Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/206

196 among her citizens any that approached him in financial ability. In 1862 he became associated with the late Senator Corbett and Captain Ankeny in the steamboat business. They built the steamer Spray, which plied between Celilo and Lewiston. The company had boats on what was known as the Middle River, between The Dalles and the Cascades, and also on the Lower River between the Cascades and Portland. They built a wooden tramway portage on the Washington side at the cascades, using mules as motive power. The remains of this tramway could be seen from the opposite shore within recent years. This company's line was run in opposition to that of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, to which it finally sold.

The portage of the cascades, being the key to the situation, was the bone of contention. The Oregon Steam Navigation Company had procured the passage of a bill through Congress giving them what they claimed to be an exclusive right of way over the cascade portage, and this question not having been at that time adjudicated, Doctor Baker's company sold out as above recited.

Doctor Baker's next transportation enterprise was the building of a narrow gauge railroad from Walla Walla to Wallula. He organized a company under the corporate name of the Walla Walla and Columbia River Railroad Company in 1871. Among the original stockholders were Doctor Baker, John F. Boyer, Paine Brothers & Moore, B. L. Sharpstein, Charles Moore, B. F. Stone, William Stephens, William O. Green—all residents of Walla Walla. Doctor Baker was, however, the capitalist, and it was his money, his energy and unflagging perseverance that carried the enterprise to a successful consummation. To build thirty miles of railroad under conditions then existing was a great undertaking. Ties