Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/764

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CHAPTER XXIV.

LATER EVENTS.

1887-1888

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN RAILWAYS PROGRESS OF PORTLAND ARCHITECTURE AND ORGANIZATIONS EAST PORTLAND IRON WORKS VALUE OF PROPERTY MINING - CONGRESSIONAL APPROPRIATIONS NEW COUNTIES SALMON FISHERIES LUMBER POLITICAL AFFAIRS PUBLIC LANDS LEGISLATURE ELECTION.

Taking a later general view of progress, I find that the multiplication of railroad enterprises had become in 1887–8 a striking feature of Oregon's , unfolding. In this sudden development, the Northern Pacific had taken the initiative, causing the construction of the lines of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, the formation of the Oregon and Transcontinental and other companies, and finally the control for a time of the Northern Pacific by the Oregon interest.^[1] That these operations miscarried to some extent was the natural sequence of overstrained effort. The city of Portland, and to a considerable extent, the state, suffered by the neglect of the

Northern Pacific Terminal Company to construct a

↑ I have already referred to the O. R. & N. co.'s origin and management in 1879–83, but reference to the methods employed by Villard will not be out of place here. He gained an introduction to Oregon through being the financial agent of the German bond-holders of the Or. and Cal. R. R., and a year afterward was made president of this road and the Oregon Steamship co., of which Holladay had been president, through the action of the bond holders in dispossessing Holladay in 1875. In 1872 a controlling interest in the Oregon Steam Navigation co., on the Columbia river, had been sold to the Northern Pacific R. R. co., and was largely hypothecated for loans, or on the failure of Jay Cooke & Co., divided among the creditors as assets. This stock was gathered up in 1879 wherever it could be obtained, at a price much below its real value.

[1] I have already referred to the O. R. & N. co.'s origin and management in 1879–83, but reference to the methods employed by Villard will not be out of place here. He gained an introduction to Oregon through being the financial agent of the German bond-holders of the Or. and Cal. R. R., and a year afterward was made president of this road and the Oregon Steamship co., of which Holladay had been president, through the action of the bond holders in dispossessing Holladay in 1875. In 1872 a controlling interest in the Oregon Steam Navigation co., on the Columbia river, had been sold to the Northern Pacific R. R. co., and was largely hypothecated for loans, or on the failure of Jay Cooke & Co., divided among the creditors as assets. This stock was gathered up in 1879 wherever it could be obtained, at a price much below its real value.

[1]