Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/256



236 LESLIE M. SCOTT

road would cut to forty hours. Freight rates his road would cut in half.

IV.

At this time grading was in progress and locomotives and rails were en route both by rail to San Francisco and via Panama. Engineers located the line early in the Summer of 1881 under Wallis Nash. At the time of Hogg's speech grad- ing was finished fifteen miles west of Corvallis and some similar work was done at Yaquina Bay. Rails were delivered at the Bay, after being re-shipped at San Francisco, because large ships could not enter Yaquina (description by Alfred Holman in Oregonian, Nov. 2, 1881). Construction progressed stead- ily, except for an interval, August to December, 1883, until the first train ran from Corvallis to Yaquina in March, 1885. (Oregonian, March 15.) Completion of that part of the road was celebrated by an excursion train April 4, 1885. Grading had been finished Nov. 21, 1884. The Corvallis-Philomath line had been opened in Oct. 1884, on which event J. Henkle, Sr., pioneer of 1852, drove the "silver spike," signalling the arrival at Philomath of the first locomotive. Surveys for connection with the Oregon Short line fifty miles east of Huntington were completed in December, 1884 (Oregonian, Dec. 16, 1884). At this time connection with the "narrow gauge" lines of Willamette Valley was contemplated, via King's Valley. The narrow gauge had been under lease to the O. R. & N. since Oct. 1, 1881, but after Villard's retirement and repudiation of the lease by the O. R. & N. Nov. 15, 1884, the narrow gauge needed reorganization and a tidewater outlet. This plan did not develop.

The Oregon Pacific, soon after completion of its line between Corvallis and Yaquina, instituted freight and passenger con- nections with San Francisco. The first carload of wheat was shipped from Philomath to Corvallis Aug. 11, 1885. Steam- ship connections began Sept. 14, 1885. The fare between Corvallis and the California City was $14, the wheat rate $4.50