FootNote
The new kid on the block, FootNote is known for digitizing historical
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city directories, war records, newspapers, town records, etc... this new
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While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
There have been but very few important
changes among those officials who have had
to personally superintend the actual and
practical operations of the road during the
past twelve or fourteen years. Mr. E. P.
Rogers enjoys the distinction of being the "
Pioneer of the road." Most of those
prominently connected with the early
organization of the road are dead. Among
those may be mentioned J. H. Moores, I. R.
Moores, E. N. Cooke, Joel Palmer, J. S.
Smith, S. Ellsworth, James Douthitt, J. H.
D. Henderson, Greenberry Smith, A. L.
Lovejoy, A. F. Hedges, W. S. Newby, J. P.
Underwood, Gov. Gibbs, and last, but by no
means least, Ben Holladay. To Mr. Rogers
belongs the distinction of being the eldest
officer now connected with the operating
department of the road. He first came to
Portland in 1870, and assumed the position
of general freight and passenger agent, and
the exacting duties of that position he has
for the past seventeen years discharged with
strict fidelity to the best interests of the
corporation, and to the satisfaction of the
general management.
Mr. John Brandt is also an old and efficient
officer of the company. Mr. Brandt came to
Portland in 1873, and in July of that year
assumed the position of general
superintendent of the road. This position he
has filled proficiently for the past
fourteen years. The fact that Mr. Brandt has
been retained as superintendent through all
the changing fortunes of the road, and under
the different managements, is the highest
evidence of his competency and thorough
experience in the practical operations of a
railroad.
One year later Mr. R. Koehler came to
Oregon. . As before stated, he came first as
resident financial agent of the German
bondholders. He entered upon the active
duties of the position July 25, 1874. Since
that date Mr. Koehler has been an active and
prominent factor in the management of the
company's affairs-as financial agent, vice
president and manager, and as general
receiver. His long retention by the owners
of the road, and the implicit trust reposed
in his ability and integrity are the best
endorsements that could be offered.
Under the management of these gentlemen the
roads have been operated for a long period
with as rigid a measure of economy as the
financial conditions of the company
demanded, and yet with as much liberality
and in as satisfactory a manner to the
public service and the necessities of
traffic as was possible under all the
existing circumstances. The company was
entangled in a somewhat complicated mesh of
litigation during the first few years of its
existence, and the corporate name has
figured very extensively in the records of
the United States Courts and Courts of the
State, both as defendant and plaintiff to a
tangled mass of suits. But when the
unsettled, uncertain state of affairs is
considered, when the controversies and
desperate struggles for mastery, the heated
and bitter rivalries, and the inevitable
conflict of personal and corporate interests
are all taken into account, the abundant
harvest of tedious litigation which
followed, seemed but a natural and
legitimate result.
Few roads of equal length in this country
have enjoyed a similar measure of exemption
from disasters, when all the disadvantages
under which operations have been maintained
have been taken into due consideration. Prom
first to last there have been no serious
collisions of rail accidents on the line
involving the extensive loss of human life,
or the destruction of much valuable
property. This very important fact speaks in
most emphatic terms of the care, caution and
good judgment displayed in the management of
trains for the past seventeen years.
This article would be incomplete without the
mention of Mr. H. Thielsen's name, and of
the important part he took in the
enterprise. Mr. Thielsen first arrived in
Portland March 1, 1870. He at once assumed
the duties of chief engineer and
superintendent combined. Practically he
became the acting manager of the road. Under
his supervision the twenty miles of road
which have been constructed between East
Portland and Rock Island were rebuilt. He
had charge of the building of the entire
line between Rock Island and Roseburg. Mr.
Thielsen has also built the line on the West
Side from Portland to St. Joe, except some
little preliminary operations done prior to
his arrival here. Mr. Thielsen remained in
charge of the engineering department of the
road, and as practical. engineer until the
retirement of Holladay. Mr. Thielsen was
succeeded by Mr. Koehler in 1874 in the
practical management of the road.
Subsequently he retired from all connection
with the road, and soon after accepted the
position of chief engineer of the Oregon
Railway & Navigation Company.
The car shops of the company were
established by Holladay in 1870, and were
located two and a half miles south of the
east side depot. Since they were first
started, from eighty to one hundred men have
been kept employed. Mr. Brandt has long held
the position of master mechanic. Heretofore,
the facilities for making necessary repairs
and building new rolling stock have been
comparatively adequate to meet the
requirements of the company; but now, that
through connection has been established, the
necessity for the enlargement of the shops
and the increase of facilities has become
imperative.
The Narrow
Gauge System
No history of Portland
would be complete without some notice of the
system of narrow gauge railways which
terminate here, for having no other outlet
for their business, the Narrow Guage System
and the Metropolis city must always be
mutually dependent on each other for
prosperity.
This system was projected by Joseph Gaston,
Esq., who has been noticed as the pioneer of
the road between Oregon and California. Mr.
Gaston took up the idea of a system of cheap
and economically managed lines to more
perfectly develop the resources of the
Willamette Valley, in the year 1877, and for
that purpose incorporated a company to
construct a road from Dayton to Sheridan, in
Yamhill County, with a branch to Dallas in
Polk County. He knew that any move of this
kind would be regarded as a hostile
demonstration by the owners of the Oregon
Central, with which he had been formerly
connected, and, therefore, to avoid drawing
their fire to as late a day as possible, he
commenced his road at a point distant from
this city, as if it were to be an
unimportant affair. He relied for his means
to carry out the enterprise mainly on the
wealthy farmers of Yamhill and Polk
Counties, and made much' the same appeals
for popular support by public meetings and
otherwise, as he had formerly made in behalf
of the Oregon Central line. And although the
owners of the Oregon Central very early
comprehended the interloper in their field
of business, and put out men to talk down
and oppose Gaston, he had by April 1st,
1878, made such headway as to be able to
break ground at Dayton and purchase the iron
and rolling stock for forty miles of track.
He pushed his work with great vigor, and in
six months had the first forty miles of
narrow guage railroad in Oregon in
operation.
After thus far succeeding the opposition did
not abate their efforts to check or cripple
Gaston's scheme of a system of railways
coterminous with the Willamette Valley. They
saw too plainly that it meant low rates and
no profits to their lines, when compelled to
compete with the little. narrow guage which
was already picking up produce and
passengers at every cross road. Mr. Villard
was then rising to his zenith of power, and
first offering to buy out Mr. Gaston without
pledging himself to maintain the road he had
built, he turned to buying up the claims for
iron and other debts against it and threw it
in the hands of a Receiver. But the man who
had built forty miles of railroad, without a
sack of flour to start with was not likely
to be gotten. rid of in that summary way.
And Gaston quietly and speedily arranged
with a syndicate of capitalists in Dundee,
in Scotland, to take his road off his hands
and carry out his plans of extending it not
only to Portland, for which Gaston had
incorporated the Willamette Valley Railroad
Co., but also southwardly by branches on
both sides of the Willamette River.
This brings in the Oregonian Railway Company
(Limited), a corporation organized under
Royal Charter in Dundee, Scotland. This
company was organized through the efforts of
William Reid, Esq., of Portland, who became
its President. Mr. Reid quickly took the
Gaston road out of the hands of the
Receiver, and went to work in 1880 with
great vigor to extend its lines to both
sides of the Willamette, to the west side
track and crossing the Willamette River at
Ray's Landing and constructing from Dundee,
in Yamhill County, to Coburg, in Lane
County.
After successfully operating this narrow
guage system, now grown to be a formidable
factor in the development of the Willamette
Valley, and while Mr. Reid was in the midst
of his work in extending the road from
Dundee to Portland, Mr. Villard entered into
negotiations to lease the narrow guage
lines, which lease for 99 years, was finally
accomplished in the year 1882. Upon the
making of the lease, the work of extending
the road to Portland was indefinitely
suspended.
It is but justice to record, that Mr. Reid
bitterly opposed the making of this lease,
and warned his constituent stockholders in
Scotland, that although they might be
stipulating for a handsome income on their
investment it was not keeping faith with the
people of Oregon, whose people and
legislature had heartily encouraged the road
by granting it the public levee in this city
for terminal grounds, and by much other
substantial aid, and that the lease would
terminate badly. Mr. Villard operated the
Narrow Gauge lines for about a year, and
then repudiated the lease as made without
authority or power, and abandoned the
property to the tender mercies of the United
States Circuit Court, which placed it in the
hands of a Receiver for preservation during
the pendency of the litigation to determine
the validity of the lease.
Upon the execution of the lease, Mr. Reid
withdrew from the Oregonian company, and in
the year 1886 incorporated the Portland and
Willamette Valley railroad company to
construct a narrow gauge road from Dundee,
in Yamhill county, the northern terminus of
the narrow gauge lines above mentioned, to
the city of Portland. This twenty-seven
miles of track was very expensive, but was
pushed to final completion to the public
levee in this city in the year 1888. It is
now known that leading capitalists of the
Southern Pacific railroad have purchased,
not only this last road built by- Mr. Reid,
but also all the lines constructed by the
Oregonian company; the lease to Villard
having been declared void by the Supreme
Court of the United States, and the Scotch
stockholders losing all their investments,
but the bondholders and other creditors of
the road being paid out of the proceeds of
such sale to the Southern Pacific company.
