The Athena press. [volume] (Athena, Umatilla County, Or.) 18??-1942, 1905-09-29

thesBig Bend country, in the northern
part of the state of Washington, have
been received at Portland this season.
Portland exporters have also received
wheat from Ritzville and other points
on the main line of the Northern Pa
ific railroad. The wheat in both cases
was lifted over the Cascade mountains
at heavy haulage expense, dropped
down to tidewater on Puget Sound,
and then carried on to Portland, 145
miles beyond Tacoma. This is an
unnatural proceeding and it is needless
to state that only very small proper
ton of the wheat grown in the Big
Bend country or along the main line
of the Northern Pacific ever reaches
'ship's tackle" by such roundabout
and expensive route.
Portland exporters quite naturally
do not expect to do much business in
field at present SO remote from their
deepwater docks in this city. Any at
tempt to move wheat to Portland by
such route, on the same big scale as
it is moved over the OR. &N., would
in short order demonstrate the phys
ical inability Of the railroad to han
die it. That is the reason that Puget
Sound dealers are practically alone in
their glory in the Big Bend and the
Northern Pacific's main line territory
in Eastern Washington. The new
road down the north bank of the Co
lumbia river cannot fail however, to
change the routing of great many
million bushels of wheat which for
the present can find no easier route
to tidewater than that leading over
the Cascade mountains.
Mr.. Levey, in his interview wired
the Oregonian from North Yakima
yesterday, very guardedly and dip
lomatically stated that he did not see
that the building of the north bank
route would have any special effect
on Puget Sound. Continuing, he said :
"The new line will make the rail
road distance to Portland shorter. In
addition to the mileage that will be
saved there will practically be level
grade into Portland, thus obviating
the heavy haul over the mountains to
Puget Sound with which we have to
contend at present. :"
All the wheat grown along the main
line of the Northern Pacific and its
branches in Oregon and Washington
and in the wonderful Nez Perces
country in Idaho, passes Kenniwick,
in it journey to Underwater. When the
Northern Pacific completes its line
down the north bank of the Columbia
to Portland, that wheat at Kenniwick
will be 248 miles distant from Tacoma
with the lofty Cascade mountains to
be climbed before it can reach there,
and it will be less than 230 miles dis
tant from Portland, with a down
stream water-level grade over which
a single engine can haul more loaded
cars than can be hauled over the
mountains with half dozen engines.
When this road is completed it will
be more economical for the railroads
to haul wheat down the Columbia to
Portland and thence ON to Puget
Sound, 145 miles farther, than to lift
it over the Cascade mountains. The
rate, as Mr.. Levey says, will remain
the same to both places and there will
be Just about as much wheat hauled
through Portland to Tacoma as is now
hauled through Tacoma to Portland.
Puget Sound has extensive milling
industries, which will require liberal
supplies of wheat, and these supplies
will be forthcoming, but, with the
exception of the field lying north of
the Great Northern, the greater part
of which is now Puget Sound territory
will be drained out by way of the
north bank road, and eventually a
north -and-south road through the Big
Bend will bring it all out by water
level route.