History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 40

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1134

USA > Washington > Benton County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 40
USA > Washington > Kittitas County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 40
USA > Washington > Yakima County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 40

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Any account of steamboating on the Columbia would be incomplete with- out reference to Capt. James Troup, who was born on the Columbia, and almost from early boyhood ran steamers upon it and its tributaries. He made a specialty of running steamers down The Dalles and the Cascades, an under-

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taking sometimes rendered necessary by the fact that more boats were built in proportion to demand on the upper than the lower river. These were taken down The Dalles, and sometimes down the Cascades. Once down, they could not return. The first steamer to run down the Tumwater Falls was the "Okanogan," on May 22, 1866, piloted by Capt. T. J. Stump.

The author enjoyed the great privilege of descending The Dalles in the "D. S. Baker" in the year 1888, Captain Troup being in command. At that strange point in the river, the whole vast volume is compressed into a channel but one hundred and sixty feet wide at low water and much deeper than wide. Like a huge mill-race this channel continues nearly straight for two miles, when it is hurled with frightful force against a massive bluff. Deflected from the bluff, it turns at a sharp angle to be split in sunder by a low reef of rock. When the "Baker" was drawn into the current at the head of the "chute" she swept down the channel, which was almost black, with streaks of foam, to the bluff, two miles in four minutes. There feeling the tremendous refluent wave, she went careening over and over toward the sunken reef. The skilled cap- tain had her perfectly in hand, and precisely at the right moment, rang the signal bell, "Ahead, full speed," and ahead she went, just barely scratching her side on the rock. Thus closely was it necessary to calculate distance. If the steamer had struck the tooth-like point of the reef broadside on, she would have been broken in two and carried in fragments on either side. Having passed this danger point, she glided into the beautiful calm bay below and the feat was accomplished. Capt. J. C. Ainsworth and Capt. James Troup were the two captains above all others to whom the company entrusted the critical task of running steamers over the rapids.

In the "Overland Monthly" of June, 1886, there is a valuable account by Capt. Lawrence Coe of the maiden journey of the "Colonel Wright" from Celilo up what they then termed the upper Columbia.

This first journey on that section of the river was made in April, 1859. The pilot was Capt. Lew White. The highest point reached was Wallula, the site of the old Hudson's Bay fort. The current was a powerful one to withstand, no soundings had ever been made, and no boats except canoes, bateaux, flatboats, and a few small sailboats, had ever made the trip. No one had any conception of the location of a channel adapted to a steamboat. No difficulty was experienced, however, except at the Umatilla Rapids. This is a most singular obstruction. Three separated reefs, at intervals of half a mile, extend right across the river. There are narrow breaks in these reefs. but not in line with each other. Through them the water pours with a tre- mendous velocity, and on account of their irregular locations a steamer must zigzag across the river at imminent risk of being borne broadside onto the reef. The passage of the Umatilla Rapids is not difficult at high water, for then the steamer glides over the rocks in a straight course.

In the August "Overland" of the same year, Captain Coe narrates the first steamboat trip up Snake River. This was in June, 1860, just at the time of the beginning of the gold excitement. The "Colonel Wright" was loaded with picks, rockers, and other mining implements, as well as provi-

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sions and passengers. Most of the freight and passengers were put off at Wallula, to go thence overland. Part continued on to test the experiment of making way against the wicked-looking current of Snake River. After three days and a half from the starting point a few miles above Celilo, the "Colonel Wright" halted at a place which was called Slaterville, thirty-seven miles up the Clearwater from its junction with the Snake. There the remainder of the cargo was discharged, to be hauled in wagons to the Oro Fino mines. The steamer "Okanogan" followed the "Colonel Wright" within a few weeks, and navigation on the Snake may be said to have fairly begun. During that same time the city of Lewiston, named in honor of Meriwether Lewis, the explorer, was founded at the junction of the Snake and Clear- water rivers.

THE PIONEER STAGE LINES.

While the river traffic under the ordinary control of the "O. S. N." Com- pany, though with frequent periods of opposition boats, was thus promoting the movements of commercial life along the great central artery, the need of reaching interior points was vital. The only way of doing this and pro- viding feeders for the boats was by stage lines and prairie schooners. As a result of this need there developed along with the steamboats a system of roads from certain points on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Umatilla, Wallula, and Lewiston became the chief of these. And in the stage lines we have another era of utmost interest and importance in the old time days.

As we have seen, Yakima was off the main routes of travel, and stage lines never played the important and picturesque part that they did in the Walla Walla country. Yakima pioneers, however, were as familiar as were those of Walla Walla with the steamboats on the Columbia River. The chief route to Klickitat and Yakima was by boat from Portland to The Dalles, thence by road. In 1875 the road from Yakima to The Dalles was completed and stages were running.

In 1864 there came into operation the first of the great stage systems having transcontinental aims and policies. This was the Holladay system. That period was the palmy times for hold-ups, Indians, prairie-schooners, and all the other interesting and extravagant features of life, ordinarily sup- posed to be typical of the Far West and so dominating in their effect on the imagination as to furnish the seed-bed for a genuine literature of the Pacific Coast, most prominent in California with the illustrious names of Bret Harte and Mark Twain in the van, and with Jack London, Rex Beach, and many more in later times pursuing the same general tenor of delineation. The Northwest has not yet had a literature comparable with California; but the material is here and there will yet be in due sequence a line of story writers, poets and artists of the incomparable scenery and the tragic, humorous and pathetic human associations of the Columbia and its tributaries, which will place this northern region of the Pacific in the same rank as the more forward southern sister. Indeed we may remark incidentally that the two most prominent Cali- fornia poets, Joaquin Miller and Edwin Markham, belonged to Oregon, the latter being a native of the "Web-foot State."

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The amount of business done by those pioneer stage lines was surprising. In the issue of the Walla Walla Statesman of December December 20, 1862, it is estimated that the amount of freight landed by the steamers at Wallula to be distributed thence by wheel averaged about a hundred and fifty tons weekly, and that the number of passengers, very variable, ran from fifty to six hundred weekly.

The closing scene of the stage line drama may be said to have been the establishment in 1871 of the Northwestern Stage Company. It connected the Central Pacific Railroad at Kelton, Utah, with The Dalles, Pendleton, Walla Walla, Colfax, Dayton, Lewiston, Pomeroy, and all points north and west. During the decade of the seventies that stage line was a connecting link not only between the railroads and the regions as yet without them, but was also a link between two epochs, that of the stage and that of the railroad.

It did an extensive passenger business, employing regularly twenty-two stages and 300 horses, which used annually 365 tons of grain and 412 tons of hay. There were 150 drivers and hostlers regularly employed for that branch of the business.

THE RAILROAD AGE.

But a new order was coming rapidly. As the decades of the sixties and seventies belonged especially to the steamboat and the stage, so the decade of the eighties belonged to the railroads. It is one of the most curious and interesting facts in American history that during the period between about 1835, the coming of the missionaries, and the period of the discoveries of gold in Idaho in 1861 and onward, there was an obstinate insistence in Con- gress, especially the Senate-a great body indeed, but at times the very apotheosis of conservative imbecility-that Oregon could never be practically connected with the older parts of the country, but must remain a wilderness. But there were some progressives. When Isaac I. Stevens was appointed governor of Washington Territory in 1853 he had charge of a survey with a view of determining a practicable route for a Northern Pacific Railroad.

It is very interesting to read his instructions to George B. McClellan, then one of his assistants. "The route is from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Puget Sound by the great bend of the Mississippi River, through a pass in the mountains near the forty-ninth parallel. A strong party will go up the Mis- souri to the Yellowstone, and there make arrangements, reconnoitre the coun- try, etc., and on the junction of the main party they will push through the Blackfoot country, and reaching the Rocky Mountains will keep at work there during the Summer months. The third party, under your command, will be organized in the Puget Sound region, you and your scientific corps going over the Isthmus, and will operate in the Cascade Range and meet the party coming from the Rocky Mountains. The amount of work in the Cascade Range and eastward, say to the probable junction of the parties at the great bend of the North fork of the Columbia River, will be immense. Recollect, the main object is a railroad survey from the headwaters of the Mississippi River to Puget Sound. We must not be frightened by long tunnels or enor- mous snows, but must set ourselves to work to overcome them."

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Growing out of the abundant agitation going on for twenty years after the start given it by Governor Stevens, the movement for a Northern Pacific Railroad focalized in 1870 by a contract made between the promoters and Jay Cooke & Company to sell bonds.

Work was begun on the section of the Northern Pacific Railroad between Kalama on the Columbia and Puget Sound in 1870, but the financial panic of 1873 crippled and even ruined many great business houses, among others Jay Cooke & Company, and for several years construction was at a standstill. In 1879 the Northern Pacific Railroad Company was reorganized, work was resumed and never ceased till the iron horse had drunk out of Lake Superior, the Columbia, and Puget Sound.

One of the most spectacular chapters in the history of railroading in the Northwest was that of the "blind pool" by which Henry Villard, president of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, obtained in 1881 the control of a majority of the stock of the "N. P." and became its president. The essential aim of this series of occult finances was to divert the Northern road from its proposed terminus of Puget Sound and annex it to the interests centering in Portland.

In 1883 the road was pushed on from Duluth to Wallula and thence by union with the O. R. R. & N. was carried on down the Columbia. The feverish haste, reckless outlay, and in places dangerous construction of that section along the crags and through the shaded glens and in front of the waterfalls on the banks of the great river, constitute one of the dramas of building. Even more spectacular came the gorgeous pageantry of the Villard excursion in October, 1883, in which Grant, Evarts, and others of the most distinguished of Americans participated, and in which Oregon and the Northwest in general were entertained in Portland with lavish hospitality, and in which Villard rode upon the crest of the greatest wave of power and popularity that had been seen in the history of the Northwest. But in the very moment of his triumph he fell with a "dull, sickening thud." In fact even while being lauded and feted as the great railroad builder he must have known of the impending crash. For skilful manipulations of the stock market by the Wright interests had dispossessed Villard of his majority control, a general collapse in Portland followed, and the Puget Sound terminal was established at the "City of Destiny," Tacoma. Not till 1890, however, was the great tunnel at Stampede Pass completed and the Northern Pacific fairly established upon its great route.

The years 1883 to 1888 were eventful in the Yakima country. Up to that time, the influx of population had been slow. Practically the raising of stock was the only business which offered financial returns. . During the later seven- ties indeed there were not wanting settlers with the vision to see the capabilities of those vast and fertile though arid valleys. Considerable progress had been made in starting irrigation systems. But those were small affairs and there was not the unity of action to coordinate effort in irrigation systems such as was necessary to produce large development. In spite of the scanty popula- tion, meager facilities for commercial relations with the main trade centers,

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and generally primitive conditions, the pioneer builders of Yakima were wide awake and enterprising, and were watching the transcontinental railroad movements with eager interest. It was obvious that any railway to Puget Sound must pass through the Yakima Valley. When the great Villard coup d'etat seemed to direct the northern system to Portland rather than the Sound, the disappointment in Yakima was keen. For a decade the settlers there had been suffering from the sickness of "hope deferred," and now it seemed as though they must wait another decade for the fruition of their hopes. The swift transition by which the Wright forces supplanted those of Villard in control of the Northern Pacific was therefore most gratifying.

In 1883 during the Villard regime the section of the Northern Pacific from Kennewick nearly to Kiona was completed. The existence of the immense land grant to Puget Sound made it necessary that work be done to hold that grant. Construction was rapidly pushed up the valley during 1884 and at the close of that year the first train pulled into North Yakima. There the progress of building stopped for two years. This halting in the great task was attributed by President Robert Harris to the difficulty of negotiating the ragged Yakima canon between Selah and near Ellensburg, and to the necessity of elaborate surveys for determining the most feasible and economical route over the Cascade Mountains. President Harris stated in a report of 1884 that the company had selected the Stampede Pass as the most suitable, a pass whose highest point is 3,693 feet above sea level. He stated that a tunnel would be required, two miles in length, of which the elevation would be 2,885 feet. The program of getting over the pass by a switch-back was completed in 1888, and the great tunnel was opened to traffic in 1890.

THE WAR ON THE RAILROAD.

But explanations of difficulties of canons and mountains were not satis- factory to some of the citizens of Kittitas and Yakima. The question of forfeiture of the unearned land grant took on an acute stage both locally and in Congress. Complicated with it in Yakima City was the burning question of removal to the new townsite of North Yakima. The election of Charles Voorhees as delegate to Congress in 1884 turned largely on the railroad question. As well illustrating the agitated state of the public mind in this railroad fight, we are incorporating here certain resolutions both for and against. In March, 1884, public meetings were held at Yakima City and Ellensburg. The resolu- tions at the former, supporting the demand of the railroad company for an extension of time, are as follows:

We, The citizens of Yakima County, would most respectfully represent that :

Whereas, Congress did grant to the Northern Pacific Railroad Company a certain piece of land along either side of said proposed railway from Duluth to Puget Sound, in aid of the construction of said road,

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Whereas, said railway company was organized upon the basis of said grant, and

Whereas, said company did in 1869 in good faith commence and prosecute the survey of said road and commence construction thereof in good faith, and with the intent of completing the same at the earliest practicable time, as their work will show as follows: From the year 1869 to 1873 they made continued surveys from the eastern end to the point designated by Congress as the western end, through a wilderness and desert entirely unknown either to railway engineers or other intelligent people, but a country given up to savages from whom it was impossible to procure information of a valuable nature. The results of said surveys were compiled at great expense and time, and the maps and profiles filed and the withdrawals made. The company also prior to 1873 constructed what is known as the Pacific Division from Kalama to Tacoma, also about five hundred miles of the eastern end of said road, and were at the time of the great panic of 1873 pushing their work to the utmost, and

Whereas, At or about this time our government did resolve to or agitate the question of a return to specie payment, and by its action threw the country into a financial panic which extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast and from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, thereby at once putting an end to the prosecution of all public works, and more particularly the Northern Pacific Railroad, then in its infancy, and

Whereas, By said action they forced said company to suspend work and into insolvency, and

Whereas, it was not until the year 1879 that confidence was so restored in the finances of the country that the railway construction of the country could be resumed, and

Whereas, The said Northern Pacific Railroad did in that year reorganize and get into working condition and did immediately commence work and have prose- cuted the same from that time to the present with the greatest energy, at an enormous expense and under the greatest difficulties, working through snow and ice, heat and cold, and have succeeded in giving us a continental line of railroad from a point on the Columbia River to the Atlantic Coast, and

Whereas, There remains an uncompleted portion of said road from the Columbia River to Puget Sound, the western terminus, which was contem- plated by the grant and which is of the greatest importance to Washington Territory, and more particularly to the citizens of Yakima County and others settled along the line, as well as to said company, who cannot have a con- tinuous line as intended by the grant unless said line is constructed, and

Whereas, There seem to be rival interests which are favoring the for- feiture of said land grant, to the great detriment of the whole of Washington Territory, and more particularly to Yakima County and the sections of coun- try said Cascade Division of the Northern Pacific Railroad traverses, be it

Resolved, That we, the citizens of Yakima and vicinity, assembled, do most respectfully petition Congress to take such action as will insure to the

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Northern Pacific Railroad Company their land grant and to the people the speedy completion of said road; and be it further

Resolved, That we cordially endorse the bill introduced by our delegate in Congress, the Hon. Thomas H. Brents, in reference to the Cascade Division, to-wit: That the time for construction be extended two years from January 1, 1884; that the odd sections granted them be sold at the rate of $2.60 per acre ($4.00 on time), and we earnestly request our delegate to use all means in his power to have said bill passed by Congress.

The Ellensburg resolutions were as follows:

Whereas, By an Act of Congress in 1864, half of a strip of land eighty miles in width was granted to the Northern Pacific Railroad Company to aid in the construction of a railroad from Lake Superior to Puget Sound; and

Whereas, The original grant was large and valuable enough in itself to build the road within the time specified in the granting act without further aid, and now that eight years have elapsed since the grant has expired; and

Whereas, The original intent of the granting act was to open up what was then a wild and uninhabited region of our country-to act as the fore- runner of civilization-whilst now thrifty and intelligent communities have sprung up in advance of construction, making the traffic alone highly remu- nerative for a railroad, consequently the original intent has ceased and become null and void; and

Whereas, By subsidizing newspapers, sending agents out to misrepresent the true sentiments of the people by making a show of work before the assembling of each session of Congress; and

Whereas, By forming the blind pool and buying the Seattle & Walla Walla Railroad, with their grant in the way, they have forestalled action on the part of other companies; and

Whereas, By one-half of the land being withdrawn from settlement, the growth of the country has been retarded, immigration checked, business stag- nated, lands from which no revenue could be collected and settlers on such lands handicapped ; therefore

Resolved, That the lands lying along the Cascade Division of the Northern Pacific Railroad have unjustly been withheld from settlement for a period of twenty years, thereby filling the coffers of a predaceous monopoly at the expense of the poor frontiersman.

Resolved, That these lands belong, and of right ought to belong, to the people, and that we most emphatically condemn the policy of Congress in taking away the poor man's heritage and giving it to stock gamblers and rail- road sharks.

Resolved, That the action of the several boards of trade of Seattle, Walla Walla and Tacoma, praying for Congress to extend the grant, would shine out far more brilliantly had they shown their zeal for their masters in giving something they had a shadow of right to give. These boards of trade have already a railroad and they can well be magnanimous in giving away other people's property.

Resolved, That we are opposed to any further time being extended to

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the Northern Pacific Railroad or to Congress' fixing any price per acre on railroad lands.

Resolved, That we, the settlers of Kittitas County, in mass meeting assembled, are in favor of an unconditional and absolute forfeiture of all the lands along the Cascade Division of the Northern Pacific Railroad.

Resolved, That we learn from our present delegate in Congress that the only knowledge he has of our present situation is through the action of our late Legislative Assembly. Therefore, we view with surprise and indignation the action of our late representative, John A. Shoudy, in refusing to memorial- ize Congress to forfeit the land grant of the Cascade Division of the Northern Pacific Railroad and in exempting their property from taxation.

Resolved, That we heartily and unequivocally endorse the course of Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Adams, of the Yakima Signal, in advocating and cham- pioning the cause of the poor man and in standing by the rights of the people in their fight with a vast corporate power, in refusing all their overtures of place and preferment, and that we recommend the Signal as the best family paper in our midst and that we will do all in our power to sustain the Signal in its efforts for right.

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to the chairman of each committee on public lands of both houses of Congress ; also to Judge Payson, Hons. William S. Holman, Cobb, Slater, Scales and Henley, and be published in both county newspapers, the Yakima Signal and Klickatat Sentinel, The Dalles Mountaineer and the Post-Intelligencer.

F. S. THORP,

F. D. SCHNEBLY,

B. E. CRAIG,

S. T. STERLING, Secretary. Committee.

Ellensburgh, Washington Territory, March 22, 1884.

THE GREAT BOOM.

But in spite of contention, political struggles, financial troubles, difficult Canons to contend with and precipitous mountains to overcome, all obstacles, legal and natural, were overcome and the Northern Pacific Railroad became an accomplished fact. And whatever may be thought of the justice and wisdom of land grants and railroad monopoly, there is no question of the tremendous effect which this railroad wrought upon the Yakima Valley. The whole viewpoint was changed. Hitherto isolated and with the types of business and the habits of thought engendered by the stock period and the pioneer methods, the Valley was suddenly thrown into the push and hurry and flurry of modern business methods. Population rushed in from the east. Land values rose rapidly. A fever for speculation seized upon the country. The boomer boomed, the pro- moter promoted, and the sucker sucked. It was a great time,-that period from 1884 to 1890. But it was like other sprees of prosperity. There was an awakening, and it was an awakening which carried with it a heavy head and a dark-brown taste in the mouth. Some that went up like rockets in 1886 or 1889 came down like badly dislocated sticks in 1892 or 1893. But yet again Yakima and Kittitas, like Walla Walla and the other southeast counties, suffered less in

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History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 40

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920 Publication date: 1919 Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke Number of Pages: 1134

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1134