Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 25.djvu/253

 OREGON'S FIRST RAILWAY 219 of early days, a steam shovel. These excavators were nicknamed "steam Paddies," and Hewes utilized one or more in leveling most of the streets of San Francisco be- tween Montgomery street and the bay, reaching as far over as Bryant street. In this work he used several other small locomotives, in addition to the Pony which he called the "Oregon Pony." David Hewes in more recent years built the Hewes Building, on Market and Sixth streets in San Francisco. He died in June, 1915, at the age of ninety-three. 51 For several years after the removal of the locomotive, while Joseph Bailey was in charge of the Oregon Portage property, the Railroad was used for the transfer of stock shipped over the line of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, the animals being driven over the portage, using, because there was no other means of passage, the long bridges past the Tooth rock and over Eagle Creek, which were part of the Railroad. The baggage of the stockmen was taken over on the Railroad as in its early days, by mules. The Columbia River Road Company, an Oregon corpor- ation dating from October 14, 1862, having completed a cattle trail along the Oregon bank of the Columbia river approximately between Portland and The Dalles, was given permission to use the Tooth and Eagle Creek bridges under an agreement made April 7,1863, for which use superintendent Bailey was instructed to collect 25 cents per head of cattle and for sheep at half rate. An associated enterprise which projected a railroad upon the route, but never passed beyond the initial act of organiza- tion as far as now appears, was the Columbia River Rail Road Company, incorporated on November 22, 1862, by Joel Palmer, Joseph Watt and John F. Miller. In the summer of 1869 forest fires were menacing the Cascades portage, and superintendent Bailey led the fire 51 Letter Chas. L. Hewes to the writer, January 25, 1916.

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