Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 15.djvu/250



238 LESLIE M. SCOTT

Next in line came M. Lutz and E. L. Dwyer, "representing French capital," and offering the Goble line. In September, 1894, Campbell, a Detroit contractor, took an option on the subsidy, but let it lapse.

In November, 1894, came the climax of all these protracted negotiations, in an agreement with A. B. Hammond, who built the Goble road. He was preceded by two parties of promoters, the one headed by C. T. Karr of Chicago, the other by J. C. Stanton, of New York; H. I. Kimball, of Atlanta, Ga.; John H. Bryant, of New York, and J. T. Campbell, of Detroit. All three parties were at Astoria together in November and nego- tiated with the subsidy company at the same time. Karr of- fered to put up $500,000 within fifteen days and $500,000 more within fifteen days thereafter, and all the additional money needed to build the road, with the subsidy trustees, but he talked too big and the latter declined November 22, 1894, after advices from New York. Soon afterward Stanton with- drew his offer, in favor of Hammond.

The way was now open to accept the terms of A. B. Ham- mond, who, with E. L. Bonner, of Missoula, was the most satisfactory of the prospective railroad builders. Hammond had built the Bitter Root and the Drummond branches of the Northern Pacific, and had supplied the ties, lumber and bridge materials for the Rocky Mountain division of that railroad. He had come to Oregon to inspect the Yaquina Railroad, a property that had cost $5,250,000, and which Hammond bought a month late, at sheriff's sale, December 22, 1894, for $100,000. Pending the sale he went to Astoria out of curiosity, or for information, and soon found himself launched in the Astoria enterprise. He told the writer twenty years afterward that he had made no plans to go into this enterprise, accepted it dubiously and then, on account of "hard times" and money stringency, wished himself out of it. Whereupon he demanded more stringent terms, in the hope that the Astorians would refuse them and release him, but they yielded and held him.

The subsidy contract with Hammond, as first executed on December 1, 1894, required him to begin construction not later