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Rh promptly withdrew from his offer to finance the road, and the whole scheme to get another road into Oregon through the Klamath lake region failed. Had not the Winnemucca (Oregon Branch Pacific) proposition been thus emasculated southeastern Oregon, the Nehalem Valley, and Astoria would have had practically a transcontinental railroad more than thirty years ago, and Eugene would have been the junction of two great lines. But for this the Midas touch of Huntington would have made the southeastern Oregon plains and the Nehalem wilderness prosperous and populous with a commerce and population equal to anything on the Pacific Coast, and Astoria would have had a population of 50,000. Driven from this opportunity which Huntington himself sought, he turned his attention to Arizona and Mexico, and gave to the arid deserts of the South the wealth which should have been the reward of Oregon enterprise. It was the most damaging blow to the growth of the State which Oregon ever suffered; for it not only deprived the State of a great railroad and its consequent development, but it wrecked the political career of its greatest man—the man who was beyond all question the greatest statesman, most brilliant orator and profound lawyer which the Pacific Coast ever sent to the United Stated States—and deprived the State of his eminent abilities.

Upon this land grant to the Oregon Central Company, and upon one million dollars construction bonds thereon, English capitalists advanced a million dollars to build the road from Portland to the Yamhill River, where it stood still for ten years at the Holladay town of St. Joe. The same capitalists were induced by Mr. Villard to advance further capital to extend the road from St. Joe (long since deserted) to McMinnville and Corvallis, the present terminus. In the work of building this west side road the citizens of Portland contributed in cash and lands $150,000,