, 4th class $0.62 $0.55
Beans, 3d class , 72 .65
Cheese, 2d class .88 .80
Furniture, 1st class 1.03 .90
Wool, sacks or bales 88 .35
Sugar, C-i 62 .34^
Passenger fare, one way, Lewiston to
Portland 10.65 4-
WHAT THE OPEN RIVER MEANS TO THE PEOPLE OF THE LEWISTON REGION
It means first an open door to the markets of the world a cargo loaded on board a ship on the open river may, with one change, go to any port in the world ; grain and flour may be shipped to Europe or the Orient ; lumber may be sent to South America or South Africa ; fruit and livestock, wherever there is a demand for them, and the Atlantic Coast markets of the United States will be open to any of the products of this section. In the second place, the open river will mean terminal rates. Lewiston, at the headwaters of navigation, ought to secure as ​
PLACE OF RIVER IN NORTHWEST HISTORY 195
low a rate from Eastern points as Spokane, Seattle, Tacoma or Portland. This handicap so long borne by the people of this country, should cease as the wholesale centers will no longer be controlled by transcontinental railway traffic agreements the river and the sea cannot be pooled.
What the open river will mean to the individual will depend on how wisely and well he adjusts himself to the larger com- mercial and civic unit which the, opening of this river brings.
NOTE. The Missions alluded to by Prof. Talkington on pages 184-185 were established as follows: The Methodist Mission, Rev. Jason Lee, Superintendent, about ten miles north of Salem, on the bank of the Willamette River. October, 1834. The Mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (this Board was organized by Congregationalists in 1810, but received aid from Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed Churches from 1826 to 1845), with Dr. Marcus Whitman in charge, assisted by Rev. H. H. Spalding, located one station at Wai-al-at-pu, six miles west of the present city of Walla Walla, Washington, October, 1836, afterwards known as the Whitman Mission, and another station at Lapwai, commonly known as the Spalding Mission, in the same month. The
Erinting press spoken of was sent to Dr. Whitman by the native church of Hono- alu, organized by the American Board Mission there, and by him sent to Mr. Spalding. It was first used on May 18, 1839, by Edward O. Hall, a printer, who was sent with the press to Oregon from Honolulu, in printing in the Nez Perce language the Gospel of Matthew, hymns, primers, etc., translated by Mrs. Spalding, Edward Rogers and Mrs. Whitman. After the Whitman Massacre, November 29-30, 1847, this press was sent to The Dalles. Early in 1848 it was sent to Rev. John S. Griffin, Hillsboro, Oregon, a brother-in-law of Mr. Spalding, who used it that year in issuing a monthly publication for eight months. In May, 1875, the press was presented by Mr. Griffin through J. Quinn Thornton to the State of Oregon, and by authority of the State officials transferred to the Oregon His- torical Society in January, 1900. George H. Himes, Assistant Secretary. ​ ​
ADDRESS OF JOSEPH N. TEAL AT DEDICATORY
EXERCISES ON THE FORMAL OPENING OF
THE OREGON CITY LOCKS AND CANAL
AT OREGON CITY, MAY 6, 1915
While deeply sensible of the honor conferred on me by the invitation to address you on this occasion, I am conscious of the fact that I am called on to speak rather in recognition of the work of my father and other pioneers than because of anything I myself have done. Not only was my father an active participant in the work of opening the Willamette River, but my father-in-law, the late David P. Thompson, who long claimed Oregon City as his home, was a co-worker in this cause. If therefore my talk trends somewhat to personal reminiscences, I trust that for once the seeming breach of propriety will be condoned.
On the first of January, forty-two years ago, the gates of the Willamette locks first swung ajar to permit the entrance and passage of a steamer from the lower to the upper river. To the Willamette Valley, which then represented the state to a much greater degree than it does now, it was a momentous event. From time immemorial the falls had presented an un- surmountable obstacle to through navigation, and here, as at Celilo, the control of the portage carried with it the power to levy tribute. Since the producers were dependent very largely on the river for their means of transportation, the toll directly and indirectly levied was a serious burden.
As history seems to be more or less a repetition of what has gone before, we find in this instance, as in later days, an early demand for the clearing of obstructions in the river. Hence we are not surprised at learning that at a meeting held in Eugene on October 6th, 1855, at which my father acted as chairman, strong resolutions were adopted looking to the im- provement of the Willamette River, where navigation of the river had been active for many years. In 1857 my father, who was then engaged in business at Eugene, chartered and ​
198 JOSEPH N. TEAL
loaded the steamer "J ames Clinton," the first boat to ascend the Willamette that far. For one reason or another, however, it was not until about the year 1872 that work was actually begun on the locks and canal whose freeing from tolls we are celebrating today.
It was a long, long way to Washington in those days and the pioneers of Oregon were a very self-reliant, independent sort. They were a type of men fitted to found a common- wealth remote from civilization and surrounded by every danger. They endured every hardship and surmounted every obstacle borne or met by the pioneers of any land. Too often their reward has been that of the pioneer of every place and all times discomfort and hardships during life in order that the way might be the easier for those who were to follow them. Well may we be proud of the Oregon pioneer, for the time will come when the early history of Oregon will read like a romance. The time will come when the labor and trials of these men will be known and appreciated; and generations yet unborn will do homage to those who, far removed from friends and kindred, carried the flag they loved to the land of the setting sun and laid deep and broad the foundation of this commonwealth. The federal government, then as now, had control of the navigable waters of the country, and was aiding to a limited extent only in the improvement of rivers and harbors. But, though Oregon was far away from the seat of power, this fact did not deter the men of those days from acting. While a great undertaking for those times, it was resolved that the falls at Oregon City should not continue forever as an obstruction to the free movement of commerce. In 1868 the Willamette Falls & Lock Co. was incorporated for the purpose of constructing a canal around the falls. In 1871, supplemental articles were filed authorizing the company to operate steamboats. The control of this company passed to Bernard Goldsmith, Col. James K. Kelly, Capt. John F. Miller, David P. Thompson, Judge Orlando Humason and Joseph Teal, and this company with some state aid built the canal and ​
DEDICATION OF OREGON CITY LOCKS 199
locks whose acquisition by the general government and freeing from tolls this gathering is commemorating today. I have not time to go into the details of the history of construction. I was but a boy, but as my father was a most active participant in everything connected with the building of the locks; and as he would not go very far out of his way to keep out of a fight, there was something doing most of the time. I remember very distinctly hearing of the seemingly unsurmountable ob- stables that beset the enterprise one after another, and which made the completion of the work on time appear an impos- sibility. Some of these hindrances were inevitable in a work of this character while others were carefully planned by some who for one reason or another hoped to delay if not prevent the final completion of the locks and canal. During this period Ben Holladay was building a railroad up the Willamette Valley, and was a powerful factor in the state both in politics and business. As was but natural he did not look with favor on the completion of the locks. Politics were politics then, and politics entered into everything. Under the law the locks had to be completed by January 1st, 1873, and their completion would be marked by the passage of a steamer through them. A bond of $300,000 had been given that the work would be completed by the date mentioned. Col. Isaac W. Smith was the chief engineer in charge. My father has stated that the work was done in nine working months, at a cost of about $450,000, and that not a life was lost during construction. The eventful January 1st was approaching. A steamer was sought to make the trip. For some mysterious reason, through some occult influence, none could be secured. It seemed that at last the promoters of this enterprise were cornered, and that a lesson would be taught that would be remembered by any one who dared dispute the supremacy of the river with those in control. Finally, however, as a forlorn hope, the little Maria Wilkins, only 76 feet 5 inches long and 17 feet 5 inches beam, was secured, and on January 1st, 1873, she started from Port- land for Oregon City. The following were among the invited ​
200 JOSEPH N. TEAL
guests : Governor L. F. Grover, Ex-Governor John Whiteaker, Major Philip Wasserman, Henry Failing, George R. Helm, Col. B. B. Taylor, Harvey W. Scott, Jacob Kamm, Lloyd Brooke, Capt. Chas. Holman, Capt. Jos. Kellogg, Capt. Chas. Kellogg, J. H. Hayden, Geo. T. Myers, John Marshall, S. B. Parrish, Bernard Goldsmith, my father, and other officers of the company. My father acted as host, and from what I have been told the guests suffered neither hunger or thirst. On reaching Clackamas Rapids it seemed as though it would be impossible for the little boat to surmount them. Try as it would, there it hung, until as luck would have it a strong gust of wind added just the necessary aid to push it over and victory was in sight. Oregon City was soon reached. Mayor Walker, Charles E. Warner, F. O. McCown, and others were taken aboard. The river was crossed, the lock gates opened and closed, the Maria Wilkins passed safely through, and the deed was done ; and since that day, more than forty-two years ago, the gates of the locks have swung back and forth as the steamers moved to and from the upper and lower river.
With the opening of the locks freights dropped fifty per cent almost at once. Boats were built, and the hey-dey of steam- boating on the Willamette was in full swing 1 . Wheal was taken for the first time direct from the Willamette Valley to Astoria and there loaded in ships for Europe. But here again we find the pioneer did not reap the practical reward of his work. We will not dwell on this side of the subject, for after all the real reward and satisfaction in our work cannot be measured in money. Nor should the lesson we draw from this story be anything of a sordid nature. It is the spirit of our forefathers that we should emulate, and in which we should glory. Fortunes come and fortunes go ; but real service for others, service for our state, brings a reward and satis- faction that money can neither purchase nor measure. Today there is as much to do, and in as many directions, as there was forty or fifty years ago. There are more to do it, there is more to do it with ; but I sometimes fear the old spirit of ​
DEDICATION OF OREGON CITY LOCKS 201
self-reliance is leaving us, and that dependence on others for help and aid is beginning to be something of a habit. We have a state of splendid and varied resources, but God has so willed it, and fortunately, too, that these resources cannot be properly developed or utilized without work hard work work of the brain and work of the hands. The reward is sure, but only at the cost of toil.
In every part of the state special problems present them- selves for solution. That solution depends on ourselves, and in working them out will be developed not only a great state materially, but a great citizenship.
As you heard the roll-call of the participants in the early days of this enterprise you must have been struck as I was with the fact that every one of the original company has passed beyond, and that nearly all who made the first trip on the Maria Wilkins are no longer with us. We are at that point in the history of our state where glancing backward we can begin to get something of a perspective. As we contemplate the work of those who have gone before, it should not only spur us on to do our part, but also teach us to be more charitable in our judgment of our fellow-men, and, while we have the opportunity, to speak the pleasant helpful word, or do the kindly act, rather than wait until the recognition we would give is too late to be of service.
At last, however, and by a curious coincidence, the Willam- ette and its great sister, the Columbia, sound the tocsin of freedom together, and for the first time since they began to flow to the sea, commerce can move over them without paying a toll because of some obstruction to navigation.
It is indeed fitting and proper that the freedom of the river should be celebrated. If, however, we look on this act as the end of our work instead of the beginning, a costly mistake will be made. There is much to learn as to the true use of the waterways. To my mind they are instrumentalities of com- merce, developers of traffic. Far from being rivals of the rail- way, they are really coadjutors in the work of transportation. ​Nowhere in the world has the development of the waterway injured the railway. On the contrary, experience shows that the improved waterway increases railway traffic. Rightly used, nothing seems to exercise such a powerful influence in increasing traffic of all kinds as does the waterway.
Consider the Rhine and the railroads which serve its valley and the cities on its banks. Before that river was improved for navigation there was but one railroad, the cities were small and the traffic was light. Since the improvement of the river for navigation traffic has grown to such an extent that doubletrack railroads on either side of the river are required to handle the movement by rail, and a constant procession of boats and barges moves up and down the river. In the last thirty years the cities on the Rhine have grown by leaps and bounds—indeed they have exceeded in growth even the rapidly-growing cities of the United States. Doubtless there were those who pictured streaks of rust and a right of way as all that would be left to represent the railroad when brought in competition with water. Yet no such result followed, nor has it followed in any country or on any river in the civilized world. On the contrary, after the waterways are improved there is more traffic, and more and varied business constantly increasing and growing in every direction. This will ultimately prove to be the case in this state. Many of the opinions which are expressed as to the effect on the railroads of the improvement of waterways seem based upon the idea and theory that there is to be no future growth, that we have reached our limit both of population and production, and that a division of existing traffic between river and rail to the detriment of both will be the only result. This is a fundamental error into which many seem to fall. In truth we are but commencing to grow. The time will come in the Northwest when we will have as dense a population as many of the eastern states, and as we can support it better, every means of transportation will be required to handle the business of the country. This is not true of Oregon only but of the entire country.
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Under normal business conditions today our transportation facilities are taxed to the utmost to handle the traffic. The slightest increase produces almost unendurable congestion and ties up business in every direction. It is my opinion that the improvement of the waterways is an absolute necessity; and I fear this will be demonstrated before either the railroads or the waterways are prepared to meet the situation, to the great loss of the country at large.
We have a right to be proud of the Willamette Valley with its varied resources, productiveness, beauty and climatic con- ditions. It would be hard to duplicate it anywhere on earth, yet it is almost in a state of nature. When we consider the productiveness of this valley, one's mind can hardly grasp its possibilities. To secure the proper results will require hard work intelligently applied. Its development will be largely aided by the fact that it has a navigable river flowing substan- tially throughout its entire length. This river must be properly improved, not only for navigation but for every useful purpose. It can be done ; and if we have the spirit of our fathers it will soon be done.
I congratulate the people of this valley on the final consum- mation of this one step. We now have a free river. Shall we make it a useful river, serving every purpose it can serve? That depends only on ourselves.
Again I thank you, not only for the compliment you have paid me in asking me to address you on this day, but in giving me the opportunity to express my regard and respect for the pioneers of this state who have left to us not only an example we should follow, but also a memory and a heritage we should honor, respect, and cherish. ​
* ↑ The Historical Address at the "Formal Opening of the Dalles-Celilo Canal of the Columbia River," at Big Eddy, May 5, 1915.
* ↑ Five and Ten Mile Rapids are so designated by the government engineers, being that distance from the boat landing at the City of The Dalles. This is in perpetuity of the method of naming Three Mile, Five Mile and Ten Mile Creeks during 1850-60 along the Portage Wagon Road around The Dalles.