Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 4/A Pioneer Railroad Builder
A PIONEER RAILROAD BUILDER.
Responding to a request for an account of the operations of Dr. D. S. Baker as a promoter and financier of transportation enterprises, and particularly of the Walla Walla and Columbia River Railway, I herewith submit some scraps of history.
Dr. Dorsey S. Baker was born in Wabash County, Illinois, October 18, 1823. He studied the profession of medicine at the Philadelphia Medical College. Crossed the Plains to Oregon with the emigration of 1848, and went to California in 1849. The practice of his profession was remunerative, but his strong predilection for business led him to abandon a profession always distasteful.
He engaged in the hardware business in Portland in the early fifties, and subsequently built a flouring mill at Oakland, in Southern Oregon, and it was his boast that he brought to Oregon the first pair of mill stones ever used in the State. In 1861 he removed to Walla Walla, then a trading post adjacent to the army garrison established some years previously. He engaged in the mercantile business, being associated with William Stephens. The firm name was D. S. Baker & Co., afterward changed to Baker & Boyer, when his brother-in-law, John F. Boyer, was taken into the firm. The firm did a large business with the stockmen and settlers, and in outfitting miners and packers flocking by thousands to the Oro Fino and Florence mines, and later to Boisé, Idaho, and Montana. Sales were large and profits good, and the firm of Baker & Boyer flourished.
Doctor Baker was a man of keen business judgment and great foresight. It is probably not an over statement to say that the State of Washington has not numbered among her citizens any that approached him in financial ability. In 1862 he became associated with the late Senator Corbett and Captain Ankeny in the steamboat business. They built the steamer Spray, which plied between Celilo and Lewiston. The company had boats on what was known as the Middle River, between The Dalles and the Cascades, and also on the Lower River between the Cascades and Portland. They built a wooden tramway portage on the Washington side at the cascades, using mules as motive power. The remains of this tramway could be seen from the opposite shore within recent years. This company's line was run in opposition to that of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, to which it finally sold.
The portage of the cascades, being the key to the situation, was the bone of contention. The Oregon Steam Navigation Company had procured the passage of a bill through Congress giving them what they claimed to be an exclusive right of way over the cascade portage, and this question not having been at that time adjudicated, Doctor Baker's company sold out as above recited.
Doctor Baker's next transportation enterprise was the building of a narrow gauge railroad from Walla Walla to Wallula. He organized a company under the corporate name of the Walla Walla and Columbia River Railroad Company in 1871. Among the original stockholders were Doctor Baker, John F. Boyer, Paine Brothers & Moore, B. L. Sharpstein, Charles Moore, B. F. Stone, William Stephens, William O. Green—all residents of Walla Walla. Doctor Baker was, however, the capitalist, and it was his money, his energy and unflagging perseverance that carried the enterprise to a successful consummation. To build thirty miles of railroad under conditions then existing was a great undertaking. Ties and timber for bridges had to be obtained from the head waters of the Yakima River, an untried stream.
A logging camp was established in the winter of 1872—a Wisconsin lumberman named Tarbox being placed in charge. An attempt was made to drive logs to the mouth of the Yakima the following spring, but the water proved insufficient and the log drive was hung up. Another expedition was sent to the woods the following winter, in charge of D. W. Small, afterward a well known resident and business man of Walla Walla. He succeeded, by incredible effort, in bringing out the logs. A mill was erected on the banks or east bank of the Columbia above the old town of Wallula, where the ties were sawed, and it was at this point that the first railroad construction in Washington, other than the portage road of the cascades, was begun. Two small dummy or camel-back engines were bought in Pennsylvania and shipped out via San Francisco and Portland. Freight on them from Portland to Wallula was about $450 each. The first ten miles of the road was built with wooden stringers six by six, laid on cross ties. It was Doctor Baker's belief that these ties would last for a few years, and it was his intention to then replace them with T rails, but in this he was doomed to disappointment. When construction had reached the ten-mile post, the wooden rails at the river end were worn out. He then bought ten miles of strap iron and continued construction. This also proved a failure. Finally, convinced in the rough school of actual experience that T rail only would serve his purpose, he ordered, through Allen & Lewis of Portland, twenty miles of 26-pound rail. This was purchased in Wales and was brought around the Horn in a clipper ship coming to the Columbia River for a cargo of wheat. From Portland the rail was shipped by the Oregon Steam Navigation Company line to Wallula. This involved five handlings—two at the cascade portage, two at The Dalles, and one at Wallula. The cost of the rails and the freight were both very great. When the road reached a point ten miles out from the Columbia it began to haul wheat, the teamsters being glad to avoid the long, hard pull over the sandy roads.
When the road had reached Whitman Station, six miles west of Walla Walla, Doctor Baker's available funds were exhausted, and he would not borrow. He thereupon announced that its terminus would remain there until the earnings sufficed to complete it to Walla Walla. The citizens, fearing a rival town would spring up at Whitman, promptly raised and donated $25,000 to secure the continuance of the road to Walla Walla.
In the inception of the enterprise, Doctor Baker had asked Walla Walla County, through the board of county commissioners, to guarantee the interest on a proposed issue of bonds, to be sold to provide funds for the construction of the road, offering in return to permit the commissioners to fix the rate for carrying grain to the Columbia, provided only the rate should not be less than $3 per ton. The question was submitted to a vote, and rejected by a decided majority. Doctor Baker then said: "I will build the road without your assistance, and you must allow me to fix the rate." The rate was $5 per ton from Walla Walla to the river. There was an additional charge of fifty cents for transfer to the steamboat. The Oregon Steam Navigation Company's charge was $6 per ton, and there was a wharfage charge at Portland of 50 cents, making a total of $12 per ton, or thirty-six cents per bushel from Walla Walla to Portland. The charge of $5 per ton seems now a pretty stiff rate, but teamsters in those days sometimes charged $12 per ton for the same haul, although the usual charge was $6. They could not always handle the crop, and the price fluctuated.
During the discouraging period of construction few people believed Doctor Baker would ever complete the road. His friends thought he would fail utterly, and predicted that his fortune would be lost, but the Doctor knew better than most the wealth of the country's undeveloped resources, and with a faith that nothing could shake, and with a determination that grew stronger as each obstacle presented itself, continued the work of construction, staking his last dollar on the success of his enterprise. No mortgage was ever placed on the property during his ownership, and no lien or debt encumbered it. It paid unheard of dividends, and was sold at a price greatly exceeding its cost. The Oregon Steam Navigation Company bought six-sevenths of the stock in 1877, Doctor Baker remaining as president. During this ownership a branch line was built from Whitman to a point known as Blue Mountain Station, in Umatilla County, Oregon, to tap the wheat fields of that county.
Still later, on the first day of July, 1879, the road was included in a sale made by the Oregon Steam Navigation Company to Henry Villard. The track was changed to a standard gauge, and became a part of the present Oregon Railway and Navigation system.
Many amusing stories are told of experiences in traveling over this line, known as Doctor Baker's "rawhide road." Wheat was hauled on flat cars. A box car, with seats along the sides, originally did duty as a passenger coach. To the traveling public this was known as "the hearse," but no serious accident ever occurred on the line. It was strictly a daylight road, Doctor Baker persistently refusing to allow trains to be run at night.
H. W. Fairweather, who took charge of the road after its purchase by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, still tells of some of his early experiences. At that time the law required a printed schedule of freight rates to be posted in each car. Looking about in vain, he finally found the required notice posted in the roof of the car in such a position that to read it the reader must lie on his back. The newspapers have another story regarding General Sherman's ride over this road. In 1877 the General had ridden through Montana and Idaho, examining the country with reference to the proper location of military posts, and had reached Walla Walla on his way to the coast. He is said to have made application for a special train to take him to Wallula, which Doctor Baker refused to furnish, remarking that there was a train load of wheat going out during the afternoon, upon which the General could take passage, and that availing himself of the opportunity, this aggregation of military glory bestrode a sack of wheat, and thus mounted, was dispatched on his journey. The fact was that he rode in a passenger coach attached to the freight train, but perhaps it is hardly worth while to spoil so good a story.
Some years after the sale of the Walla Walla and Columbia River line, Doctor Baker built another narrow gauge to connect with a timber flume bringing lumber and wood to Walla Walla. This line was fifteen miles in length and extended to the town of Dixie in the foot hills of the Blue Mountains. It did a considerable business in transporting wheat. This was also sold to the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, which company still operates it as a narrow gauge.
This was Doctor Baker's last undertaking, his health having failed soon after the completion of this road.
When Henry Villiard first met Doctor Baker, he said to him: "You were a bold man to build into the lion's jaws," refering to the fact that the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company controlled the outlet down the Columbia, but Doctor Baker had formulated a maxim, "He who owns the approaches to the river owns the river," by which he meant that the business of the boats originated on the railroad and the boats were dependent on the railroad.
One of Doctor Baker's biographers has said of him, "He was the self-reliant architect of his own fortune." Perhaps no man in the Northwest has left his name more completely entwined into the history of his chosen country and city than has Dorsey S. Baker, who cast his lot with Walla Walla forty years ago, whose fortunes were the fortunes of the town and whose successes were the successes of the place he called his "home."
He died at Walla Walla July 5, 1888. An imposing granite monument, in the City Cemetery, emblematic of his rugged virtues and strength of character, marks his last resting place.
Walla Walla, Wash., August 7, 1903.