Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 15.djvu/235



HISTORY OF ASTORIA RAILROAD 223

jects then initiated aimed to connect directly or indirectly with the Northern Pacific transcontinental line. The Oregon Legislature in 1853-4 incorporated four railroad companies : (1) The Willamette Valley Railroad, Portland to Corvallis, $1,000,000 capital (special laws 1854, p. 87; (2) The Oregon & California Railroad not that of 1870 of the same name Eugene to a point below Oregon City, $4,000,000 capital (ibid p. 81) ; (3) Cincinnati Railroad, Polk County, $250,000 cap- ital (ibid p. 27) ; (4) Clackamas Railroad, Canemah to point below Oregon City, $400,000 capital (ibid p. 58.)

None of the companies materialized, nor for yet four years (1858) did Astoria and Clatsop County residents initiate a railroad project. They were thinking the matter over, how- ever, as actively as their brethren in Portland, Oregon City, Salem and Eugene. Meanwhile they were trying to carry out wagon road plans between Clatsop County and Tualatin. The Legislatures of 1847, 1850, 1851, 1852 and 1853 appointed commissions to locate such a road. The Legislature of 1866 awarded to the Astoria and Tillamook Road Company, any grant of land that Congress would offer for a military wagon road to Astoria, but Congress never made the grant. The Leg- islature of 1872 appropriated $20,000 for the wagon road, and the Legislature of 1889 appropriated $15,000 for the same pur- pose. In 1855-58 Congress took up the project for a military wagon road from Salem to Astoria through the Coast Range, and appropriated $70,000 therefor, but the highway was never finished and was not traversed its entire length, between Forest Grove and Astoria, until 1895, by Rev. William Travis (Oregonian, July 31, 1900). These wagon road plans suggested a route for a railroad and many projects for a line were attempted, until in 1894 Mr. Ham- mond adopted the other route along the Columbia, via Coble. It is to be expected that in the future a railroad will follow the older surveys, via upper Nehalem, through the most prolific timber in America.

Various localities in Oregon obtained from the Legislature in the 50s incorporation of railroad companies; so in 1858