Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/315

Rh The marked increase of 1862 was occasioned by the absorption of the Willamette River boats.

The advertisements of the company for 1866 show the facilities offered by them. Thus: the steamboat "Wilson G. Hunt" left Portland at 5:00 daily, reached The Cascades at 11:00  Left at 4:00, arrived in Portland at 10:00  The steamer "Cascade" left The Cascades at 5:00 , reached Portland at 11:00 , started back at 1:00 , reached The Cascades at 10:00  A train on the "Cascade Railroad" was "dispatched" on the arrival of the Portland boat connecting with the steamboats "Oneonta" and "Idaho" for The Dalles. From there trains on The Dalles and Celilo railroad connected with steamboats leaving daily for all points on the upper Columbia and Snake rivers. The boats above The Dalles were the "Webfoot," "Spray," "Tenino," "Yakima," "Nez Perce's Chief," and "Owyhee."

The policy of the company was to charge high rates, all in fact that the traffic would bear. Its earnings were consequently good, the company paying as high as 12 per cent on its $5,000,000.00 capital as annual dividends. All freight except solids such as lead, nails, etc., were estimated by measurement, forty cubic feet making a ton. The passage from Portland to The Dalles was $8.00 and $0.75 extra for meals. Portland to Lewiston, $60.00 and meals and beds $1.00 each. Today the price of freight from Portland to The Dalles is $1.50 per ton and passage $1.50 and $0.25 extra for meals. H. D. Sanborn, a merchant of Lewiston, in 1862 received a case of miner's shovels. The case measured one ton and contained 120 shovels. The freight, $120.00 per ton, made the freight on each shovel $1.00. A merchant at Hood River, eighty-five miles, said that before the railroad the freight on one dozen brooms was one dollar. When O. B. Gibson was in the employ of the company at The Dalles, he went down to