Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/182



164 T. C. ELLIOTT

The first steamboat which should have ascended the upper river was named the Venture, built at the Cascades by Mr. R. R. Thompson and Lawrence W. Coe in 1858, and intended to be dragged over the Dalles-Celilo Portage upon timbers loaded upon her for the purpose. But she accidently ran into the current above the Cascades on her very first trip and was carried over the rapids. Not at all discouraged the same partners at once built the famous "Col. Wright" at the mouth of the Deschutes. She was launched in November, 1858 and made the first trip up the river in April, 1859, Capt. Len. White in command. The lumber to build her hull was partly brought from the saw mill of Jonathan Jackson on Ramsey Creek just off Fifteen Mile Creek and partly from the Cascades, and all her machinery was hauled over the Dalles- Deschutes Portage. This boat made "big money" from the very start and was the only steamboat on the upper river when the Oregon Steam Navigation Company took Messrs. Thomp- son and Coe into their combination. The Tenino was in process of construction however.

With the purchase of the portages at the Cascades and from the City of The Dalles to Celilo, fourteen miles, the control of the whole River including the particular stretch of it was completely in the hands of the Oregon Steam Naviga- tion Company, the second monopoly in Oregon, and pos- sibly greater than its great predecessor, the Hudson's Bay Company. It would be interesting to contrast the policy to- ward their customers, the inhabitants of the great interior of "Old Oregon," of these two great commercial organizations. Quite possibly it would be found that the first of the two was more just and less selfish than the second. But that examina- tion cannot fall within the limits of this narrative, nor does any extended account of the career of the Navigation Company. Its wonderful financial success was due to its ability to control the River, and when reduced to the lowest terms that meant the control of the Dalles-Celilo Portage. At the Cascades two portage roads could and two actually did exist, one on either