# Portland, Oregon: Its History and Builders/Volume 1/Chapter 16

CHAPTER XVI.
1863—1910.
The city of Portland being the railroad center and railway exchange not only of the state of Oregon, but also of the three states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, the history of the railway system which converges to this point is a material and important part of the history of the city.
In the spring of 1863, S. G. Elliott, of California, had arranged with George A. Belding, a civil engineer, of Portland, Oregon, to make an instrumental survey for a line of railroad from Marysville to Portland, on their joint account. They commenced their work at Marysville in California in May and reached Jacksonville in October. Before reaching Jacksonville they had sent forward a letter to the author of this book, then residing at Jacksonville, requesting him to canvass Jackson county for aid in paying the expenses of their survey, which work he performed. Upon reaching Jacksonville, Elliott and Belding disagreed as to which of them should have control of the line of survey through Oregon; Mr. Belding claiming that under their agreement he should select the route, and Mr. Elliott as stoutly claiming that as chief of the party and the original proposer of the undertaking, he was entitled to such control. But the question which proved fatal to the ambition of both gentlemen, was the fact that their party of twelve men had received no pay for six months, and there was nothing in the treasury to further subsist the men and teams. The whole party was stranded and their proposed railroad venture wrecked. Mr. Elliott left the party in possession of all its equipment and returned south to California; and Mr. Belding also left and proceeded to his home in Portland, and this ended the connection of both gentlemen with this preliminary survey.
The subscriptions in aid of this first work on an Oregon railroad (not considering mere portages on the Columbia) and the first money expended in the actual construction of such road, followed up by connected and continuous work until the road was in operation, were contributed by the following named persons:
SUBSCRIPTION LIST FOR RAILROAD SURVEY FUND.
"The following subscriptions are received for the purpose of defraying in part the cost of making a preliminary survey for a railroad route, connecting the Pacific Railroad in California with the city of Portland, Oregon, we, the undersigned, subscribers, agree to pay the amount hereunto subscribed by us, for the above purpose, to S. G. Elliott, on demand made by him. On the final organization of the railroad company, it shall be optional with the undersigned subscribers to become stockholders in said company to the amount subscribed by each, at the rate of $10 per share, with the privilege of one vote to each share, or not. If they choose to become stockholders as above, they each shall be credited on the books of the company, for the full amount subscribed by each. If they do not become stockholders, said company, as soon as able, shall pay them back the amount subscribed by each without interest. It is further agreed that the subscribers to this list shall not be required to pay, or made liable for any amount beyond that by them subscribed."
October, 1863.
| NAMES. | AMOUNT SUBSCRIBED. |
| C. Boylery | $10.00 (paid). |
| John Robison | 40 bushels of wheat at Phoenix. |
| D. E. Steaves | $5.00 (paid). |
| G. Nanylor | $2.50 (paid). |
| John Holton | $2.50 (paid). |
| M. Mickelson | $2.50 (paid). |
| R. B. Hargadine | $5-00 (paid). |
| E. Emery | $5-00 (paid). |
| Lindsay Applegate | $10.00 (paid). |
| O. C. Applegate | $2.50 (paid). |
John Murphy 5 bushels of wheat at Wagner & Mc-
Call's mill (settled by note).
J. C. Tolman $16.00 (paid in supplies and 30 bushels
of wheat to be delivered at Wagner & McCall's mill. Settled by note),
P. Dunn 50 bushels of wheat, to be delivered at
Wagner & McCall's mill, Ashland (settled by note).
H. F. Baren $18.00 (paid in supplies to S. G. Elliott).
Wagner & McCall 50 bushels of wheat, delivered at Wag- ner & McCall's mill (settled by note).
Enoch Walker $4.00 in supplies (paid to S. G. ElHott).
B. F. Myer 10 bushels of wheat, at Ashland Mills.
W. C. Myer 10 bushels of wheat at Ashland Mills.
W. Beeson 25 bushels of wheat at Ashland Mills (all
three settled by note).
J. G. Van Dyke $3-5o (paid in supplies to S. G. Elliott).
John S. Herrin 10 bushels of wheat, delivered at Foud-
ray's mill (settled by note). Amos E. Rogers $10.00 (to be paid in board).
C. S. Seargent $2.00 (paid).
John Watson 40 bushels of wheat, delivered at Allen's
mill. Emerson E. Gore $10.00 in legal tenders (paid in wheat at
Allen's mill). M. Riggs 20 (twenty) bushels of wheat, delivered
at Phoenix mill. William Wright 22 bushels of wheat, at Foudray's Phoe- nix mill.
Frederick Heber 40 bushels of wheat, at Allen's mill.
S. D. Van Dike 25 bushels of wheat, at Phoenix mill.
John Coleman $10.00 (paid).
Joseph A. Grain 20 bushels of wheat at Phoenix mill.
J. T. Glenn $25.00 (paid by note).
Wm. Heyse $12.00 (paid by note).
W. K. Ish 25 bushels of wheat, at Foudray's mill.
H. A. Breitbarth $2.50 (paid) .
J. Gaston $10.00 (paid).
McLaughlin & Klippel 40 bushels of wheat, to be delivered at
Poole ranch (paid by note).
W. H. S. Hyde $5.00 (paid).
J. E. Ross 40 bushels of wheat, at Allen's mill.
Aaron Chambers 25 bushels of wheat, at Allen's mill.
M. Hanly $10.00 (to be paid in wheat at Allen's
mill). Granville Sears 15 bushels of wheat, at E. D. Foudray's
mill. R. S. Belknap 20 bushels of oats, to be delivered at
Hunter's ferry.
U. S. Hayden $10.00.
John Neuber $5.00 (paid).
H. Amerman $5-00 (to be paid at Gasburg).
Beall & Brother 100 bushels of wheat at Allen's mill.
Wm. H. Merriman 20 bushels of wheat at Allen's mill.
Haskell Amy 20 bushels of wheat at Allen's mill,
Alexander French 20 bushels of wheat at Foudray's ​mill.
Merit Bellinger lo bushels of wheat at Foudray's mill.
(The five last subscriptions settled by
note.) James Thornton 40 bushels of wheat, delivered at Phoe- nix mill (paid by note). Woodford Reames 20 bushels of wheat, delivered at the
Phoenix mill (paid by note).
E. K. Anderson 30 bushels of wheat at Phoenix.
D. P. Anderson 10 bushels of wheat at Phoenix.
Joshua Patterson 5 bushels of wheat at Phoenix.
D. P. Brittain 5 bushels of wheat at Phoenix mill.
(The last four subscriptions paid by
note.) I. V. Amerman $15.00 (paid — $10 in coin and $5 in
greenbacks ) .
Upon consultation with the above subscribers to this fund, the author of this book was appointed agent to collect and disburse the money subscribed by these men in subsisting the surveying party until May, 1864, and to procure further subscriptions along the proposed line to continue the survey north to the city of Portland, and to organize a company and apply to congress for a grant of land in aid of the construction of a railroad from the Columbia river to San Francisco, passing through the Willamette, Umpqua and Rogue River valleys. And in pursuance of this authority, this original subscription of money in aid of such railroad was collected, the surveying party subsisted in Jackson- ville until May, 1864, when it again took up the line of survey where Elliott and Belding had abandoned it, and under the supervision of Col. A. C. Barry, it was extended to Portland, which point was reached on October i, 1864. To carry on the business part of the undertaking and present the proposition to congress, a company was organized under the name of "The California and Columbia River Railroad Company," and of which J. Gaston was made sec- retary, and A. C. Barry chief engineer. The results of this survey were then (October, 1864) laid before the Oregon legislature then in session and a bill, prepared by the secretary of the company, was introduced in the senate (S. B. No. 14) which provided for granting to a railroad to be constructed through the Willamette, Umpqua and Rogue River valleys, the proceeds of the half- million acres of public lands granted to Oregon for internal improvements. This bill was referred to the senate committee on corporations, which reported the proposition back by recommending the passage of an act to levy a tax of one mill on the dollar on all the taxable property in the state, and apply the proceeds of such tax to the payment of the interest on the construction bonds of a company to build the proposed road. The bill became a law, but was never utilized.
Immediately following the legislature, Colonel Barry prepared a report of his survey, with maps and profiles of the line which, together with a report on the resources of Oregon (the first ever made), prepared by the secretary of the company, was laid before congress at the opening of the session in De- cember, 1864. Prior to this in the winter of 1863-4, Hon. C. Cole, M. C, from California, had introduced in the house a bill granting lands to the California & Oregon Railroad Company to aid in building a railroad from the Central Pa- cific Railroad in California, through the Sacramento and Shasta valleys to the northern boundary of the state of California, and to such company as the Ore- gon legislature should designate from Portland. Oregon, through the Willa- mette, Umpqua and Rogue River valleys, to a connection with the said Cali- fornia road at or near the state line. On being apprised of the work going forward in Oregon in aid of this enterprise, Mr. Cole addressed the following
"Washington, October 15, 1864.
J. Gaston, Esq.,
Sir: I have just received a letter from you of June 30th. I think I sent you a copy of my bill before the adjournment. If your Oregon company is organized, it had better be named in the bill before it passes. I will consult with Mr. McBride.
Your obt. servant, C. Cole."
Mr. McBride referred to was the Oregon member of congress. The name of the then Oregon company was never inserted in the bill, which passed congress and became a law on July 25, 1866, and granted twenty alternate sections of public land per mile of the railroad which has been constructed thereunder from Portland to the California line.
It is necessary to thus particularly trace the original connected and successive steps in projecting and carrying out a great public work, to show that the Jackson County people were entitled to the credit of giving it birth; and to show how the wisdom of the original location of the line was vindicated by the actual construction of the road. In seeking the best line for a railway between two distant points, all other inducements being equal, the line of location, like all other forward movements of human effort, will proceed along the line of the least resistance. Two facts determined the location of this Oregon and California railroad. First, the line of least resistance. The physical features of the region to be developed offered a series of beautiful valleys, rich in all the resources to support a railroad, and so located as to form nearly the shortest line between the termini of the road, and through which it could be constructed centrally through the greatest length of these valleys, and at the lowest cost, and serving the majority of population and interests. Second, here on this line had settled the population of the two states, and made the then existing development of their resources, and upon which the road must rely for its support.
It was not the only available, or the only line proposed, as many persons might now think. The line of the first transcontinental road had been projected to San Francisco when the first steps to secure this Oregon and California line were taken, and connection with the transcontinental line was one of the moving factors to induce action for a connection with Oregon. But the Oregonians were not unanimous as to the best route. Mr. B. J. Pengra, the surveyor-general of Oregon, and a very able and enterprising man, and the successful promoter of the Oregon Central Military Wagon Road, with a land grant running from Eugene to the southeast corner of the state, together with a large following of wealthy and influential men, was actively advocating a line for an Oregon railroad connection with the Central Pacific road, called the "Humboldt route," which should run from the city of Portland to Eugene City, thence southeast by the middle fork of the Willamette river and over the Cascade mountains where the Natron branch of the Southern Pacific is now (1910) being constructed across the Cascade mountains to Klamath falls near Diamond Peak; and thence by Klamath marsh and lake on to Winnemucca on the Central Pacific Railroad in the state of Nevada. And had Pengra been supported by as much political influence as southern Oregon was able to command, he might possibly have defeated the location through the Umpqua and Rogue River valleys and secured the land grant to the line of his wagon road.
THE LAND GRANT.
We pass now from the history of the location of the line to the administration of the land grant. The Oregon legislature met in September, 1866, six weeks after congress granted the lands in aid of the road. It was decided to ​abandon the original organization which had so far promoted the enterprise, and accordingly the author of this book prepared articles for the incorporation of "The Oregon Central Railroad Company," the office and headquarters of which should be at Portland, Oregon. These articles were signed by J. S. Smith, (member of congress for Oregon in 1870,) I. R. Moores, John H. Mitchell, (for twenty-two years United States senator for Oregon,) E. D. Shattuck (for thirty years justice of the supreme and circuit courts of Oregon,) Col. John McCraken, Jesse Applegate, S. Ellsworth, F. A. Chenoweth, Joel Palmer, E. R. Geary, M. M. Melvin, Thomas H. Cox, B. F. Brown, W. S. Ladd (founder of Ladd & Tilton) H. W. Corbett (United States Senator,) S. G. Reed, (founder of the Reed Industrial School,) J. C. Ainsworth (founder of The Oregon Steam Navigation Company,) C. H. Lewis, (founder of Allen & Lewis) R. R. Thompson and Joseph Gaston, the author of this book. These articles were filed according to law and the association of these persons became a private corporation to administer the land grant on October 6, 1866. These articles were laid before both houses of the Oregon legislature, then in session, and on October loth, upon the motion of Hon. E. D. Foudray, representative from Jackson County, Joint Resolution No. 13, designating said corporation to receive the said land grant, was passed. And in December following, fourteen of the incorporators of said company appointed Joseph Gaston "secretary of the board of incorporators," and authorized him to open the stock books of the company and solicit subscriptions to its capital stock. In pursuance of this authority in April 1867, he opened stock books and took subscriptions to the capital stock; the subscribers to the "Barry Survey" to have their subscriptions credited on stock subscriptions. A copy of the prospectus of the company, published in the Oregon papers on February 20, 1867, is herewith printed as follows:
PROSPECTUS OF THE OREGON CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY.
"We, the undersigned incorporators of the 'Oregon Central Railroad Company,' hereby appoint J. Gaston, of Salem, Oregon, secretary of the board of incorporators, and authorize and designate him, as one of the incorporators of said company, to prepare and open the stock books of said company, under the following rules and regulations:
1st. The shares of the capital stock in said company shall be subscribed for at their par value in gold coin or its equivalent in currency.
2d. The board of directors may levy assessments as often as once in every sixty days, but not more than ten per cent, shall be levied in such period.
3d. Shares may be subscribed and paid for with 'claimed' or improved lands, rating them at a fair cash value.
4th. All persons who paid money or property in aid of 'Barry's Railroad Survey,' made in 1864, shall be entitled to have the same credited to the amount of ten per cent, upon any subscription of one or more shares, provided they furnish satisfactory evidence to the board of directors of payment in said year.
5th. The board of directors shall have the right to reject any subscription or subscriptions, for fraud, or any other matter bearing upon the interests of the company.
6th. Neither the board of incorporators, or board of directors, shall ever have any right or power to sell or dispose of the corporate franchises of this company without a three-fourths vote of all the stock subscribed, in favor of such sale; but this proviso shall not be construed to prevent the board of directors from raising money to construct the company's road by mortgage of its lands or other real estate, railroad or equipment; and in all questions upon which the board of directors may not unanimously agree, any stockholder may appeal to the decision of a majority of the stock which decision shall be final.
7th. As soon as the capital stock, or one-half thereof, of said company shall have been subscribed, the said secretary is hereby directed to call a ​ing of the stockholders, in pursuance of the general incorporation law, for the election of a board of directors.
8th. The above articles are hereby made a part of the contract of subscriptions between the stockholders and said company.
The said secretary shall open an office for the transaction of the company's business, and proceed to the work of canvassing for subscriptions of stock in the counties and towns along the route of said road ; the Hon. F. A. Chenoweth being authorized to canvass Linn and Benton Counties.
R. R. Thompson,
S. G. Reed,
J. C. Ainsworth, M. M. Melvin,
Geo. L. Woods,
(by his proxy, W. S. Ladd,)
F. A. Chenoweth,
Joel Palmer,
Ed. R. Geary,
S. Ellsworth,
J. H. Mitchell,
H. W. Corbett,
B. F. Brown,
T. H. Cox,
Incorporators."
"It is not proposed to discuss the importance of this railroad enterprise to the people of the state, or to urge the importance of aiding it at this time. It has been very fully explained heretofore by official documents and the public press, and what has not been already said, and is deemed necessary to be said, will be urged on the attention of the public at another time.
It may be stated now that the enterprise has gained such strength and received such assurances of encouragement from practical railroad men and capitalists, that this present effort will certainly be crowned with success. A little patience and perseverance, in addition to what aid the farmers and business men of Oregon will be able to give it, is all that is necessary to put the road through to the head of the Willamette valley. From the fact that the railroad companies of California have engaged all the shipping for a long time ahead, for the transportation of railroad iron, (ships being willing to carry only a small quantity as ballast,) it will be necessary to secure an extension of time from congress, for the construction of the first section. Arrangements have been made with our delegation in congress to secure not only this extension of time, but also a confirmation of the land grant to this company, in pursuance of the action of the legislature. Negotiations are now pending between the company and railroad capitalists in the east, and as soon as positive assurances that they will invest their money in the securities of this company, or furnish the iron and funds to put it through, (which are daily expected) subscriptions of stock will be solicited, so that what is done will not be fruitless effort, or time and money thrown away. The names of the in- corporators above are a sufficient guarantee that whatever is done will be done in good faith, and for the best interests of the enterprise, and that it will be perseveringly pushed forward to final success.
J. Gaston, Secretary."
All those mentioned above are now dead except Gaston.
Persons on the east side of the Willamette river, notably I. R. Moores, and others, at Salem, opposed this proposition because it recognized the "Barry Survey;" and in consequence the people of the east side of the Willamette ​valley made no subscriptions to the stock of the company, while the people on the west side made large subscriptions and thereby secured the location of the road on the west side of the Willamette river, where it is now constructed from Portland to Corvallis.
The Californians who had secured the above land grant as far as it was located within that state were not disinterested spectators of what was going on in Oregon. In fact, the record shows that even before the passage of the act granting the lands, a party of California capitalists had filed articles of incorporation in this state, to incorporate a company to take the land granted within the boundaries of Oregon. On July 1, 1865, articles of incorporation to incorporate "The Oregon and California Railroad Company" were executed in San Francisco, and signed by Alphens Bull, S. G. Elliott, C. Temple Emmett, Thomas Bell, Joseph Barron, David M. Richards, S. F. Elliott, T. J. Gallagher and Wm. E. Barron, and brought up to Oregon by S. G. Elliott, and filed in the office of the secretary of the state at Salem on July 13, 1865. These articles provided for a corporation with a capital stock of sixteen million dollars, that its principal office should be at Jacksonville, Oregon, and that the company should build a railroad from some point on the state line between California and Oregon as should be thereafter designated "to some point on the navigable waters of the Columbia river," and should receive the lands that might be granted by congress in aid of such a road.
Here was a carefully planned scheme gotten up in California, with not a single Oregonian connected with it, one year before the passage of the land grant about which there was so great a battle forty years ago; and about which there is now as great a battle in the U. S. courts between the United States and the companies claiming the lands; and which was a secret, stealthy attack on the vital interests of the city of Portland.
ADVENT OF ELLIOTT.
As soon as Gaston commenced canvassing for subscriptions to the stock of the company, Mr. S. G. Elliott, the promoter of the above mentioned California scheme, appeared on the scene and put in an appearance at Salem, where it appeared he had Oregon confederates in his San Francisco company.
Mr. Elliott had been a county surveyor, and was a man of great energy and ambition, but was not a civil engineer or constructor of railroads, and was not troubled with any scruples about plans or methods of business. He had a large scheme for the construction of this Oregon railroad, and at once laid it before I. R. Moores and others of Salem. His scheme was to get control of the company already incorporated, and, in default of that, to organize a new company which should execute a power of attorney to S. G. Elliott, authorizing him to let a contract to build a railroad to the California line, and that such company should issue two million dollars of unassessable stock to certain Californians for their good will in the matter, and then these Californians would transfer back to the Oregonians getting up this company one million dollars of the unassessable stock for their services in organizing the company. Gaston was invited to go into this scheme and offered an office in such new company and some unassessable stock if he would throw away the papers of the original company. This he declined, but offered to submit their scheme to the incorporators of the Oregon Central Company and if they approved, Mr. Elliott could use their organization to advance his scheme. But upon submitting the Elliott scheme to the incorporators supporting Gaston, every one of them opposed it. Accordingly, Elliott and his Salem friends, on April 22, 1867, incorporated another Oregon Central Railroad Company, the incorporators being S. A. Clarke, John H. Moores, George L. Woods, and I. R. Moores. The articles of incorporation of this company provided for a capital stock of $7,250,000, to which six persons subscribed each $100, and thereupon elected George L. Woods, ​chairman of the stockholders' meeting and then at such meeting passed a resolution authorizing the chairman to subscribe $7,000,000 to the stock of the company as follows: "Oregon Central Railroad Company by George L. Woods, chairman, 70,000 shares — $7,000,000." Upon this fictitious subscription the company was organized by electing a board of directors and George L. Woods (then governor of Oregon) as president, and S. A. Clarke, secretary. And upon this organization the Salem company located its road upon the east side of the Willamette river, secured some local donations, some aid from James B. Stevens, proprietor of the then East Portland townsite, and induced Bernard Goldsmith, of Portland, to advance $20,000 on the bonds of the company, and commenced the work of constructing their road. I am thus particular in set- ting out these facts to show how the railroad was located on the east side of the Willamette valley.
Up to this point the Elliott scheme, concocted in San Francisco, and swallowed by the Salem people, baited with unassessable stock, was an attack on the interests of Portland. The prejudice in the Willamette valley against Portland was greater then than it is now. And the fact that the Salem company had been promoted from San Francisco, while the company Gaston represented was a Portland corporation with Portland incorporators, having its office here, and making Portland the terminus of its railroad, created all the antagonism be- tween tITe rival parties and engendered the long and bitter contest for the land grant.
The Gaston, or Portland company "broke ground" and commenced the work of grading their line on the 15th of April, 1868, in the presence of about two thousand people, and great enthusiasm, in the street at what is now the southwest corner of the county hospital block, in Caruthers addition to the city. And besides an address from the president of the company showing the prospects of the enterprise, speeches were made by Gov. Gibbs, and Col. W. W. Chapman, Mrs. Rebecca Lewis, wife of the chief engineer of the company, mother of Mrs. P. J. Mann, who is now building "The Old Peoples Home" near Rose City park, then and there cast the first shovel full of earth in grad- ing the Oregon railroad system.
The east side or Salem company "broke ground" the next day, April 10, at the point where the Southern Pacific Company's car shops are located, south of Stephen's addition to the city, and pushed their grading with energy.
The following is the original list of stock subscriptions in Portland with which the Oregon Central Railroad Company commenced construction work; Ladd & Tilton, five shares ; C. M. Carter, five shares ; F. Dekum, five shares ; S. Coffin, five shares ; Jacob Kamm, five shares ; A. H. Johnson, five shares ; T. J. Carter, five shares ; John M. Breck, five shares ; Wm. Cree, five shares ; David Monastes, five shares ; W. H. Hayden, five shares ; Walter Moffett, five shares ; E. J. Northrop, five shares ; Hiram Smith, ten shares ; Hannah M. Smith, ten shares ; J. A. Fisher, ten shares ; J. Myrick, five shares ; J. B. Harker, five shares ; J. C. Ainsworth, five shares ; Joseph Teal, five shares ; S. G. Reed, five shares ; T. R. Cornelius, five shares ; R. C. Kinney, five shares ; R. Glisan, five shares ; D. C. Lewis, five shares ; Cincinnatti Bills, five shares ; A. B. Hallock, five shares ; J. S. Smith, five shares ; Lansing Stout, five shares ; G. M. Vaughn, five shares ; John McCraken, five shares ; J. W. Cook, five shares ; Sam Lowenstein, five shares ; D. Simon, ten shares ; A. Harker, ten shares ; Joseph Knott, ten shares ; Wiberg & Strowbridge, five shares; C. A. Burchardt, five shares; John Green, five shares ; R. R. Thompson, five shares ; Estes & Stimson, five shares ; E. Mil- wain, five shares ; J. W. Ladd, five shares ; T. M. Ritchey, fifteen shares ; W. Lair Hill, five shares ; M. F. Mulkey, five shares ; R. J. Ladd, five shares, Alex P. Ankeny, five shares ; Labbe Brothers, five shares.
These men have all passed on, except John McCraken, Lair Hill, J. W. Cook,
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REBECCA LEWIS,
The $2,000,000 of seven per cent unassessable stock in the company was issued to A. J. Cook & Co., (fictitious name for Elliott) under an agreement that $1,000,000 of it should be given to the directors of the Salem company, and this stock for the directors was deposited in the safe of E. N. Cook and lay there for two years and until the company ceased to exist. But that stock brought no aid or comfort to the company or its directors. Goldsmith's money was all spent, the laborers on the grade were clamoring for back pay, and Elliott's scheme was on the verge of collapse when in very desperation the whole scheme, with all its hopes, assets, and great expectations was turned over to Ben Holladay.
HOLLADAY^ AND THE LAND GRANT CONTEST.
Holladay appeared in Oregon about six weeks before the meeting of the legislature in September, 1868, and took energetic steps to attack the rights of the corporation first named above to its land grant. With ready cash Holladay pushed the work of construction on the east side grade, subsidized newspapers to advocate his cause and sing his praises, bought up politicians on all sides to do his bidding, and treated with imperious contempt the rights of all who dared to question his career. At the ensuing session of the legislature he ap- peared at Salem as the host of a large establishment, dispensing free "meats and drinks" to all comers, and otherwise equipped with all the elements of vice and dissipation. Joined with and a part of this force, was the first hired and or- ganized band of lobbyists in the history of the Oregon legislature. And so ener- getic and successful was the battle they waged, that on October 20, 1868, the legislature passed a joint resolution declaring that the act of the previous legis- lature was made in mistake, that the designation of the company to receive the land grant was still to be made, and that The Oregon Central Railroad Company of Salem, be designated to receive such grant. This was done in the face of all the facts stated above, fully presented to the legislature, and of the further facts that the first named company had filed its acceptance of the land grant in the department of the interior at Washington city according to the law, and within the time provided, which acceptance had been accepted by the secretary of the interior ; and the time had passed by within which any company could file another acceptance of the grant. Such a high-handed outrage was prob- ably never enacted before in any state, and was accomplished in Oregon only, as Holladay afterwards admitted to the author of this book at a cost to him of $35,000, paid to members of the legislature. This however, was about the least of the Holladay's offences against public morals, common decency and jus- tice during his career in Oregon.
Thus securing this act of the legislature in his favor, Holladay continued to push the work of construction on the grade, and sent agents to Washington to get an act through congress enabling his Salem company to file its acceptance of the land grant act. Congress finally, on April 16, 1869, passed an act extending the time for filing acceptance of the land grant act and providing that which- ever of the two companies should first complete and put in operation twenty miles of railroad from Portland southward into the Willamette valley should be entitled to file such acceptance of grant.
But this concession was not secured without a bitter contest before congress, Mr. S. G. Reed, spent the winter of 1868-9 ^^ Washington city in labors before congress in the interest of the real Oregon Central company, while the fraudu- lent Oregon Central was represented by John H. Mitchell and S. F. Chadwick, who afterwards became secretary of state and governor. Senator George H. Williams, espoused the cause of the Salem fraudulent company, while Sena- tor H. W. Corbett faithfully supported the rights of the honest corporation. On final vote, Williams got support enough to pass his enabling act to let in the Salem company to compete for the land grant. And upon this hope, Holladay ​e, Holladay
continued to push construction work with all his available means until in De- cember, 1868, he had in a very cheap and imperfect manner completed and put in operation, with one engine and a car or two, twenty miles of railroad, and was thereby recognized as entitled to the land grant.
But notwithstanding this hard earned success, Holladay was now face to face with a state of facts that would have paralyzed a less reckless and unscrupulous operator. It had become everywhere understood and admitted that the Salem Oregon Central Railroad Company was not a corporation and had no legal ex- istence, and for that reason could not appropriate the right of way in any case where the landholder refused it; or enforce any other rights of a corporation. The supreme court of Oregon afterwards decided that the Salem company was not a corporation, but a mere nullity and fraud, that it had no legal rights and could not take the land grant, and that the act of the legislature of 1868 could not heal its defects. (In the case of Elliott v. Holladay, et al, p. 91, vol. 8' of Oregon Reports.)
The court says: "On the 226. day of April, 1867, I. R. Moores, George L. Woods, S. A. Clarke, and others filed articles of incorporation to incorporate the Oregon Central Railroad Company. The capital was fixed at seven million, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, divided into seventy-two thousand, five hun- dred shares of one hundred dollars each. On the same day stock books were opened, when six shares of stock were subscribed by six different persons; then follows this subscription : 'Oregon Central Railroad Company, by George L. Woods, chairman, seventy thousand shares, seven million dollars.' On the same day directors and others officers were elected. . . . The attempt to subscribe seventy thousand shares of stock of the O. C. R. R. Co., by the corporation itself through a person styling himself chairman, was done simply to evade the liabil- ity the law imposes on all persons who subscribe to the capital stock of cor- porations. This was a mere nullity, and added nothing to the amount of stock subscribed which was then only six shares of one hundred dollars each. Those who subscribed the six shares proceeded to elect the directors of the corporation. The corporation was not organized according to law, but in direct violation of the statute which provides that "it shall be lawful in the organization of any cor- poration to elect a board of directors as soon as one-half the capital stock has been subscribed." This attempted organization of the Salem O. C. R. R. Co., amounted to nothing. It was absolutely void. It had no power to legally trans- act any business, or to accept or hold the lands granted by congress.
And besides this the west side company had finally forced the Salem company to stand trial before Justice M. P. Deady, of the United States district court as to its right to its corporate name, and the court had held that one corporation could not take and use the name of a prior organized company. This of itself was a death blow to the Salem company. (See Deady's Reports, p. 609.) In this crisis of his Oregon venture Holladay turned the whole matter over to the great lawyer, W. M. Evarts, who was secretary of state to President Hayes. After many months of study Mr. Evarts decided that the franchise to exercise corporate rights was a grant from the state and could be questioned only by the state, and not having been so questioned the Salem company was at liberty to transfer any and all rights and franchises it was assuming to own. And that as the land grant was a concession from the federal government the right thereto could be disputed only by the grantor, and not having been so questioned the franchise to take such grant could be also assigned and transferred by the Salem company; and that the next step for Mr. Holladay was to lawfully organize a new Oregon corporation to take over all the rights, property, and franchises of the Salem company, and have the Salem company make such transfer. For this opinion Holladay paid Evarts $25,000; and immediately thereafter (1870) incorporated and organized The Oregon and California Railroad Company, to which all the assets of the Salem company were conveyed. After thus clearing ​
up the wreckage of the fictitious corporation, and burying as best he could the scandals which disgraced the Hves and ruined the poHtical fortunes of more men in Oregon than all other events in the history of the state, Holladay sold in Germany ten and a half million dollars of bonds upon the land grant and the road to be constructed. Applied at the rate of $30,000 per mile of road, these bonds were estimated to build three hundred and fifty miles, or practi- cally to the California line. But by Holladay's recklessness, if not dishonest man- agement, not more than fifty-seven cents on the dollar of the bonds ever went into the construction of the road ; so that by the time the track had reache'd Roseburg from Portland the proceeds of the bonds were exhausted, and Rose- burg remained the southern terminus of the road for ten years. Then a reor- ganization took place, the holders of the bonds surrendering their securities for preferred stock, and advancing more money on a new mortgage to extend the road to Ashland in Jackson County. Here the track stood still for seven years, and another reorganization took place ; the old bondholders refunding their second issue of bonds in new bonds bearing a still lower rate of interest, and the Southern Pacific Company advancing the capital to finally connect Oregon and California with the present existing road, in the year 1887; making nineteen years from the time construction work commenced until the road reached the California line. Holladay, proving wholly incapable of managing the prop- erty, was forced out of its control by the bondholders in 1876, and Mr. Henry Villard put in control ; and under Villard, as immediate and responsible manager of the property, a young man from Germany (Richard Koehler) of whom we shall have more to say further along.
Of the contest for possession of the land grant and the character of the men who combined to rob the rightful owners of it, Scot's History of Portland, p. 287, says:
"It was a memorable conflict, that conducted by the first rival railroad com- panies of Oregon ; with matter in it for a novelist. It would be rash to inti- mate that Elliott with all his mythical capitalists was an agent of Holladay all the time, the general opinion being that he was at first only acting for him- self, or that the East Side Company knew the extent of his romances, which they used so well to their advantage. It would on the other hand be difficult to believe that Holladay's or the original East Side Company were actually imposed upon by representations as to a firm like J. Cook & Co., of immense wealth and standing, when any business or banking gazateer would inform them as to the existence or non-existence of such a firm; particularly as Mr. Gaston was con- stantly asserting in public that this company was all a pretense."
Of Ben Holladay. the same work says, p. 283 : "He was a man whose sel- fishness dominated all else, and his practical incentive was to use the power of wealth to control a state. He showed no love for Oregon, or for the people of Oregon, but no other field was so inviting, or so well within his means. If his aims had been to build a railroad, he might have done it with less trouble and expense, and for far greater returns. If his idea was to make himself the auto- crat of the state, to own legislature and United States senators and perhaps extend his operations over adjoining territories and control transcontinental lines, he never followed it with consistency. Upon examination we appre- hend he would be found a man of great intentions, but of unstable will, of deep schemes but feeble convictions, of large aims, but incapable of sustained effort or sacrifice, and subject to violent passion and prejudice. As a working scheme of morality he let nothing stand in the way of his aims recognizing no rights of anybody, but the shortest way to his object. He had one, and but one, means of attaining his end and that was the use of his money. To buy an at- torney, judge, a city, a legislator, a senator, public opinion, was all one to him. He made no appeals to the people, neither addressing them on the side of self interest or generosity. The public knew nothing of him except that he was a ​
nabob living in unapproachable magnificence, and was at the head of all that was going. This was the man that appeared above the stormy railroad horizon in Oregon in his true form in 1868. J. H. Mitchell, one of the first incorporators of the original Oregon Central Railroad Company, but also an incorporator of the second or East Side Company, and their attorney, rendered very efficient service to Mr. Holladay."
To the above review of Mr. Scott, may be truthfully added, that Holladay did buy judges, and legislatures and attorneys to betray their clients. Mr. Mitchell was the first attorney of the original Oregon Central Railroad Company, and betrayed its interests to the Salem or East Side Company. One judge, at least, up in the Willamette valley was silenced, so that he would not follow the plain dictates of the statute law and universal decisions of the courts to protect the legal and just rights of the original Oregon Central Company. Another judge in the Multnomah district (and his name was not Erasmus D. Shattuck, or Matthew P. Deady by any means) offered to sell his decision to the original Oregon Central Company, and when his goods were declined, he went over to the other side, and like the judge up the valley declined to decide anything at all.
But it is all past into history. All the actors in the drama are dead but one. All the members of all the old companies are dead but this one. And while he was robbed of his rights and his property by a corrupted legislature, and cor- rupt judges, he still remains to enjoy in comfort a pleasant home that looks down on the city he has helped to build, with all the necessary comforts of life ; and what is better than all else, the respect of his old friends and neighbors — and lives to write this history of those who so wantonly robbed him, and gained nothing in the end by their wrong-doing.
Ben Holladay was born and reared near Blue Lick, Kentucky. Emigrating to Missouri in 1856, he became a hanger-on to the army at Fort Leavenworth, and drifted into various camp-follower speculations for several years until in i860 when the civil war broke out he was operating a buckboard mail and stage line from St. Joseph, Mo., to Salt Lake City. About this time the great army transportation firm of Russell, Majors & Waddle fell into financial trouble and in order to tide over their affairs and force a cheap settlement with their creditors, as related to the author of this book, by Mr. Russell himself, the firm delivered to Holladay, as their friend, $600,000 of government vouchers for transporta- tion the firm had rendered ; under an agreement that when they had settled with their creditors, Holladay should return to them the $600,000. Holladay took the vouchers, collected the money, and when requested to return it to the con- fiding firm, he repudiated not only the agreement to do so, but all knowledge of the transaction. As it was an unlawful act of the failing debtor he could not recover, and so, not only Russell, Majors & Waddle lost the vast sum of money but their creditors had been beaten by both the debtors and their deceiver, Ben Holladay. On this plunder Holladay came to the Pacific coast, bought the line of ships to Oregon and got into the Oregon railroad. He was a man of splen- did physique, fine address, and knew well how, to manage the average human nature. He was energetic, untiring, unconscionable, unscrupulous, and wholly destitute of fixed principles of honesty, morality, or common decency.
THE WEST SIDE ROAD.
Returning now to the Oregon Central Company, we find it in 1869 robbed of the land grant it was justly entitled to, but not wholly driven out of the' field. The citizens of Portland, Washington, Yamhill and Polk counties stood loyally by the old company, and not only gave financial aid to the extent of grading and bridging the first twenty miles of its roadbed, but also threw into the scale the weight of their political influence, declaring that no man ​represent Oregon in congress who would not labor to secure another grant of land in aid of their road.
A GREAT BLUNDER.
"And now," says Bancroft's History of Oregon, 2d Vol. p. 701, "happened one of those fortuitous circumstances which defeat occasionally the shrewdest men. The west side (Original Oregon Central Co.) had sent in May, 1868, half a million dollars of its first mortgage bonds to London to be sold by Edwin Russell, then manager of the Portland branch of the Bank of British Columbia. Just at the moment when money was most needed, a cablegram from Russell to Gaston informed him that the bonds could be sold so as to furnish the funds and iron necessary to construct the first twenty miles of road, by selling them at a low price. Gaston had the power to accept the offer, but instead of doing so promptly, and placing himself on an equality with Holladay primarily, he referred the matter to Capt. J. C. Ainsworth, a director of the company, to whom he felt under obligations for past favors, and whom he regarded as a more experienced financier than himself, and the latter, after deliberating two days on the subject, cabled to Russell a refusal of the proposition."
But to make amends for this blunder, for such it was, Ainsworth organized a syndicate under the name of S. G. Reed & Co., to construct one hundred miles of the Oregon Central Railroad from Portland south in the Willamette valley for the sum of thirty thousand dollars a mile to be paid for with the com- pany's first mortgage bonds on the road issued at the rate of thirty thousand dollars a mile.
Under this contract Reed & Co. proceeded with construction work until they had expended thirty-three thousand dollars, and then stopped work, for the alleged reason that the company v/ould lose the land grant, to save which the contract had been given and accepted. But on intimations from Gaston that Reed & Co. would be held for damages, they furnished Gaston funds to go to Washington city in 1869-70 and solicit a new grant of lands to the company.
Speaking of the condition of the railroad enterprise at that time, Bancroft's History above quoted, p. 702, says : "The action of congress in practically de- ciding in favor of the Holladay interest, caused S. G. Reed & Co. to abandon the construction contract, leaving the whole hopeless undertaking in the hands of Gaston. Without resources, and in debt, he resolved to persevere. In the treasury of Washington county were several thousand dollars paid in as inter- est on the bonds pledged. He applied for this money, which the county offi- cers allowed him to use in grading the roadbed during the summer of 1869, as far as the town of Hillsboro. This done, he resolved to go to Washington, and before leaving Oregon made a tour of the west side counties, reminding the people of the injustice they had suffered at the hands of the courts and legislature, and urging them to unite in electing men who would give them re- dress.
"Gaston reached the national capital in 1869, Holladay having completed in that month twenty miles of the Oregon & California Railroad, and become entitled to the grant of land which Gaston had been the means of securing to the builder of the first railroad. His business at the capital was to obtain a new grant to the Oregon Central ; and in this he was successful, being warmly supported by Corbett and Williams ; the latter, however, refusing to let the road extend farther than McMinnville, lest it should interfere with the designs of Holladay."
This was not what was desired, but it was the best that could be secured at that time. And in the partition of Oregon, local interests then seeking rec- ognition at Washington city, it was agreed by the Oregon delegation in con- gress, that at the next session of congress this grant should be extended from McMinnville to Eugene. And upon this basis it was further agreed that Mr. B. J. Pengra of Eugene, then also at Washington, and representing the pro​posed railroad from Winnemucca to Eugene (incorporated as "Oregon Branch Pacific Railroad"), should also have a grant of lands for his company. This scheme, carried out, would give a continuous land grant from the Central Pa- cific Railroad in Nevada, to Eugene, Portland and Astoria. And upon this foundation, C. P. Huntington, then in the zenith of his power as a railroad financier and constructor, agreed to furnish the capital and build the railroad from Winnemucca to Eugene, Portland and Astoria, giving Oregon a more direct connection to the east than by the California route. This scheme was de- feated by Ben Holladay, then also at Washington, who, within ten days after congress passed the Oregon Central grant to McAlinnville. induced Senator Williams to amend the Pengra bill by providing that the Winnemucca road should connect with the Holladay line at a point in the Rogue River valley. This provision would, of course, prevent all connection with the McMinnville line, and give Holladay control of all roads from the Rogue River valley to Port- land. Holladay was quick to see that the Pengra bill would bring to Oregon a giant in energy and ability who would dwarf his own pretensions and soon drive him from the field ; and with a selfishness and vanity which knew no lim- its, he demanded the sacrifice of the interests of the state and the ruin of the man who was willing to befriend him. Upon this change being made in the Winnemucca bill, Mr. Huntington promptly withdrew from his offer to finance the road, and the whole scheme to get another road into Oregon through the Klamath lake region failed. Had not the Winnemucca (Oregon Branch Pa- cific) proposition been thus emasculated, southeastern Oregon, the Nehalem valley, and Astoria, would have had practically a transcontinental railroad more than thirty years ago; and Eugene would have been the junction of two great lines. But for this, the Midas touch of Huntington would have made the south- eastern Oregon plains and the Nehalem wilderness prosperous and populous with a commerce and population equal to anything on the Pacific coast; Port- land would have had a population of half a million, and Astoria would have had a population of 50,000. Driven from this opportunity which Huntington himself sought, he turned his attention to Arizona and Mexico, and gave to the arid deserts of the south the wealth which should have been the reward of Oregon enterprise. It was the most damaging blow to the growth of the state which Oregon ever suffered; for it not only deprived the state of a great rail- road, and its consequent development, but it wrecked the political career of its greatest man — the man who was beyond all question the greatest statesman, most brilliant orator which the Pacific coast ever sent to the United States senate — and deprived the state of his eminent abilities. Ben Holladay and John H. Mitchell by this act ruined Judge Williams for life and did Portland and the state of Oregon an incalculable damage.
Upon this land grant to the Oregon Central Company, and upon one mil- lion dollars construction bonds thereon, English capitalists advanced a million dollars to build the road from Portland to the Yamhill river, where it stood still for ten years at the Holladay town of St. Joe. The same capitalists were induced by Mr. Villard to advance further capital to extend the road from St. Joe (long since deserted) to McMinnville and Corvallis. the present terminus. In the work of building this west side road, the citizens of Portland contributed in cash and lands $150,000, the people of Washington county $25,000, and the people of Yamhill county about $20,000.
THE WORK OF VILLARD.
The coming of Henry Villard to Oregon in 1874 was the fact of largest importance to the development of the northwest. Mr. Villard had been by his friends in Germany placed in charge of their interests in the Kansas Pacific Railroad, and had proved so faithful and canable in managing his trust that
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HENRY VILLARD ​was sent here to make a report and right all wrongs. On his first visit to Oregon, I accompanied him on a trip throughout the Willamette valley and dis- covered that he had thoughts, if not plans, for a field of action far beyond the confines of the state. Quickly getting under his full control the existing Oregon roads, he went straight at the work of his vast plan of an Oregon railroad sys- tem having a transcontinental power and influence. And as one step rapidly followed another in the unfolding of his scheme, it was seen that Henry Villard was not an ordinary railroad promoter, but a veritable empire builder. His genius for grand plans of developing great states was fully equalled by his ability to raise the means to successfully carry them into efifect.
w. w. chapman's work.
Upon the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad to Salt Lake, that in- terest had sent surveying parties to look out a route for the extension of their road to Oregon. That exploration, made in the year 1868, vv'as known as "the Hudnutt survey." An Oregon man, Col. W. W. Chapman, one of the founders of the city of Portland, took up and exploited the idea of a "Portland, Dalles & Salt Lake Railroad" on the route proposed by Hudnutt. Colonel Chapman worked upon this scheme from 1870 to 1876, attending the sessions of congress in each year and vainly urging congress to transfer to his company the unused land grant of the Northern Pacific Railroad from the mouth of the Snake river to Portland. Chapman did a vast amount of work on this proposition, getting rights of way and accumulating facts showing the value, resources, and impor- tance of the route, and may be justly considered the pioneer of the road sub- sequently built on the route.
In every view of the case, the Portland, Dalles and Salt Lake proposition was the most important, and if carried out, the most beneficial railroad which Portland and Oregon could have. Because it would not only develop the largest territory of the state, but would place Oregon on an equality with California in getting emigration from the east and in competing for the Asiatic commerce. Pete (talk)^ And that Col. Chapman did not succeed was owing wholly to the opposition of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company. That great monopoly would not brook any competition for the eastern Oregon business, and could not see that a railroad on that line would be self-sustaining, and that it was their true policy as a business proposition as well as a duty to the state to support Chapman's efforts and become the leading and controlling interest in the great work. Col. Chapman's long-continued effort has been a thousand times vindicated as cor- rect by the wonderful success of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company, one of the most profitable railroads in the United States.
The want of financial support and the infirmities of age compelled Chapman to abandon the enterprise, but not until the time was auspicious for Henry Villard to take It up in 1879. Mr. Villard visited Oregon first in 1874, again in 1876, and again 1878. He was greatly impressed and pleased with the country from the first visit, and had made arrangements to bring his family and settle perma- nently in Portland. He had from the first been deeply interested in developing the country and had made careful investigation of its resources, and of the tributary regions ; so much so that on his visit in 1878 he inquired of Capt. J. C. Ainsworth, president of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, whether his stockholders would be willing to dispose of that company's property, as has been stated in the preceding chapter. To this proposal Ainsworth replied by handing Villard an inventory and appraisal of the company's boats and portage railways on the Columbia river, aggregating $3,320,000, with an offer to sell the entire property at $5,000,000. The property probably had never cost more than half the appraisal, but as it was paying twelve per cent dividend on $5,- 000,000, Villard thought he made a good bargain when he induced the Ains- worth stockholders to give him an option to purchase their property at $4,000,- / ​ooo, one-half cash and the 'balance in bonds and stocks in a new company to be organized. For this option for six months, Villard paid Ainsworth $100,000 in cash, and then immediately returned to New York to finance the deal and carry out the first move in his great scheme of concentrating the trade of all the region west of the Rocky mountains and north of California, at Portland, Oregon. _ He presented the proposition first to Jay Gould and other large stock- holders in the Union Pacific Railroad, with a view to constructing a branch of the Union Pacific from Salt Lake to Portland on the Chapman route. After considering this for months, the Gould party declined to go into the scheme, and Villard at once organized the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company, raised the money to take up the Ainsworth option, and immediately commenced the construction of the road eastwardly from Portland. The Oregon Railway & Navigation Company's roads in Oregon, Washington and Idaho are the children, the lineal decendants of the old Oregon Steam Navigation Company, owned and operated by Captain J. C. Ainsworth and associates. After getting possession of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, Villard proceeded to in- corporate and organize the successive corporation. The Oregon Railway & Nav- igation Company was incorporated June 13, 1879. Its first board of directors consisted of Artemus H. Holmes, William H. Starbuck, James B. Fry and Henry Villard of New York city. George W. Weidler, J. C. Ainsworth, S. G. Reed, Paul Schulze, H. W. Corbett, and C. H. Lewis of Portland, Henry Vil- lard being elected president. And Villard at once set to work with all his char- acteristic energy to construct the railroad up the south bank of the Columbia river to the mouth of the Umatilla river, and from thence via Pendleton over the Blue mountains to La Grande, Baker City, and on to Huntington, where it was met by the Oregon Short Line. Subsequently branch lines were run oflf to Spokane and various other points in Oregon and Washington, and to Lewis- ton, Idaho.
To this bold movement of Villard, wholly unexpected by the Union Pacific people, they promptly replied by organizing the Oregon Short Line Company, to build a road from the Union Pacific line to the Columbia river, and at once commenced construction. Villard had thrown down a challenge for possession of the short line route, it had been promptly accepted, and now the race was on as to see which of these parties should win the game. It was the first great test of Henry Villard's ability as a financier. He was opposed by Gould, Mor- gan and some of the ablest and wealthiest capitalists in the world, and yet his talents and energy were such that he pushed his road eastwardly with such force and rapidity as to meet his rivals at Huntington, near the eastern boundary of the state, and efifectually hold his chosen field of enterprise.
But brilliant in conception and rapid in construction as had been the great road to control the Columbia River valley, Mr. Villard had in his fertile brain a still greater scheme of finance and development to astonish the railroad world. The Northern Pacific Railway, with the largest bounty of public lands ever granted in aid of the construction of any road, had been making but a snail's pace in spanning the continent with money raised on ' piecemeal mortgages at high rates of interest. The line from Portland to Tacoma had been built, and the eastern division of the road pushed west to the crossing of the Missouri, and some work done on a section from the Columbia toward Spokane. The outlook was ominous. In the hands of a more energetic managenient Villard could foresee that his grand scheme of an Oregon system might be crippled, and so, maturing his plans, he made the great venture of his career. Quietly ascertaining the amount of money necessary to secure a controlling interest in the Northern Pacific Company, he addressed a circular (May 15, 1881) to his financial friends asking for the temporary loan of $8,000,000 for a purpose not named, "and no question to be asked," assuring his friends that in due time he would account to them for the money intrusted to him with such profits as would be satisfactory. Such a proposition was unheard of in the world of ​finance. It was appalling, audacious. But nevertheless the money was promptly- given him. And this was the formation of the historic "blind pool" to control the Northern Pacific Railroad, never attempted before and never repeated since.
With this $8,000,000 Villard purchased a controlling interest in the Northern Pacific, got control in June, 1881, and was elected president in September. He immediately started an army of men to complete the great work. J. L. Hallett of Washington county, Oregon, was superintendent of construction on the west end, Hans Thielsen of Portland, chief engineer; and the work was pushed with such force and vigor that an observer might have supposed that the entire army of the United States was pushing construction of a military work in time of a great war. It was the supreme test of Villard's mental and physical strength. He was at that time president of the Northern Pacific, the Oregon Railway & Navigation Co., the Oregon Steam Navigation Co., and the Oregon & California Co., and was raising the money for and pushing construction work on all these lines. But he proved his matchless ability by successfully carrying out these great enterprises, and on September 8, 1883, completing the Northern Pacific across the continent and connecting its steel bands with those of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company at the long since abandoned town of Ainsworth on the north side of Snake river just above its confluence with the Columbia. And thus planned and formed what I have named "The Oregon Railroad Sys- tem." How long Villard was considering this idea, no one knows. He doubt- less mentioned it to others, but the first time the author of this book heard of it was at the dinner table of Senator Nesmith, at his farm on the La Creole in Polk county, in 1874, while accompanying Villard- on a trip of observation through the Willamette valley. The grand conception was his in origin and execution; and although hampered by doubters and opposed by powerful ene- mies, he triumphed over all obstacles and made its success the most enduring monument of his fame as one of the most forceful characters and honorable men of his day and generation. The people of Oregon have but slightly com- prehended and do yet but little appreciate the great work he wrought for the state. He planned his work upon "the lines of the least resistance," he worked in harmony with the laws of nature and upon plans laid down by the great archi- tect of our planet; and his record and his work is invincible. And now, after spending years of effort and millions of money to reverse the plans of Villard and carry the trade of the "Inland Empire" over the Cascades to Puget Sound,' the great capitalists of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern roads are , forced to admit the correctness of Villard's plans, and expend twenty million dollars to rectify the blunder of opposing them. It was the keen foresight of Henry Villard that saw in the distance all the local wealth and production, trade and population of the empire lying west of the Rocky mountains from the California line to British Columbia, and all the transcontinental commerce between the same lines pouring its tribute for all time to come down easy grades through the Columbia gateway to a great city to be built at the junction of the Willamette and Columbia; and now, not one road but four are vieing with each other to utilize this water-level pass to the great Pacific and the still greater Orient.
Henry Villard was born in 1835 of an honorable and influential family in Speyer, kingdom of Bavaria, Germany. In the revolution of 1849, his father was a loyalist and the presiding judge of an important court. Young Villard was at school at the gymnasium, wore a red feather in his cap and refused to pray for the king. For this offense he was suspended, and managed to get out of his youthful disloyalty by going to a school over in France. _ Subsequently pardoned, he returned and completed his studies at the University of Munich. He came to the United States in 1853, tarried with relatives near Bellville, III, for a year, then drifted into journalism, became a war correspondent in the ​civil war, made friends with influential people, attracted attention by his ability and genial manners, made some money in speculations, went back to Germany on a visit, and made the financial friends at Frankfort who afterward employed him to look after their interests in investments in America and put him on the highway to his great success. He was a man of most engaging and genial man- ners, with nothing of the hard selfishness or avaricious grasp of the typical rich man. No man was more considerate or generous in praise and assistance to those who worked with or under him, or whose work he had made use of. In the days of his prosperity his purse v/as open wide to all works of charity and benevolence, chief of which, in Oregon, was $50,000 to the state university for an irreducible fund, at least $400 of the interest from which to be used annually in the purchase of books for the university library. He gave a like sum to house the orphan children of Portland. No act of littleness, meanness, oppression, injustice or dishonor ever stained the escutcheon of his noble ca- reer; and he sleeps well on the banks of the Hudson.
BRANCH ROADS.
This chapter might properly end here were it not that others have done good work in building branch lines to complete the grand scheme planned by Vil- lard; and which it seems the facts of history require to be recorded in this connection. The principal of these was the narrow gauge system projected by the author of this book in 1878 to more completely develop the Willamette val- ley. In that year he built the first forty miles of three-foot gauge railroad in the state from Dayton to Sheridan in the Yamhill valley with a branch to Dallas in Polk county. In this work the farmers of the South Yamhill valley raised and paid in on stock and other forms of substantial aid the sum of forty- five thousand dollars. And while the work of construction was going on, the town of Independence, in Polk county, launched a scheme to remove the county seat from Dallas to Independence. And as Dallas was off the general lines of travel and destitute of ready access to the outside world, it looked as if the Independence people would succeed. To checkmate the move, the Dallas people sought out the assistance of Mr. Gaston, who was building the narrow gauge railroad, and offered to raise, and did raise seventeen thousand dollars to have the little railroad extended to their town. The road was accordingly extended to Dallas, and that is the way the town of Dallas secured its first railroad and saved the county seat of Polk county.
RAILROAD LANDS.
List of lands and sales of lands under the U. S. grants to aid railroad con- struction in Oregon :
Total Total Total purchase sales. acres. price. Sales in quantities not exceeding 160 acres .... 4,930 295,727.52 $1,234,538.51 Sales in quantities exceeding 160 acres but less than 640 acres 280 91,434.67 402,725.29 Sales in quantities exceeding 640 acres but less than 2,000 acres 56 60,366.29 410,759.12 Sales in quantities exceeding 2,000 acres .... 40 372,399.46 2,922,250.67 ^^^-^.^ ■■■■,■ - - ■ .. .— — — .— .. „ ■ — . »i .. ...... ■ I Total 5,306 819,927.94 $4,970,273.59
In the above computations are included 830 pending contracts aggregating 174,109.08 acres, as to which the exact purchase price is not known, but is com-
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ACRES.
Lands patented under East Side grant 2,765,597.13
Lands patented under West Side grant 128,618.13
Total lands patented, both grants 2,894,215.26
Lands claimed but not yet patented, approximately 293,000.00
Total 3,187,215.26
Total lands sold 819,927.94
Balance remaining unsold and involved in land grant suit 2,367,287.32
The United States is now seeking to recover these 2,367,287 acres by a suit in equity for violation of the provisions of the law granting the lands; and estimates these lands to be of the value of fifty million dollars. The lands already sold probably produced fifteen million dollars to the purchasers from the railroad companies. All of these lands were secured for railroad purposes by the direct efforts of Joseph Gaston, and their value to the companies is some evidence of the value of Gaston's services in the railroad development of the state.
THE WORK OF WILIAM REID.
In 1880 the narrow gauge road built by Mr. Gaston in Yamhill and Polk counties was sold to capitalists in Dundee, Scotland, who, through their agent in Oregon, William Reid of Portland, extended the lines on the west side of the Willamette river to Airlie in Polk county, and to Dundee, Yamhill county, with an east side of the river branch from Dundee crossing the river at Ray's Landing, thence to Woodburn, Silverton, Scio, and on to Coburg in Lane county. Mr. Villard leased this system (about 200 miles) in 1880; and Mr. Reid, on his own capital, subsequently extended the Hne from Dundee to Portland via Newberg; and the whole road thus built was soon after incorporated in the standard gauge system up the Willamette valley.
It was during Mr. Reid's administration of this enterprise that the great fight about the "public levee" in Portland took place. As it was "public" ground, it seemed to Reid's attorneys that the railroad had as much right to land on top of the levee as the steamboats had to tie up at the front of the same ground. And so the superintendent of Reid's road commenced improving the levee for a railroad track. Whereupon Mayor D. P. Thompson ordered the chief of police to arrest the railroad laborers and put them in the city jail, which was done. But as fast as one man was carried away, another man was put in his place, and he in turn arrested until the chief of police had got eightyfive big husky fellows in the city jail for grading and cleaning up the levee. It had become a farce, and the chief of police threw open the doors of his prison and told the men to go—which they did.
From the levee the matter was transferred to the legislature at Salem. The mayor, the Oregonian, and a lot of rich men of Portland were against Reid, but' the farmers were all in his favor. The legislature promptly passed an act to give Reid's road terminal privileges on the levee. Governor Thayer vetoed the bill, and then the legislature passed it over the governor's veto—and two railroads are now using that public levee for terminal grounds. Mr. Reid subsequently took up the proposition of building a railroad from Astoria to Portland. On this work he expended many thousand dollars in surveys and in grading the line from Seaside eastwardly into the heavily timbered region of Saddle mountain. But the financial depression of 1893 coming on put a stop ​t a stop
to railroad building all over the United States, and Mr. Reid's enterprise and fortune went down in the general wreck.
But the work and money Reid put into the Astoria-Hillsboro line was not wholly lost.- Taking the matter up again in 1903-4, he was so far able to go ahead with the work of construction as to put engineers and a force of graders on the first section of the line west of Hillsboro, and make it ready for the rails and ties. And at this juncture, the Harriman interests seeing Reid was likely to succeed, inspired Mr. E. E. Lytle, who had constructed the Biggs- Shaniko line in eastern Oregon, to purchase out the interests of Reid and his stockholders, and go on with the road as a part of the Harriman system under the name of the Pacific Railway & Navigation Company. So that whatever credit is to be attached to the construction of this road into the Nehalem and Tillamook valleys, belongs to William Reid. Since disposing of the graded line in Washington county, Reid has again taken up the work of constructing a road from Seaside into the heavily timbered region around Saddle mountain east of Astoria, tO' haul out the timber and develop that region, and is utilizing his old grading for that purpose.
In addition to his railroad work, Mr. Reid was the first man to bring in foreign money to loan on farm lands and reduce the rates of interest. And without further work from him, William Reid is entitled to be recorded as having done a great work for Portland and Oregon.
Of independent roads, which are also in effect feeder lines to this Oregon system, may be mentioned the Sumpter Valley road, built by Messrs. Eccles and Nibley of Utah, from Baker City to the town of Prairie City and south- west towards Burns, now aggregating nearly ninety miles of track. This road was organized in 1890. The same parties have within the past year built eighteen miles of new road running up the Hood- River valley from the town of Hood River, and called it the Mt. Hood Railroad. Another important independent line is the Rogue River Valley road running from Jacksonville to Medford, and from there it is being extended to Crater lake and on to Klamath Falls by J. J. Hill ; and on this line develop the largest tract of sugar pine timber in the United States. This enterprise was started in 1891 by Mr. E. J. DeHart of Medford. Another important independent line is what has been called suc- cessively The Willamette Valley & Coast, "The Oregon Pacific," and The Cor- vallis & Eastern Railroad, running from Yaquina on the bay of that name, eastwardly via Corvallis and Albany to Idanha in the Cascade mountains. This road has had a checkered career. Commenced in 1880 by public-spirited citi- zens of Corvallis and Benton county, who first and last put about $100,000 of hard cash and labor into- its construction. It was turned over to one, T. Egen- ton Hogg, a promoter of great promise and little performance, who reorganized the scheme into its second name and issued $15,000,000 in bonds and $18,- 000,000 in stock on one hundred and forty miles of road and then failed and died, leaving his bankrupt road to be sold for $100,000 to A. B. Hammond. It has from the first been such a "misfit" that neither the genius of Villard, the energy of Huntington, nor the comprehensive mind of Harriman have been able to assign to it a practical and profitable place in the Oregon system. It is now doing a large business in hauling lumber, and must sooner or later find a useful and necessary purpose in the development of the country.
THE WORK OF MR. KOEHLER.
Besides these independent lines, the work of development by branches, feed- ers and extensions of the main system has been going on steadily for years, as population and business would justify. Many such additions have been added to the lines east of the Cascades, as well as in the Willamette valley, showing
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JAMES J. HILL, "THE EMPIRE BUILDER" ​
a network of branch line roads. The most notable of this work in western Oregon has been carried out by Mr. Richard Koehler, who held the reins as general manager of the Oregon & California road for thirty-two years. Under his management over four hundred miles of track were added to the railroad mileage in the Willamette valley and southern Oregon. And in addition to this the roads under his supervision were entirely rebuilt with nev/ steel rails, new bridges, expensive embankment fills, reduction of grades and straightening of track. In this work Mr. Koehler disbursed for his employers many millions of dollars, and in every way more than doubled the value of the property under his care, not only to its owners, but also to the farmers and business men along the line. Such a long term of service as this in one position of such power and responsibility shows with what fidelity Richard Koehler discharged his re- sponsible duties to his clients and the people. Taking hold of the property when it had been practically wrecked by Holladay, and when it paid nothing to its owners, he was compelled to discharge the onerous and thankless duties of watching every detail of operation, service, expenditure, construction and econ- omy in all departments for long years, and finally make the roads a self-sus- taining, profit earning, valuable property to its owners and to the country. The patience, trials and ability to accomplish this end has been but little un- derstood and recognized, although a work of as much value to the country as the more noticeable work of projecting new lines.
W^ORK OF GEORGE W. HUNT.
George W. Hunt's work in the railroad development of Oregon makes an important chapter in the history of the state. He also was one of the inde- pendent builders of railroads, never working under the patronage of any of the great systems. His work in Umatilla and Walla Walla counties made him a serious rival of the Northern Pacific in its progress to the seacoast; and so much of a competing element that the Northern Pacific and Oregon Railway & Navigation Company combined Lo force Hunt out of the railroad field.
He built the Corvallis & Eastern Railroad. He also built the Hunt sys- tem, which opened a great wheat country in eastern Washington and Oregon. This system extended from Wallula to Pendleton and from Wallula to Walla Walla, Dayton and Waitsburg, and is now a part of the Northern Pacific sys- tem. He also planned to build a road from Centralia to Grays Harbor, and it was in this venture that the large fortune he had amassed was broken. By this project he drew upon him the fire of his more powerful railroad rivals, who brought so much pressure to bear against the sale of his bonds and other steps he took in the effort to carry out the plan, that he was forced to retire from railroad activities.
He also planned to build the road down to the Columbia river, and it is over part of the line of survey made by him that the North Bank road now operates. After retiring from the railroad work, he devoted his time to farm- ing. In a measure he recouped his lost fortune and acquired large tracts of land near Umatilla, where he recently held 33,000 acres, which was sold to the Swift Packing House Company for a million dollars. Mr. Hunt passed away last year.
JAMES J. hill's work.
Mr. James J. Hill did not come into the Oregon railroad field until its rail- road development had been planned and fixed by those already here, or by the laws of nature. If Hill's roads over in the state of Washington could have hauled lumber to the eastern states for as low a freight rate as Harriman was hauling the same class of freight through the Columbia gateway, and paid as good dividends on his railroad shares, it is not probable that he would have crossed the Columbia with his magnificent bridge at Vancouver, or ventured ​302 THE CITY OF PORTLAND into the rugged fastness of the Des Chutes canyon. But James J. Hill is a great man, one of the greatest in the nation, and he did not need a telescope to discover the great iield for his energy, and the profitable employment of the great capital of which he is trustee, which lay beyond the Des Chutes, and be- yond the Nehalem mountains.
The "North Bank Road" is a monument to the railroad genius and grim perseverance of Mr, Hill. It is literally a rock road for a hundred miles, either carved out of the basaltic cliffs, or built upon the rock foundations filled in from waste rock blasted out of the roadbed.
EDWARD H. HARRIMAN's WORK.
A brief notice of the Napoleonic figure of Edward H. Harriman seems necessary in this book. He came into the railroad battlefield after all the great lines had been located and constructed. "The Oregon System" was here be- fore his name had ever been mentioned in connection with any of these lines. His work consisted in improving the lines already constructed. In this he stopped at no trifles and spared no expense. The stupendous job of running the Union Pacific straight across the north arm of Great Salt Lake and saving fifty-three miles of track and dangerous mountain grades, is a sample of his policy of improvement. By straightening lines and reducing grades, he made his roads able to do twice the work they formerly did and for one-half the cost of transportation. This is just as great a gain to the country as the con- struction of new lines ; although he planned and provided the money to fully develop the whole of eastern Oregon with new branch roads as soon as the best routes could be determined by careful surveys. And the roads planned by Harriman for central Oregon are now being constructed by his successors in management.
The ultimate result of great principles in economic action is not always fore- seen. In his contest with the financiers of the Hill roads, Harriman, of course, had the advantage of the Columbia gateway. If he had been satisfied with a modicum of benefits from such advantage he could have continued in compara- tive peace with the Hill capitalists, and paid good dividends to his stockholders out of the crops of the Oregon farmers. But Harriman was not satisfied with a cheap railroad operated at a maximum of expense. He must have the best road possible through the mountain pass and operated at a minimum of ex- pense. By such management he could haul grain and lumber at a greatly re- duced cost. But, no matter whether he divided such savings with his Oregon customers or his stockholders, it was sure to array against himself, either the farmers, merchants and mill men on the Oregon side, or the envy of the Hill stockholders that could get none of the pie, on the other side. And thus the work of Mr. Harriman in making the best possible railroad on the south side of the Columbia, compelled Mr. Hill to build the "North Bank" road, on the north side of the Columbia. And Portland has no good grounds to complain of Harriman in giving the city two of the best railroads in the United States instead of one.
RAILROAD WORK NOW IN PROGRESS.
The total cost of the work under way, or authorized, and most of which will be expended in the coming year, is more than $25,000,000, and of this sum more than $18,000,000 is for construction of new lines. Before the year is ended, authorization for the construction of new lines now projected will_ un- doubtedly be given, and the total amount involved swelled by several rnillions.
The Oregon Railroad & Navigation Company has work under way in Ore- gon in construction and betterments, that will aggregate $11,821,500, this sum including an estimate of $5,320,000 for the completion of the Des Chutes line
​On the Des Chutes Railroad there has been constructed 100 miles of grade and track. There has been expended to date $2,200,000, and it is hoped to have this line in operation a distance of 120 miles by March, 1911.
In the way of betterments, the O. R. & N. will soon let the contract for the new steel double-deck bridge crossing the Willamette river in Portland, the structure to cost $1,350,000. In other betterments, 17 miles of new passing tracks are being installed between Umatilla and Baker City at accost of $310,000, including automatic block signals; a line change between The Dalles and the Des Chutes river has been authorized and the contract let, the change covering 14 miles at an estimated cost of $600,000; no miles of the Oregon division will be relaid with 90-pound steel at a cost of $1,100,000, and the track from Albina to St. Johns has been relaid with new 75-pound steel at a cost of $45,000; together with a tunnel two miles in length under the city from the Willamette river to Columbia slough.
SOUTHERN PACIFIC.
The construction and betterments on the Southern Pacific authorized and under way will cost, approximately, $5,000,000. The most notable feature of the work is the construction of a portion of the Natron-Klamath Falls line. Of the total length of 152 miles now under construction; work is progressing northward from Klamath Falls and eastwardly from Eugene.
PACIFIC RAILWAY AND NAVIGATION CO.
As a part of the Harriman system is the Pacific Railway & Navigation Company now building from Hillsboro to Tillamook, a distance of 98 miles. The construction work is about 65 per cent completed, and the total cost of the road will be about $3,000,000.
The new railroad extends from Hillsboro, twenty miles west of Portland on the west side division of the Southern Pacific, to Tillamook. While the distance on an air line from Hillsboro to Tillamook is about fifty miles, the railroad takes a long detour to reach that point, running northwesterly in a divide in the Coast Range between the upper Nehalem and Salmon Berry rivers; thence following the Salmon Berry to its confluence with the Nehalem and down the Nehalem to Nehalem bay; thence along the south shore of the Nehalem bay to the ocean beach, following the beach southerly to Garibaldi Point and thence along the east shore of Tillamook bay to Bay City and Tillamook.
OREGON TRUNK LINE.
The Oregon Trunk Line, which parallels the Des Chutes road in the Des Chutes River canyon, is under construction from Celilo to Madras, a distance of a little more than 100 miles. The construction is of standard character. Based on the estimates given for the Des Chutes Railroad, the cost of construction from Celilo to Madras should be not less than $5,000,000.
To this will be added the cost of bridging the Columbia river below Celilo. The Oregon Trunk Line is nearly completed to Crooked river. With the completion of the road to Madras which is promised by James J. Hill by February, 1911, work will be pressed southward, and by the close of 191 1 probably at least 100 more miles of railroad will be under construction.
PACIFIC AND EASTERN.
The Pacific & Eastern Railroad, the successor to the old Medford and Crater Lake line, is now pushing out from Eagle Point to Butte Falls, a distance of 35 miles. It has been reported that the road has been acquired by ​uired by
the Hill interests, and is to be extended across the Cascade range to a connec- tion with the Oregon Trunk Line. The cost of the work now in progress, it is estimated, will be about $400,000.
ELECTRIC LINES — THE STEEL BROTHERS.
The first electric line in the city, and which was also the first electric rail- road on the Pacific coast, was the Fulton Park line, from the south end of the city to Fulton Park, and on to the cemeteries; a very useful line and very much needed today. This road was projected and built in 1889 by Messrs. James and George Steel as the owners ; the civil engineering of the undertaking being in charge of Major A. F. Sears. The road was operated by the Metro- politan Railway Company, and after several years' operation, the bondholders of the Riverview cemetery bought up the stock and then moved the line from its higher location on the side hill, where the Oregon Electric to Salem is now located, down to the level valley and the town of Fulton, and extended the road to Riverview cemetery, and depriving the owners of the Hebrew, Masonic, Odd Fellows and Grand Army Veteran cemeteries of the accommodations of street railway access to those places of burial.
After building and putting in operation this first electric line, the Steel Brothers took up the project of building the electric line to Oregon City, which they completed and put in successful operation in 1891. These gentlemen are therefore to be recorded as the pioneers in electric railroad building and opera- tion on the Pacific coast.
After the Steel Brothers had shown how to make a passenger car climb the Portland hills with the invisible electric current, all the other city lines were changed from horse power to electricity; and the manifest advantages of the change induced a rapid extension of the lines and a healthy expansion of the street railway business.
One of these lines so changed was the old "cable" road, operated by an end- less steel wire cable by steam power generated at a power house which stood on Chapman street at the intersection of Market street, and at the foot of the hill where the cars were pulled by the cable up to the plateau of Portland Heights. This cable railroad idea was developed in San Francisco, to^ accommodate the people who lived on the heights of that city overlooking San Francisco bay ; and is still working in a modified form as aerial tramways in the mining re- gions for transporting ores from the mines to crushing mills or smelters.
Following up the application of electricity to the street car lines, came its adoption to general traffic. The first to use the electric power outside of the city lines was Mr. Fred Morris, who had succeeded to the ownership of the roads built by the Steel Brothers. Mr. Morris reorganized and enlarged the companies he took over, interested some Philadelphia capitalists in his venture, and built the first electric line for general freight and passenger business in the state from Portland to Cazadero in the eastern part of Clackamas county, thirty- seven miles.
This was followed up by the organization of the Oregon Electric Railway Company in May, 1906, by New York capitalists, working in the interest of the Hill roads, to build an electric railway from Portland to Salem. This road was built and put in operation in 1907, and a branch line from Garden Home to Forest Grove was added in 1908. This property was formally turned over to the management of Mr. Hill's agents in 1910, and arrangements made to extend the Salem line to Eugene City.
The Oregon Electric Railway Company was incorporated May 14, 1906, the incorporators being Thomas Scott Brooke, Henry L. Corbett and Robert W. Lewis. The capital stock was $2,500,000. The road was incorporated under the state laws of Oregon. The corporation was authorized to build a line from Portland to Roseburg, Douglas county, Oregon., ​
The first stockholders' meeting was held Monday, June 25, 1906. By-laws were adopted, and the following directors elected: George Barclay Moffat, New York; William A. White, New York; Harold B. Clark, Engelwood, N. J.; Franklin T. Griffith, Portland; R. L, Donald, Portland; Thomas Scott Brooke, Portland; Henry L. Corbett, Portland.
On December 31, 1908, the first train, which consisted of one small motor car, began regular schedules between Portland and Salem; later, in the month of January, new equipment having arrived, a new and more frequent schedule was installed and the road got down to a regular operating basis.
On April 22, 1908, there was a special meeting of the stockholders, in- creasing the capital stock of the company from $2,500,000 to $10,000,000. A directors' meeting was held on the same date amending the articles of incor- poration, said amendment authorizing the building of some 350 additional miles of road.
Early in May, 1908, the line from Garden Home, a junction on the main line seven miles south of Portland, to Hillsboro and Forest Grove was begun and the work carried out through the summer, the line as far as Hillsboro be- ing put into operation September 29, 1908, and to Forest Grove, December 20, 1908 — 20 miles.
The company has now under way surveys and estimates for the building of lines from about Tigard, Oregon, through Newburg to McMinnville, McMinn- ville to Corvallis and from Salem to Albany and Eugene. Other branch lines to follow as soon as these are completed.
The next electric line proposed was that of the United Railways Company, promoted by Los Angeles men, who secured, in 1907, a valuable franchise on Front street, for which the Southern Pacific interests had vainly sought from the city for twenty years. After numerous troubles and skyrocket financiering, the Los Angeles men were forced to let go their franchises to a syndicate of Portland and Seattle capitalists under the lead of Herman Wittenberg and R. D. Hofius. Under their management, Front street was repaved and the railroad track put down in a thorough manner, and the main line of their road to the great timbered regions of the Nehalem county constructed from Front stieet to the north boundary of the city, and down to Linnton, and thence through the high hills by tunnel into Washington county. Then again appears Mr. James J. Hill and pays the energetic builders all their money back, and a good round price for their franchises and trouble, and is now following up the ghost of his friend Harriman by pushing a competing line in the big timber, to the milk and honey county of Tillamook bay.
RAILROAD MILEAGE TRIBUTARY TO PORTLAND, 1 9 10.
Astoria & Columbia River Railroad 122 miles
California Northeastern Railway Company, Klamath Falls to Weed,
California 86 miles
Corvallis & Alsea river (Corvallis to Monroe) 21 miles
Corvallis & Eastern (Yaquina Bay to Cascade Mts.) 140 miles
Columbia River & Oregon Central (Arlington to Condon) 45 miles
Columbia Southern Railway (Biggs to Shaniko) 64 miles
Great Southern R. R. Co. (The Dalles to Dufur) 30 miles
Independence & Monmouth, Airlie and Dallas 19 miles
Malheur Valley R. R. Co. (Malheur to Vale) 14 miles
Mt. Hood Railroad (Hood River valley) 16 miles
Northern Pacific to Puget Sound and branches 300 miles
Oregon & California and branches 666 miles
Oregon Railroad & Navigation Co. and branches i>327 rniles
Oregon Short Line and branches 1,5^8 miles
Oregon & Southeastern (Cottage Grove to Disston) 20 miles ​
Pacific & Eastern (Medford to Crater Lake) 31 miles
Pacific Railway & Navigation (Hillsboro to Tillamook) 98 miles
Rogue River Valley (Jacksonville to Medford) 66 miles
Salem & Falls City, Black Rock & Dallas 23 miles
Spokane, Portland & Seattle and branches 421 miles
Sumpter Valley Railroad (Baker City to Prairie City) 95 miles
Umatilla Central (Pilot Rock Junction to Pilot Rock) 14 miles
Oregon Electric (Portland to Salem and Forest Grove) 69 miles
Portland Railway (electric, Portland to Cazadero) 37 miles
United Railways (Portland into Washington county) 2>7 miles
Columbia river logging roads 60 miles
Total mileage 5,269 miles
To the above should be added the new roads being constructed through the Des Chutes canyon :
The Oregon Trunk Line (Hill road) 150 miles
The Des Chutes Road (Harriman line) 150 miles
Grand total to be in operation by May, 191 1 5,569 miles
CONSOLIDATION OF LINES.
Since the foregoing statement was prepared, all the railroads in the states of Oregon and Washington connecting with the Oregon Railway & Navigation Com- pany's railroads, embracing the original main line, and the feeder branch lines above named, together with the lines of what was known as the "North Coast Railroad" in the state of Washington, has been consolidated in one system, and under one corporate ownership and one corporate name — "The Oregon & Wash- ington Railroad Company."
THE FIRST STREET RAILROAD.
The first street railroad in the city of Portland was something of a joke. It was in 1872 that Ben Holladay was at the zenith of his power and pomposity when legislatures and courts were his willing creatures, and governors and sena- tors were his worshipping servitors. Ben was laying claim to everything in sight within the horizon of his mental or visual perceptions. It struck him forcibly that there would be vast possibilities in a franchise for a street railroad from one end of First street to the other, and the city council lost no time in making the necessary grant of the right of way for the track, and the right to collect fares. And thereupon the great Holladay set one of his railroad section bosses to dig- ging up the street and laying down a track with iron rails weighing fully fifteen pounds to the lineal yard. And by the time this work was done, a little old worn- out car, discarded from a San Francisco horse line was brought up on the steamer, carried over to the north end of the line at "G" street, and a mule hitched thereto, and Portland's — no, not Portland's ; Portland did ' not own anything while Holladay ruled the town — Ben Holladay's street railway was ready for operation. One man drove the mule and the passengers made their own change and dropped it in a box, and the mule made a round trip between "G" and Ca- ruthers streets in one hour. This little old pretense of a railroad was operated for about twenty years. Poor old Ben lost all his money and power, and fell down to where there were "none so low as to do him reverence." But his brother Joe ("Joe with the old umbrella") had got possession of Ben's property and es- tate to keep it out of the hands of the creditors, and still the ancient mule with his tinkling bell made occasional trips along First street to hold the "franchise"
THE HORSE RAILROADS.
The first practical efforts to introduce street railroad service was in 1880, when Tyler Woodward, Benton Killin and others got a franchise to construct the line on Third street turning west on G street. This was from the first a very well constructed and well managed property. The next line was projected from First street west on Washington street to the Gambrinus Brewery at 23d street. Mr. D. E. Budd was the promoter of this line, and the late Amos N. King the principal capitalist. Both these lines were horse-car lines, and as good as any horse-car line could be. To get up the hill at Market street on Third, a boy was stationed with an extra horse to help out the single nag that trotted along with the tender little cars holding a dozen passengers at best. The Washington street line put on considerable airs from the very start, had a pair of horses, regular flyers from King's big stock ranch in Lake county, and they changed teams every three hours, made fast time on the street, and in fact started the boom in buildings and prices on Washington street which has been kept going ever since.
THE CABLE RAILROAD.
The first real sensation Portland experienced in street car development was when a Philadelphia lawyer named J. Carroll McCaffery started in to build the cable road from the Union depot up Fifth street to Jefferson, west on Jefferson to Chapman, south on Chapman to Spring street on Portland Heights, and north on Spring to the present site of the Portland Heights club house. McCaffery came to Portland as the loan agent of the Lawyers' Trust and Loan Company of Philadelphia, innocently supposing that the verdant Oregonians would confide in a Lawyers' Loan and Trust Co. (especially the "trust" part of it). He soon discovered that this was not a good field for his clients, and then took up the cable road idea to develop Portland Heights real estate about the year 1889. Residence lots that are now selling on the Heights for $5,000 apiece, could be purchased at that time for two hundred and fifty dollars each. McCaffery obtained a franchise from the city council, and everybody laughed at the impossible proposition of running a railroad car up the steep ascent of five hundred feet from Market street to Spring street. But McCaffery was not a "quitter" and he scurried around and obtained subscriptions tO' the stock of his company, payable in lots and lands, going even as far back as the Talbot donation claim at Council Crest; and soon made quite a showing of foundation securities. He first tried to raise money out of his Philadelphia Loan and Trust Company friends and found out that they wanted everything, so to speak, and he vv'as compelled to fall back on Portland men. In this he was successful in securing the confidence of Mr. Preston Smith, who came to his assistance with hard cash and his personal influence with others among whom was the late Charley Woodward of wholesale drug store fame. And between these gentlemen money enough was raised to start the enterprise, and after started, bonds were issued and taken by some San Francisco capitalists who had experience with and confidence in cable railways. And thus the road was completed, the great brick power house with its ponderous steam engines being located at the intersection of Chapman and Market streets, and only a short time pulled down to make room for other structures. While the cable road was never a financial success as a dividend earner and a very expensive road to build, yet it made Portland Heights the handsome residence suburb that it is, and in the end returned from sales of real estate and its railway franchises all the money ever invested in it.
THE WORK OF MAJOR ALFRED SEARS.
Major Sears has done so much for Portland and Oregon in freely giving the city and state the benefit of his great engineering knowledge, his wide experience ​and unusual opportunities for the observation and investigation of all manner of engineering problems, that he is entitled to permanent recognition in this work. His first work was in the construction of fortifications for the Union army in the war to suppress the Southern rebellion 48 years ago. After the suppression of the rebellion, he was engaged in constructing railroads and other public works for Peru and other South American states; until he came to Oregon in 1880 and took charge of the railroads being constructed by the Oregonian Railroad Company of Dundee, Scotland. Before going to South America, he constructed a railroad from Newark, New Jersey, to New York city, the whole distance on piling twenty feet above ground, where trains could make a mile a minute and not run over men or carriages. He was also general manager of important lines in Mexico and Costa Rica. His various titles indicating his eminence as an engineer, and his large experience and construction work are as follows: M. Am. Soc. C. E., Hon. M. Nat. Soc. E. & A. of Peru., M. Nat. Geographical Soc, Washington, D. C.; Cor. M. Nat. Geographical S. of Lima, Peru; Late chief engineer Newark & New York Ry. Co.; Chf. Eng. Penn. & Sodus Bay Ry.; Umpire Engineer Oregonian Ry. Co.; Assistant General Manager Mexican Central Ry.; Gen. Manager Tehauntepec Interoceanic Ry.; Gen. Man. Chimbote & Huaras Ry., Peru; State Engineer and Inspector of the Railroads of the North of Peru; Chief Engineer of the Government Commission of Irrigation for the Department of Piura, Peru; Chief Engineer of Commission for Devising Water Works and Sewerage Systems for the Cities of Callao, Piura and Paita, Peru, South America.
THE GREAT TRACTION COMPANY.
It is a fitting close to this chapter on the railroad development of this city to sum up the great work with that of the Portland Railway, Light & Power Company.
This corporation took over in 1905, all the electric railways of the city, and combined under one ownership and management, the works of a half dozen or more corporations which had been slowly, for twenty years, building up and extending their lines in all directions throughout the city, and to Oregon City, St. Johns, Vancouver, Montavilla, Mount Tabor and Mt. Scott. By bringing all these lines under one responsibility, and one managing head, great economies could be secured in operating the lines, and much better and quicker service furnished to the people in the outlying districts. The extent of this work is hardly known, and not well appreciated by the great mass of the population of the city. And the statistics of the street railways business are far beyond the conceptions of any but the most optimistic friends to the development and extension of the city. The following items are down to date of September, 1910, and are authentic: Portland has now in operation in the city, and to Oregon City and Vancouver, single track street railway, 161 miles; passenger cars owned by the company, 431; passenger cars in daily operation, 314; car barns for storage of cars, 6. Power stations to generate electricity: One at Oregon City, one at Cazadero on the Clackamas river, and two steam stations in the city; one steam station at Vancouver, one steam station and one water power station at Silverton. The total capacity of these stations is 50,000 horsepower. The power generated at these stations is distributed by twelve sub-stations. The total number of employes of the company make an army of four thousand men.
The number of passengers daily carried by this great organization of electric power, cars and employes is two hundred and fifty thousand, making a daily income of $12,500. This organization is now managed by B. S. Josselyn, president of the company; F. I. Fuller, vice-president; C. J. Franklin, general superintendent; C. P. Osborne, operating engineer; L. D. Pape, chief inspector; Fred Cooper, superintendent of transportation.