Page:Columbia - America's Great Highway.djvu/93



The changes which have come within a life time, in methods of transportation along this great river are amazing. The high beaked Indian canoes, manned by naked savages; the rafts of logs on which the pioneers placed their "prairie schooners", to effect the passage of the gorge when their oxen could draw them no further over impossible Indian trails, are now but a remembrance of former days.

All of the physical obstructions to navigation have been removed as far inland as Lewiston, Idaho, a distance of five hundred miles. Today the traveling public hastens to and fro on swiftly moving trains on both sides of the great river. Passengers and merchandise are quickly conveyed across the continent, and only a few days are needed to negotiate distances which formerly required weeks or months of tireless labor.

The prices now charged by our common carriers for superior service, are but a fractional part of those of pioneer days. There is no longer a monopoly. The "Open River" and keen competition have changed the rule, and traffic is no longer taxed with all that it can bear.

The steamer "Lot Whitcomb" was launched on Christmas day, 1850. This was the beginning of an enterprise