FootNote
The new kid on the block, FootNote is known for digitizing historical
documents... many of which are genealogical gems. With naturalizations,
city directories, war records, newspapers, town records, etc... this new
kid is quickly being recognized as an alternative to Ancestry.
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!
Portland's Advantages as a
Railroad Centre-Early Struggles for a
Railroad-Curious Features of the
Contest-Labors of Simon E. Elliott, George
H. Belden, Col. Charles Belden and Joseph
Gaston-First Survey by Barry and
Gaston-Report by Col. Barry-Provisions of
the First Railroad Bill Passed by the Oregon
Legislature and United States Congress-The
Importance of Provisions Suggested by Col.
W. W. Chapman-Organization of the First
Railroad Company in Oregon-Formation of a
Rival Company-Contest over the Land
Grant-Interesting Ceremonies in Connection
with Commencement of Construction of the
West Side Road-Progress of the Work-Bitter
Warfare Between the two Companies -The Fight
Carried into the Courts-The Legal Aspect of
the Contest-Advent of Ben Holladay-His
Character and Methods-Efforts to Build to
the Atlantic States-Labors of Col.
Chapman-Henry Villard and the Northern
Pacific-The Southern Pacific-Prominent
Railroad Managers of Portland-The Narrow
Guage System.
Portland is now well
supplied with railway connection, not only
with all parts of the Northwest, but with
the whole of North America. She is the
terminus of three transcontinental lines-the
Northern Pacific, by the O. R. & N. and the
Oregon Short Line, and the Union Pacific
systems, respectively, and of the Southern
Pacific by the Oregon and California
Railway. She is also a terminus of the
Northern Pacific on its own rails across the
Cascade mountains and by way of Tacoma and
Kalama, and, by the routes on Puget Sound,
communicates directly with the Canadian
Pacific. The Oregon Pacific, which is
pushing out across middle Oregon for a
junction in Idaho with still another
continental line, although maintaining a
terminus at Yaquina Bay, will also seek
Portland, making the fifth line from across
the mountains that ultimates upon our city
as the chief, or at least co-important,
objective. The next line from the East will
probably come down the north bank of the
Columbia, reaching our depots by way of
Vancouver.
Aside from these main lines, our city is
also served by a number of local roads.
Standing first among these is the Oregon
Central,, to Corvallis, on the west side of
the Willamette, operating a line
ninety-seven miles in length. A still
greater mileage is run by the Oregonian
Railway Company's lines, the Portland and
Willamette Valley Road, the extension of the
narrow gauge system, on each side of the
Willamette-to Sheridan and Airlie on the
west and Coburg on the east. Another
extensive line is in process of construction
from Astoria to some point on the Oregon
Central-Hillsboro-which, although chiefly
for the accommodation of Astoria and the
western part of the Willamette Valley, will
connect a large region with Portland and
open it up to the enterprise of her
merchants. There is talk of constructing a
line from Hunter's Point, opposite Kalama,
to Astoria, thereby furnishing a road to the
mouth of the river, paralleling the Columbia
and making passage more expeditious for
summer travelers to the ocean beaches.
Of strictly local lines, i. e., of lines
less than twenty miles in length and aiming
to. do only local business, chiefly
passenger traffic for the benefit of the
suburbs, there are four lines in active
operation -to Vancouver, to St. John's, to
Mt. Tabor and the Hawthorne Avenue line,
also terminating at Mt. Tabor, and the cable
line to Portland Heights. _ At least three
others are in process of construction-to
Oregon City, the Waverly-Woodstock line and
the line to West Portland. Several other
lines are projected, as that to Marquam's
Hill and a line around the hills on the
northwest of the city. Some of these will
doubtless develop into longer lines-as the
Hawthorne Avenue road, a standard guage,
which is popularly expected to be pushed out
to the Sandy river and to Mt. Hood.
From this glance it will be seen that of all
roads built and extending beyond the city
limits, so as not to be enumerated with the
street car lines, there are eight; there are
building four, not including the Astoria
road, which will enter by the Oregon
Central; and two or three more are on the
tapis. This list shows prodigious railroad
activity, and the fact that all the lines
are well sustained and do a paying business
shows the dimensions of our freight and
passenger traffic. The eagerness for further
construction, and' the large prices paid for
privileges in the city, indicate that even
our present extensive system is not
complete. It is the purpose of this chapter
to give something of the history of the
building of these roads and development of
transportation by rail.
Turning to the history of railroad
construction in Oregon, we find there was
very early agitation of the subject. In 1850
a line was projected, and even advertised to
be run, from St. Helen's on the Columbia, to
Lafayette, in Yamhill county. It was under
the patronage of Captains Knighton, Smith,
Tappen and Crosby. Of course, it was never
begun. General J. J. Stevens, in 1853 and
for the years succeeding, wrote.
voluminously upon railroad connection with
the East, and four roads were projected (not
all to the East), one being incorporated. In
1854 a charter was granted a road to
California, to begin at a point below the
falls of the Willamette. In 1857 a company
was formed to build a road to Yaquina Bay.
None of these were constructed, however, and
no rails were laid, except on the portage
lines at the Cascades and Dalles, and a
tramway at Oregon City, before the days of
the Oregon Central.
The development of the railways of Portland
is that of the State. There was practically
nothing accomplished for our roads outside
of Portland, or without Portland men. True,
it is not to be forgotten that there was a
considerable number of representative men of
other sections who entered with lively
interest into encouraging railroads, and
became identified with the first enterprise.
J. S. Smith and I. R. Moores, ,of Salem; T.
R. Cornelius, of Washington County; Robert
Kinney, of Yamhill; and General Joel Palmer,
of the same; Colonel J. W. Nesmith, of Polk;
Judge F. A. Chenoweth, of Benton; Stukeley
Ellsworth and B. J. Pengra, of Lane, and
Jesse Applegate, of Douglas, were among this
number. Other names might be added. They
were active in interesting the people of
their several localities in the construction
of railroads and without their aid
difficulties would have multiplied. The very
first movements toward a road-in
1863-moreover, came from California, with
Elliott and Barry. The most radical and
active mover was first a citizen of
Jacksonville, in Southern Oregon. Quite a
considerable portion of the first impetus
came from the desire to have direct
communication with San Francisco, so that
the people of Southern Oregon and the upper
Willamette Valley need not be obliged to
make a circuitous route through Portland, or
sell and buy in her market and pay tolls on
passing up and down the lower Columbia and
Willamette. The Californians first agitating
the project certainly had no aim other than
to extend the tributary region of San
Francisco. But with all this in view it
still remains the fact that it was upon
Portland that all the railway activity
centered and she proved to be, the only
point from which to operate successfully. We
are therefore justified in speaking of the
railway development of Portland as that of
the State, and dating the nativity of her
lines from the first efforts in 1863.
Whoever accomplished much in the business
had to become Portlanders.
The story of our first railroads is
interesting, romantic and dramatic. One is
astonished at the intense earnestness, the
violent contentions, the lurid combats, the
savagery, the cunning, the bluster and the
ludicrous or pathetic denouements. There are
situations of the most amazing oddity; old
and hitherto most amiable and dignified
citizens of our State finding themselves
perked in hyperbolical inversion before a
gaping and mystified public, who were in
doubt whether to break into a guffaw or to
look with feigned nonchalance upon what they
supposed must be a new era in morals
introduced with a railroad age. What with
plethoric promises of lands quadrupled in
value, of produce doubled, and visions of
the wealth of Aladin, and an inner feeling
of the heart that the old order of toil and
honesty was somehow to be superceded by an
age of gigantic speculations in which wealth
by the millions was to be created by
corporate fiat, and the fundamental rules of
arithmetic and of ancient law were to be
transmitted into something easier if not
better, our railroad building introduced a
time at once amusing and pathetic, as well
as pecuniarily progressive. The former phase
of the subject must, however, be left to the
student of human nature, or to the homilist.
Like all great changes in the habits and
outlook of the people, it was accompanied by
an excitation of much ambition, rivalry,
passion, and at length a general cloud burst
of indignation and censure; but worked its
way through to a beneficent result.
To begin with a somewhat bare account of all
this, we find that in 1863 there was a
Californian toiling up from the land of gold
and droughts, through the valleys of the
Sacramento and Shasta, with a surveying
party, to run a line for a railroad from the
Sacramento to the Columbia river. This was
Simon G. Elliott, of Marysville, who had but
recently been listening to the expositions,
prophecies and demonstrations of Judah, the
first preacher in California of the Pacific
railway. In the spring he had been in Eugene
City, Oregon, and there interested Mr.
George H. Belden, formerly of Portland, in
his enterprise, and during the season of '63
the two were running the level, chain and
transit from Red Bluff, California, to
Jacksonville, in Oregon. There were twelve
men in the surveying party, and accompanying
it as general superintendent was Colonel
Charles Barry, recently from the seat of
civil war then raging, having resigned from
the army on account of a wound received in
the battle of Shiloh. This was- purely an
autonomous party, without legal father or
mother or sponsor capitalists; spying out a
railroad path for its own satisfaction, and
having no means of subsistence except from
contributions on the way. The land, although
rugged and but sparsely populated, was
sufficient to feed them, and the settlers
along the route listened with awe to their
stories of iron wheels that were soon to
roll in their foot tracks.
In November they went into winter quarters
at Jacksonville, Elliott and Belden
separating on account of the delicate
question of priority of leadership the rest
of the way; the former going to San
Francisco and the latter coining to
Portland. Colonel Barry, however, staid by
the party. At Jacksonville was added the
most important member to the company. This
was Joseph Gaston, Esq., now of Gaston,
Washington County, and of Portland, Oregon,
and the present editor of the Pacific
Farmer. He was then editor of the
Jacksonville Times. Gaston went to work
with the enterprise and enthusiasm of an
Achilles, and while the baker's dozen of
autonomous surveyors were boarding
themselves in the old hospital at
Jacksonville, went about collecting means to
enable them to continue the work the next
summer. He was successful, and in May
following, level, transit and chain were
again set in motion. In September, Barry's
party was at Portland, having made
measurements and memoranda the whole
distance from Red Bluff, California, to the
public levee in our city, on which they were
camped. The people on the way had been
startled into life by the apparition, and
the State groaning like the rest of the
Union under the evils of the great war, and
not yet well knowing whether there was still
a nation, was aroused by this practical
exhibition of faith in the future of the
country and determination to he ready for
the great national development just so soon
as the Union was once more compacted.
Colonel Barry prepared a report of
thirty-three pages, addressed to the
"Directors of the California and Columbia
River Railway Company;" not, however,
designating the members of this company by
name. His pamphlet discussed the subject of
routes, and summarized the findings of the
surveyors. As illustrating by what means
bills were paid at this stage of the work,
it may be mentioned that the pamphlet was
published from the office of the Salem
Statesman, and the work paid for by
editorial services on the paper by Mr.
Joseph Gaston.
Being in reality an address to the people of
Oregon, it was admirably framed to excite
interest in a general movement toward
opening the State by rapid transit. As to
routes, Colonel Barry reported that there
were two from Jacksonville across the Umpqua
mountains; one by Grave Creek, a rugged and
difficult region, with a grade of 100 feet
per mile; and a second by Trail Creek, which
he had only partially examined, but thought
would prove better. Through the Umpqua
Valley he reported an easy way between the
multitude of hills, with grade not exceeding
eighty feet. He preferred the Applegate Pass
of the Calipooiahs to that by Pass Creek,
and spoke with enthusiasm of the facility of
construction down the Willamette Valley. To
reach the Columbia river, he preferred a
route to the Scappoose Mountains and through
them by the Cornelius Pass to St. Helens,
but recognized the advantage of making
Portland the terminus. He named the passes
of the Portland hills available as at the
falls of the Willamette, by Sucker Lake and
Oswego, and by the Cornelius Pass below the
city. He also spoke of the impossibility of
accommodating the whole of the Willamette
Valley by one road. By pretty careful and
just estimates, he set the total cost of
constructing the entire line at $30,000,
000, and the net annual earnings of the road
from Marysville to the Columbia at $5, 600,
000. The report was flattering, presented in
a pleasing form, and had a remarkable air of
ease and assurance. He accorded especial
praise to Mr. Gaston for valuable assistance
and possession of scientific attainments and
thorough knowledge of railroad enterprises.
Accompanying this report was a
description-prepared by Mr. Gaston-of the
region traversed, and of Oregon in general.
It was the first of the kind ever
attempted-exalt and concise.
The next step was to get the subject before
the Legislative bodies. It was brought by
Mr. Gaston in 1864 to the attention of the
Oregon Legislature, and a bill was passed at
that session to grant $250,000 to a company
constructing a road from Portland to Eugene;
but this sum was so comparatively small as
to induce no capitalists to take advantage
of the offer. In the same year Colonel Barry
went to Washington City and laid the matter
before the United States Congress. He was
warmly supported by Congressman Cornelius
Cole, and General Bidwell, of California,
and by the entire Oregon delegation-Senators
Williams and Nesmith, and Congressman
McBride. A bill was prepared and pushed
through the House by Bidwell; by Nesmith, in
the Senate. An important provision had
already been suggested by Colonel W. W.
Chapman, of Portland. When the surveyors
first reached Eugene they called a meeting
of the citizens to ratify their undertaking.
Colonel Chapman happening to be present at
Eugene on business, attended their meeting.
When a resolution was brought forward to
embody the sentiment of those present, he
noticed no reference as to the place of
beginning to build the road except at
Marysville in California, and seeing at once
that a road if thus built would draw trade
towards San Francisco during its whole
process of construction, and might not be at
all completed to Portland, he added the
provision that the road be begun at the two
termini, Portland and Marysville; that the
two roads thus constructed should connect
near the California border; that they be
constructed by two companies, a California
and an Oregon, each acting under the laws of
their respective States; and that neither
should ever discriminate against the other
in freights or fares. These provisions were
embodied in the bill of Bidwell, which also
provided a land grant to the amount of
twenty alternate sections, or 12,800 acres
per mile, aggregating some 7,000,000 acres,
worth about $5,000,000 at the time-now worth
at least $30,000,000. Upon completion and
equipment of the first twenty miles of road
and telegraph line within two years, the
land grant co-terminus was to be patented to
the railroad companies; the road twenty
miles further was to be built each year, and
the whole to be completed by 1875.
