following spring. The Oregon and Washington solitudes were beginning to vanish, and the hearts of the transportation men were growing lighter, their pockets, we may assume, the meanwhile growing heavier with the reward for which they toiled.
It is not clear at what time the Oregon Portage Railroad was first operated, but it seems a fair conclusion that it was in use late in 1858 or early in 1859, the next reference to it which has been found being included in the Portland Advertiser of June 14, 1859. Speaking of unusual high water in the Columbia river this newspaper records that "at the Cascades the water has risen above the mark of 1853, and swept off about 300 feet of Ruckel and Olmstead's Rail Road near the upper warehouse and all of the bridge around the Big Tooth near the Lower Landing; damage estimated about $10,000." Clearly, therefore, by this time the Railroad had been built from the upper landing at the present town of Cascade Locks to the lower landing at or near the mouth of Tanner Creek, just west of the present Union Pacific station of Bonneville.
John Stevenson and his sister, Mrs. Bailey, say that it was common, sixty years ago, to speak of the Oregon Portage Railroad, the "Ruckel Railroad" as it was commonly known, as built without a dollar. By promises of payment, rather than with cash, Ruckel, they say, persuaded men to work for him in the building of the railroad. Some quit, the prospect of pay too uncertain, but others stayed on, and the presumption is than eventually all were paid, but Ruckel himself was perpetually short of funds. It would appear then that it was in meeting the needs of the Railroad construction that Ladd & Tilton, the Portland bankers, became the creditors of the partnership to the extent of the most of the cost of the property, a fact which was revealed in connection with the sale of the Portage in 1862. An indenture dated November 19, 1859, between Ruckel and Harrison Olm-
