page_title: Ilwaco Railway and Navigation Company
section_title: Additional stops along extended line
hierarchical_section_title: Ilwaco Railway and Navigation Company / Operations on the extended line / Additional stops along extended line
caption_attribution_description: English: Scan of map prepared by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1921, showing Fort Columbia near Chinook, Washington. This is part of a whole series of U.S. army-prepared maps scanned by Coast Defense Studies Group some of which are available, as this one was, on their website, in .PDF format, and over which they assert no copyright, other to charge a small fee for CDs of maps not available on-line.
context_page_description: The Ilwaco Railway and Navigation Company operated a 3 ft narrow gauge railroad that ran for over forty years from the bar of the Columbia River up the Long Beach Peninsula to Nahcotta, Washington, on Willapa Bay. The line ran entirely in Pacific County, Washington, and had no connection to any outside rail line. The railroad had a number of nicknames, including the "Clamshell Railroad" and the "Irregular, Rambling and Never-Get-There Railroad."
context_section_description: A traveller from Portland would board the train right on the dock at Megler.  The train then proceeded almost due west for about 1/2 mile around Point Ellice, where, after 1921, Captain Elving's ferries would dock.
  Next, for about a mile, the railroad ran along flat bench next to the river until it reached McGowan, where the McGowan family had built a large dock and a cannery.  A passing track was built at McGowan.  The railroad then entered the tunnel under Fort Columbia.  Just on the west end of tunnel was the small depot for the fort's needs.  A long pier extended into the river from Fort Columbia, this is shown on the Corps of Engineers maps as the pier "QM", for quartermaster.
  The next stop on the line was Chinook, where the railway ran through the streets of the small town.  By 1927, an auto road had been built from Megler to Chinook and then to Ilwaco.  This roadway ran parallel to the railway up to Chinook, where the railway then went inland somewhat to cross the Wallicut river.  Subsequent stops on the line's extension were Ellis, Wallicut, and a stop called China, after the large number of Chinese cannery workers who lived there.
caption: Fort Columbia and Ilwaco Railway line, 1921,overall view
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