Oregon and California Railroad

“ It is unfortunate that when the railroad was at last ready for use, no newspaper men were present to record the initiation of steam transportation by railroad north of the California state line. The writer has in fact found no account of this first beginning, as we may say of the Union Pacific System except an article published in the Sunday Oregonian of July 23, 1905, at the time of the Lewis and Clark fair. ”

“ Already are parties out viewing and prospecting a road through Noble's Pass, where it is proposed by some to carry the Pacific railroad line.
That California will be covered with a network of railways is only a question of time, and that time determined by the low rates of interest that will cause capitalists to become interested in these great works of internal improvement. Local trade and travel must always be great, and must always increase so long as gold shall be mined, and that period seems to be illimitable. ”

“ Much work has also been done on the Pacific Highway, which pursues its course through the central part of the state and branches from this are projected to the county seats of each of the eastern tier of counties. Nothing, however, is promised for the extreme eastern counties in the way of an improved road northward from Lake Tahoe and roughly following the Nevada, California & Oregon Railroad to the Oregon border. Probably such a highway would not be justified, for the population is very scant and the country barren and poor, though it has much to interest the tourist for all that. ”

“ By an act approved July 25th, 1866, Congress authorized the California & Oregon Railroad Company, a California corporation, and such company as the legislature of Oregon should thereafter designate, to lay out, locate, construct, finish, and maintain a railroad and telegraph line between Portland, Oregon, and the Central Pacific Railroad in California ”

“ Passengers often found it necessary to put their shoulders to the wheels. Prior to the coming of the railroad this route was the only link, except by sea, between Puget Sound and the Columbia.
Completing the Union-Central Pacific to California in 1863, railroad builders cast a speculative eye toward the Northwest. The small Oregon Steam Navigation Company on the Columbia River and the gold rushes to the Northwest demonstrated to "empire builders" that this new, raw land was well worth railroading into. They knew the first to reach the Pacific Northwest would control a vast wealth. ”

“ During 1877 loud calls were heard from the people of Portland for direct railroad communication with the east, and strenuous exertions were made for the building of a road from Portland via The Dalles to Salt Lake. Much of this eagerness for independent rail lines was developed by the fact that in California many emigrants starting overland for Oregon, were turned back by the represen- tations of agents of the California emigration boards, and the Oregonians found their growth in population much retarded thereby. ”

“ The pioneer farmers saw the necessity and the immense benefits to be gained from a railroad which should pass through their valley from Portland to San Francisco, and resolved, although poor in purse, to make the best effort they could to secure such a road.
In the spring of 1863 S. G. Elliott, of California, had arranged with George A. Belding, a civil engineer, of Portland, Oregon, to make an instrumental survey for a line of railroad from Marysville to Portland, on their joint account. They commenced their work at Marysville in California in May and reached Jacksonville in October. ”

“ A third was the Willamette Valley Railroad, local lines in the valley of that name, and the fourth the Oregon & California Railroad, which was to he built from Eugene City, Oregon, on the south to a point on the Willamette River on the north. None of these projects materialized, there not being either population or funds in the territory to carry on the undertaking.
The first actual railroad construction on the Pacific Coast was the Sacramento Valley Railroad, between Sacramento and Folsom, Cal., beginning operation in 1858. ”

“ That resolution provided: 'That the Northern Pacific Railroad Company be, and hereby is, authorized to extend its branch line from a point at or near Portland, Oregon, to some suitable point on Puget sound, to be determined by said company, and also to connect the same with its main line west of the Cascade mountains, in the territory of Washington ”

“ LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
during the Civil War, a land grant was finally made, it was no longer the road to Oregon but the road to California. Eventually, after the War, a line was extended north to the Columbia and Puget Sound, but it was many years before the first direct route, Whitney's route, was threaded with rails. Railroad or no railroad, however, Oregon's population until,
continued to increase although not with the rapidity with
which California's grew. ”

“ On June 30, 1900, the Union Pacific, Oregon Short Line, and258 Oregon Railroad & Navigation Companies operated 5427.89 miles of line. The system stretched from Kansas City and Council Bluffs to Ogden, and reached the Pacific coast in the Northwest at Portland. It had no rails of its own in California, but was dependent on the Southern Pacific tracks for connections both at Ogden and at Portland. The Southern Pacific extended from New Orleans through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona to California, and thence up the coast to Sacramento. ”

“ Union Pacific, Northern Pacific and their short-line connections provide exclusive rail service between many points in the Pacific Northwest and Portland, Oregon. From Portland, the two competitive routes in question descend, at times parallel, at times intertwined, to Southern California. The route closest to the seacoast consists largely of Southern Pacific. To the east of this route lies the so-called Bieber route whose completion in 1931 was authorized by the Commission to provide competition with Southern Pacific. ”

“ The old pioneer is now poor, but his friends are sufficiently zealous in his behalf to see that his wants go not unsupplied. One can not pass over this region and at the same time observe how rapidly the Sacramento River is being obstructed by the immense deposits of sand and sediment which its current is daily bringing down, thus forming bars and deltas destined not only to intercept but probably to suspend at no distant day navigation to its upper waters,—without feeling the pressing importance of a railroad connection between Sacramento and the more northern regions of California. ”

“ The Portland days of the O&CRR Ferry No. 2 were numbered, however. People were tiring of having to cross the river by ferry between the city and the countryside of East Portland, and enterprising citizens finally built the first Morrison street bridge of timbers in 1887.
Then the owners of the Union Pacific railroad, who also then controlled the Oregon & California railroad, built the first Steel bridge, at a location just downstream from the present site, in 1888. It had two decks, one for trains and one for wagons and pedestrians as does the present one, built in 1912. ”

“ With the rapid growth of that community Oregon saw the hope of a connection by railroad with the East slipping away and a position of subordination to California gradually forced upon her. The markets, at first established, failed to bring the large returns when the supplies were being produced nearer to the point of consumption. A speculative spirit invaded the industrial life. Undesirable characters were brought into the country by the rush for gold. The Indians alarmed at the growing numbers and the irritating acts became hostile. ”

“ The railroads naturally divert the passenger traffic almost entirely, and carry a large quantity of freight. They would carry more and earn a fair profit for their owners, the German and English bondholders, but, instead of a fair competition, the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, as I have said, put down the freights from Corvallis downward to Portland on grain to one dollar per ton—of course, an impossible rate for either river or railroad to profit by. ”

“ The canoe of Indians, explorers and fur traders, the row-boat of pioneer settlers, were relegated in 1850 by the river steamboat. Right afterward came the railroad idea but not the railroad for yet many a waiting year.
It seems natural enough now that the steam locomotive should follow the river to the ocean; one may wonder at the long delay. But railroads, like each other pioneer improvement in Oregon, grew slowly from their beginnings in 1868-9 ; the down-Columbia line reached Goble not until 1883; and halted there fifteen years before going on to Astoria, fifty-eight miles further. ”