The West Shoke. VOL. 7-No. 10. JL Snnl.fuMUhr. I WmIiIdiumi si. Portland, Oregon, October, 1881. Mal4 ! Ik Tm . I MmW mIn 4fc I Mat RAILROAD HISTORY OK OREGON. Forty years is a long time to look back, at least in the history of Oregon. The earliest emigration was on the road here. The pioneers of that Jay were the mountaineers and trappers who ranged the wilds in the employ of the Hudson's H. Co. and various missionar ies who came to convert the Indians, who usually disappeared from the face of the earth without being converted At that time there was tin enthusiast knocking at the doors of congress with proposition that made wise men smile and never caused excitement in Wall street, that has since then gone wild with similar propositions. This enthusiast's name was Whitman, and it was about 1840 that his proposition to have government appropriate land as a subsidy for a railroad across the conti ncnt to Oregon made congressmen open their eyei with wonder and caused the financial magnates to smile at the ah surdity of the scheme that he urged with considerable persistency. It would I a matter of some interest to rc-rcud the proposition as he made it public, and ee what inducements he believed ex istcd for (panning the continent with an iron road long bclore California had become national territory, and when Oregon was not defined by metes am: bounds, but was an unknown territory extending from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. After this premature beginning it sur. prises one to see how long the project slept before it was again brought be fore the public. The time came when transcontinental road was aided by a grant of lands of imperial extent, and was helped by a loan of government bonds that was sufficient in itself to build such a road, but Oregon history has never defined why at that time, when congrcw was so liberal, and even 'munificent in granting aid for branches, tome eflort was not made to secure sufficient sulmidy to send a branch through from some point on the Central route to the Columbia river. It looks very much as if, while it rained suUid let. our congressional delegation failed to hold the Oregon porringer right side up. Land grants and subsidies seemed going for the asking and no one asked for Oregon, and finally, when in July, late in the session of 1866, the grant was passed for the Oregon and California road, it docs not appear that Oregon congressmen were promi nent in securing it. If land grant and subsidy had been procured twenty years go, at the time when other grants were legislated so liberally, and conncc tion had Ucn made with the central ine soon after its completion, our state would have made a very different showing, and have long since competed with California, more successfully, in securing population and in achieving production. In the winter of iSfyfi, bill was introduced to aid, by a land grant, the construction or a railroml Trout near Sacramento to Portland or the Colum liia, which was urged hy Simon (1. Klliott on the pait of incorporators in California, who included W. C. Ralston, Alphcus Hull, Thomas Hell, C. Temple Emmctt and number of others, and probably no such bill would ever have passed had not Klliott been there, paid by hit friends in California who provided the expense of attending to it. The sulwidy that Oregon finally procured she did not seek. In course of time the California part of tin grant went into the possession of the Central acific people and Klliott himself came to Oregon, hoping to push the enter risc through from this end. The land crant was a Ixxie 01 contention lor n awhile, as a rather unscrupulous adven turcr got hold of the first incorporation and Mild it out to Portland sculators, hut it was left for tlur legislature todesig nate what company should enjoy It, and the legislature of 1870 designated the comnanv incorporated by Elliott's agency, and which was then controlled by Ilcn Ilolladay, the Oregon incor porators having wittxlrawn in favor of Ilcn Ilolladay & to. A furtlier res- olulion pawed congress confirming 11 designation. It is not necessary lo re cite all tlte fiuahblet and lawsuits that have resulted, so we proceed lo give a brief synopsis. S. 0. Elliott was unsuccessful in oerating under the firm name of "J. Cook & Co.," and after making com- mcnccmcnt secured the- aid of Hen Molladay, and figured as company in that firm. Hen Ilolladay and Emmctt and Elliott were the firm. They oper atcd with a syndicate of Californlana who negotiated the salo of bonds to Zulsbach Hros., bankers at Frankfort, and the evidence of Ilolladay, given in court, shows that ho only realised about 50 cts. on the dollar for the bonds issued, and the syndicate made heavy profit on the transaction. The road was pushed through to Roseburg, aoo miles, and under Holladay't manage ment the West side road was built to St Jo, lit Yamhill Co., and since then has been built to Corvallis. Ilolladay soon put Elliott out on Mime pretense or other, and made a serious mistake when he did so, as Elliott has devoted his life for the ten years past to prosecut ing his claims through the courts, and tas caused much more esH:iise In that way than a fair settlement of those laims would have cost. 1 he story of that ten years of lowing Is ciual to romance and reminds one forcibly of the case of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce, made so famous by Dickens. Mr. Elliott still prosecutes it, though hit tair has grown gray and he surrender all other prospects of life lo do so rather lamentable conclusion to the energy with which he entered into the scheme when comparatively a young man seventeen years ago, Hen Ilolladay came to Oregon full of the Idea of becoming railroad king, daxlcd by the splendid success of Stanford ami Huntington, lit owned the Mian steamers running between Portland and San Francisco, which, 1 I . I t. I I I I. was a princely loriune in iiseu, aim in earlier career showed lo what ucccs an American can attain. Ilolladay managed to gel rid of k securities without l.uiUmg the lad through lo California, mul the roads he, dil build proved so or a speculation that he finally turned litem over to th landholders, ami also his steamship hot, ml disappeared from the Acid 0 KtW laUr in Oregon, the common accept a lion being; that he ho not much of Lift