page_title: Oregon Steam Navigation Company
section_title: Struggle for the portages
hierarchical_section_title: Oregon Steam Navigation Company / Struggle for the portages
caption_attribution_description: English: Portage railroad of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company which ran from The Dalles to Celilo on the south bank of the Columbia River. The photograph was taken from the south side of the river, and the camera is facing towards the west. The train was certainly not in motion at the time but had been stopped deliberately for the photograph. Objects in motion could not be photographed in 1867. Also, there are several men standing on the roofs of the train cars. This could not have been done had the train been in motion. This photograph is from Oregon Historical Society negative OrHi 21585
context_page_description: The Oregon Steam Navigation Company was an American company incorporated in 1860 in Washington with partners J. S. Ruckle, Henry Olmstead, and J. O. Van Bergen. It was incorporated in Washington because of a lack of corporate laws in Oregon, though it paid Oregon taxes.
  The company operated steamships between San Francisco and ports along the Columbia River at Astoria, Portland and The Dalles, serving the lumber and salmon fishing industries. A railroad was built to serve the steamship industry.
context_section_description: Control of the portages was critical to control of the river.  OSN controlled all the portages, including both the north and the south portage railways around the Cascades (which had once been in competition with each other) as well as a portage system that had been built around Celilo Falls by one Orlando Humason.  In 1863, the company replaced the mule-drawn portage railway on the north side of the Cascades with a steam locomotive.  The company also built a 13-mile (21 km) steam railway from the Dalles around Celilo Falls, which opened on April 23, 1863 and cost $1 million to build.
  Cascade Portage and railroad, Washington side, 1867
  Oregon "Pony," first steam engine in Oregon, used on portage railroad
caption: The Dalles-Celilo portage railroad in 1867 looking west towards "Cape Horn".
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