Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/185



The PioNEpi Stimulus of Gold 157

1858, and the Governor Douglas was built at Victoria that year for business on that river. Many new steamboats were built on Coliunbia and Fraser Rivers after 1860. To facilitate^ traffic, portage railroads were opened at Cascades and Celilo in 1863." The Oregon Steam Navigation Company built steamboats on the upper reaches of Snake and Columbia rivers. At Old Fort Boise, in 1866, it built the Shoshone to operate on Snake River dt)wn to Olds Ferry. In the same year it launched, on Lake Pend Oreille, the Mary Moody. The year before it launched the Forty-Nine to navigate the Columbia River across the Canadian boundary up to Death Rapids. Steamboats on Missouri River offered competition to the Co- lumbia River route in Montana, by steaming up to Fort Benton in 1859 and afterwards, and there connecting with the Mullan Road, built in 1859-62.*"^ But the Missouri route was not dependable, because the steamboats could not every year ascend to Fort Benton. The main freight routes on land were the following: From Umatilla and Wallula, on Coliunbia River, across Blue Mountains, along Old Oregon Trail to Boise Basin, Owyhee and Salt Lake City.**

From The Dalles, on Columbia River, to John Day, Powder River, Burnt River and Malheur River and Owyhee."

54 F. A. Chenow«th built a portage tram road at Cascades (north side) in

_ (P. W. Gillette in Qtuirteriy, vol. v, p. 121). The Bradford brothers (D. F.

and P. F.) rebuilt the road in 1856. In the latter year W. R. Kilbom built a

rival portage on the south bank, which was rebuilt and improved by J. S. Ruckle

i8sc and

and H. Olmsted in May, 1861. The Oregon Steam Navigation Company absorbed the rival portages in 1862 and built a new portage on the north side in 1862-63 (opened April 20, 1863), six miles long. The Celilo portage was a wagon road until the (5regon Steam Navigation Company finished a portage railroad, thirteen miles long, April 23, 1863. For description of the Celilo portage wagon road in 1861, sec The Oregonxan, May 30, June 5. 1861.

55 The distance between Fort Benton and Walla Walla was 624 miles via Mullan Pass, Little Blackfoot River, Hellgate River, Bitter Root River, Sohon Pass and Coeur d'Alene River. The road was intended to provide a shorter route from Fort Laramie into Idaho and Oregon. It was not successful. For description and history, see The Oreffonian, September 18. 1862; August 28, 1862; April 20. 1880. p. 5. The practicability of the route is discussed by Mullan, Robert Newell and Joseph L. Meek, ibid.* April 30, May i, 7* 8, 21. July 22, 1861.

56 A new road was finished between La Grande and Walla Walla in 1863 (TTU Oregonian, July 3X, 1863). Details of the route from Umatilla, ibid,. May 9, 16, 22. 1866; Aug[an II, 1896, p. 3; from Walla Walla, ibid., June 24, 1864. A narrative of the pioneer express between Walla Walla, Lewiston and Boise ap- pears, ibid., August 12, 1906, p. 38; November 22, 30. 1865; August 20, 1883, P« 5. Details of tnese routes are narrated in Hailey's History of Idaho, pp. 95-99t 123-26. The Coitral Pacific railroad diverted traffic from Columbia Kiver, be- ginning in 1869, to Kelton and Winnemucca.

57 This route is described in The Oregonian^ February 6, 1863; March 26. 1864; October 17, 1866, p. 2; March 22^ 1869, p. 3; February 9, 1865.