Kathryn Wilson, The Pacific Monthly (1905)
“ The present interest in pushing the work already well along has been aroused in the people of Portland by James J. Hill, president of the Great Northern Railway, who said at a dinner given in his honor at the Lewis and Clark Exposition, that he would send a fleet of vessels up the Columbia when there was a channel there of forty feet. Mr. Hill's interest is real, for he can only get the most out of the railroad he is building down the north bank of the Columbia River by having it connect with his own boats in the Oriental trade. ”
