THE COLUMBIA RIVER HISTORICAL EXPEDITION
THE ACHIEVEMENT AND ITS PROMISE
By F. G. Young
The Columbia River Historical Expedition carried out its schedule with finest eclat. Its program included occasions with illuminating and instructive interpretative drives at historic crossroads and gateways from Chicago to the Pacific Ocean at Astoria via the Great Northern lines. The personnel of the expedition comprised five French and thirty-eight American high school students, winners in the oratorical contests held in connection with the study of the "French Pioneers in America," and a group of some two hundred other persons interested in making such a historical pilgrimage. Specialists in regional history presented the papers at the different dedicatory occasions.
These expeditions, "The Upper Missouri" last year and the "Columbia River" this year, mean that the Muse of history has been espoused by the Great Northern Railway Company. The carrying out of these with such consummate success involved months of intelligent planning and effective preliminary achievements in the creation of stage settings in the shape of appropriate monuments erected at points of salient interest.
With the development of these historical activities this railway corporation is establishing a new feature in American railway transportation service. Only the high-minded directorates of other companies probably will have the discernment to follow suit in kindred undertakings. The idea is, that in addition to the ultra conditions of safety, comfort and luxury associated with American transcontinental rail travel, the route should be studded with expressive historical memorials to kindle the imaginations of the wayfarers to delightful visualizations of the historical backgrounds in in these frontier regions. As automatic train control in a way crowns the mechanical and engineering equipment, so this new feature goes the physical improvement one better in systematically exploiting the realm of history for the de-
