Page:Oregon, her history, her great men, her literature.djvu/232

 1,000 cases of fifty pounds each of powder were exploded, and the entire face of a mountain was thrown into the river.

The Oregon Railway and Navigation Company was in corporated on June I 3, 1 879, and Henry Villard was elected its president. He had come to Oregon in the interest of the bondholders of the Oregon and California railroad, and had bcome president of that company in 1875. He was in fact, connected in many ways with several railroad projects, in all of which success followed; and he may be regarded as second only to James J. Hill as the influence that later accomplished the ultimate binding of Oregon with bands of steel to the eastern commercial world.

For the Driving of the "Last Spike" connecting Portland with the "outside world" at Huntington a special train was run from that city, leaving at 6 o'clock p. m., November 24, DBIVING THE LAST SPIKE ON THE UNION PACIFIC BAILBOAO, AT HUNTINGTON, NOVEMBER 24. 1883.

1883, and arriving at Huntington the next afternoon at 3 p. m. A great celebration was held after the spike—a steel one—^had beeen driven. The Portland locomotive was