Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/133



THE CELILO CANAL 121

after the railroads had met the competition. In 1912 the company took up with The Dalles, Portland and Astoria Navigation Company, owned by the S., P. & S. Railway, the possibility of its vacating the trade between Portland and The Dalles and letting the Open River line handle the business. The D., P. & A. N. Company did not, however, leave the business until the recent order of the Interstate Commerce Commission under the general ruling that a railroad may not maintain a boat service parallel to its own lines.

I shall never forget the last days of the Open River Trans- portation Company. There was one attempted rally after another, but to no effect. Friday, the thirteenth day of Sep- tember, 1912, the company voted to discontinue business. Serv- ice was continued on the river until October 31, 1912. Sub- sequently the boats of the Open River comnamr "/ere so ld. With the opening of the Celilo Canal there is to be an extended, uninterrupted service into a territory again active in advocacy of feeder lines, both rail and highway, between river and pro- ducing districts.

The government engineers reported at one time a production of 36,000,000 bushels of wheat east of the Cascade range, of which they estimated that 22,000,000 bushels would be ex- ported. The production should now be in excess of 2OO,ooo,,ooo bushels a year in wheat, without reference to the many other commodities which may also be shipped more cheaply by reason of the Celilo Canal. The records of the Portage Railway and the Cascade Locks show as principal articles of shipment, berries and fruit, cattle, horses, fish, flour, hay, lumber, grain, powder, sheep, wheat and wool.

The Celilo Canal is but just completed and already citizens and newspapers are saying, "It is not enough." There must be canals and locks around Priest rapids and other obstructions that prevent continuous navigation into British Columbia. It is even said that the purposes of commerce will not have been served until the Great River of the West itself is canalized, the electric energy thereby developed used in aid of agriculture