Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/319

Rh Owing to their obtaining high rates, opposition boats were started more or less spasmodically on the Columbia and Willamette rivers. A line known as the Willamette Steam Navigation Company operated between Portland and Oregon City, and from that point to Corvallis and Eugene City for several years. In 1862 the People's Transportation Company was organized with a capital stock of $2,000,000.00. This company had steamers on the upper and lower Willamette for over eleven years, and then sold out to Ben Holliday. The directors were: C. S. Kingsley, David McCully, Leonard White, S. Coffin and S. D. Church. The officers were: President, S. Coffin; vice-president, C. S. Kingsley; treasurer, A. C. R. Shaw.

When the locks at Oregon City were completed, the parties controlling them, Goldsmith and Teal, constructed several steamboats and began the navigation of the Willamette River between Portland and Eugene City; later they put boats on between Portland and Astoria in opposition to the Oregon Steam Navigation Company's boats. This opposition continued for two years. The Oregon Steam Navigation Company put a couple of boats on the Oregon City run and the outcome of it w^as that they purchased a controlling interest in the locks and the Goldsmith steamers, and organized a new Company under the name of the Willamette Transportation and Locks Company, and J. C. Ainsworth was elected president. The new company purchased the Basin and warehouse at Oregon City, together with the six steamers that had been rivals of the Goldsmith party.

About this time the Grangers were in the zenith of their glory and power. They resolved to ignore all other interests but their own and were particularly hostile to all other transportation companies. They were led to believe that nearly all receipts of steamboats were profit, and notwithstanding the Willamette Transportation and Locks Company was transporting freight at a loss, they organized a company and