Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/718

 The west-side company refrained from advertising, but made preparations to break ground on the 14th, and issued posters on the day previous only. At ten o clock of the day appointed a large concourse of people were gathered in Caruther's addition to celebrate the turning of the first sod on the Oregon Central. Gaston read a report of the condition of the company, and speeches were made by A. C. Gibbs and W. W. Chapman. This ended, Mrs David C. Lewis, wife of the chief engineer of the company, lifted a shovelful of earth and cast it upon the grade-stake, which was the signal for loud, long, and enthusiastic cheering, which so excited the throng that each contributed a few minutes labor to the actual grading of the road-bed. Thus on the 14th of April, 1868, was begun the first railroad in Oregon other than the portages above mentioned. On the 16th the grander celebration of the east-side company was carried out according to programme, at the farm of Gideon Tibbets, south of East Portland, and on this occasion was used the first shovel made of Oregon iron. Portland Oregonian, April 18, 1868; McCormick's Portland Dir., 1869, 8-9. The shovel was ordered by Samuel M. Smith, of Oswego iron, and made at the Willamette Iron Works by William Buchanan. It was shaped under the hammer, the handle being of maple, oiled with oil from the Salem mills. It was formally presented to the officers of the company on the loth of April. Portland Oregonian, April 14, 16, and 17, 1868.

Actual railroad building was now begun on both sides of the Willamette River; but the companies soon found themselves in financial straits. The east-side management was compelled in a short time to sell its two locomotives to the Central Pacific of California, although they bore the names of George L. Woods and I. R. Moores, the first and second presidents of the organization. A vigorous effort was made to induce the city council of Portland to pledge the interest for twenty years on $600,000 of the east-side bonds, in which the company was not successful. It is related that, being in a strait, Elliot proposed to inform the men employed, appealing to them to work another month on the promise of payment in the future. But to this proposition his superintendent of construction replied that a better way would be to keep the men in ignorance. He went among them, carelessly suggesting that as they did not need their money to use, it would be a wise plan to draw only their tobacco-money, and leave the remainder in the safe for security against loss or theft. The hint was adopted, the money was left in the safe, and served to make the same show on another pay-day, or until Holladay came to the company s relief. Gaston's Railroad Development in Or., MS., 34–5. Nor was the west-side company more at ease. Times were hard with the farmers, who could not pay up their subscriptions. The lands of the company could not be sold or pledged to Portland bankers, and affairs often looked desperate.

The financial distresses of both parties deterred neither from aggressive warfare upon the other. The west-side company continually pressed proceedings in the courts to have its rival declared no corporation, but no decision was arrived at. Gaston declares that the judges in the third and fourth judicial districts evaded a decision, their constituents being equally divided in supporting the rival companies. Id., 38. Failing of coming to the point in this way, a land-owner on the east side was prompted to refuse the right of way, and when the case came into court, the answer was set up that the company was not a lawful corporation, and therefore not authorized to condemn lands for its purposes. The attorneys for the company withdrew from court rather than meet the question, and made a re-location of the road, thus foiling again the design of the west-side company.

Portland being upon the west side of the river, and the emporium of capital in Oregon, it was apparently only a question of time when the west-side road should drive the usurper from the field, and so it must have done had there been no foreign interference. But the east-side company had been seeking aid in California, and not without success. In August 1868, Ben Holladay, of the overland stage company and the steamship line to San Francisco, arrived in Oregon. He represented himself, and was believed to be, the pos-