Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/176



158 T. C. ELLIOTT

tilla House at the head of the incline to the wharf boat which was the scene of so many greetings and farewells in early days.

Under date of April 25th, 1863, speaking editorially, the Oregonian states that the Cascade road, six miles long, was begun May 21st, 1862, and the Celilo road was begun March 1 7th, 1862 and the cost of each was $50,000.00 a mile, or $950,000.00 and the rolling stock $150,000.00 additional; and adds : "So there is an investment of more than a million dollars to secure safe and pleasant portage for passengers at points which have hitherto been the dread and annoyance of all who traveled or forwarded goods from the west of the Cascade Range to the Interior."

Just why the building of these two Portage railroads of six and fourteen miles respectively should have taken so much time partakes of the history of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company itself, and emphasizes the value of both portages in the control of the River.

The preliminary step to the formation of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company was really a pool or gentlemen's agree- ment between the steamboat men of the lower and middle river and the owners of the portages at the Cascades ; this began in April, 1859, and lasted for about a year. It was not satisfac- tory to the portage owners. The first formal organization of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company under special charter by the legislature of Washington Territory and corporate agree- ments dated December 20th, 1860, combining ostensibly the interests of the steamboat owners on all three stretches of the River, from Portland to the Cascades, from the Cascades to The Dalles, and from Celilo to Wallula and Lewiston, had been in effect earlier in 1860. The original list of stockholders [fifteen in all, and shares worth $500.00 each] is as follows:*


 * Lewis & Dryden's Marine Hist, of Pac. Northwest, page 90.