East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1909-11-22
Meeting of Commercial Club
at Request of Washington &
Oregon Co,
FITZGERALD TELLS
BENEFITS NOW POSSIBLE
Electric Roads Enhance Value of
Realty from Three Hundred TO Six
Hundred Per Cent-Washington e.
Oregon Company Seeking Site for
PendIeton Park-Will Have Head
quarters Here.

At the Commercial Association
rooms tomorrow evening a meeting
will be held for the purpose of lis
tening to d. FitzGerald and others
interested in the Washington & Ore
gon Traction company. The meeting
has been called at the request of the
traction people.
Both d. FitzGerald and Max Z.
Baumeister have been in the city dur
ing the past few days and they say
they will continue their headquarters
in this place. They will likely have Of
fices in the Smith-Crawford building.
The following interview bearing up
on the company and its plans was
given the East Oregonian today by
Mr.. FITZGERALD:
From MFR. FitzGerald.
Electric railroading Tor the city
of Pendleton and Umatilla county
means so much to the citizens of
those communities in the way OF
transportation accommodations FOR
both freight and pasengers-and hence
enhancement of property values that
we cannot refrain from drawing a few
parallels and indulging in little spec
ulation. We are informed-from sta
tistics compiled by the RAILROAD In
yestor," n creditablc publication that
the advent of an electric railway into
a community. whether interurban OF
city, Immediately enhances real-estate
values not less than three hundred
per cent and running all the way up
to as much as six hundred per cent
1t lifts a city out of the confines of Its
narrowness and stretches II into all
such suburban regions as are brought
within the limits of the railway lines
and the nickel" fare, usually on such
beautiful and substantial lines of resi-
dental development and were un-
thought of before the advent of the
"trolly" and gives the charms of both
city and suburban @jsc to its heighest
attainment 1t takes the town out OF
the sleep of its swaddling clothes,
dresses It in the garb of the mature
and vigorous, and by single stroke
of enterprise places 1t among the
live fast growing enterpriseing cities,
attracting to itself every person, fam
lily, interest and institution-both eou-
cational and Industrial from afar that
are alive to opportunity wish to be
in at the start of the open way in life
that leads to the certain success that
marks the way of all cities and COM
munities Immediately following the
coming of the first electric railway
the greatest of the utilities" and
giant developer, and its inevitable
collateral enterprises
"The lesson of development IS
of us who are familiar with the
Willamette valley know that there is
there much poor as well as fertile
land. that was of little account before
the coming of the electric horse
That since the transformation has
been of the usual phenomena pro-
portions that follow the trolly unti
now the poorest land along the cleo
trio. line is worth over one hundret
and fifty dollars and values run al.
ways up to two thousand dollars pei
acre Nearer to home still Is the les.
son of Walla Walla. only six year,
ago before that city got its electric
steel railway, Pendleton as a city ex-
celled II i'm every way-larger in eX.
tent. population and business and {
more desirable place to live. but Wal
Ia Walla was first favored with cleo
trio transportation, and the usual fol
lowed-t went ahead in leaps ant
bounds. leaving Pendleton so far be