P6 The SpokeSman • WedneSday, January 19, 2022
OFFBEAT
OFFBEAT OREGON
OREGON
‘Shoe-string railroad’ beat Southern Pacific in race to Coos Bay
BY FINN J.D. JOHN
For The Spokesman
Very few people outside
Coos County, and probably
not that many inside it, know
what a big deal Coos Bay is.
It’s the biggest deepwater har-
bor on the Northwest coast —
that is, between San Francisco
and Puget Sound. And it’s far
safer than Portland or Astoria,
tucked as they are behind the
“Graveyard of the Pacific” at the
mouth of the Columbia.
So, one has to wonder why it
had no railroad connection to
the outside world until 1916 —
more than 30 years after Port-
land got one.
There have to have been some
theories and speculations about
that among the residents and
business leaders in the towns of
Coos Bay (then called Marsh-
field) and North Bend. Espe-
cially after, in the early 1900s,
the Southern Pacific railroad
stopped work on a feeder line
that it had claimed would link to
Coos Bay through Drain.
SP had spent a lot of money
on the project, going so far as
to build a tunnel near Elkton
(which was later used for a state
highway). But then suddenly
all work stopped, and word got
around that the whole thing had
been a blind bluff. E.H. Harri-
man, the big honcho at South-
ern Pacific, had learned that his
great rival, James J. Hill of the
Great Northern, was contem-
plating punching a transconti-
nental through from Chicago
and terminating it at Coos Bay.
Harriman had promptly got-
ten busy on the Drain line just
to frighten Hill off. Then, the
instant Hill abandoned this plan
(if he ever actually entertained
it — it’s also possible this a ru-
mor from the start), Harriman
dropped everything, leaving
Coos Bay disappointed … and
more than a bit suspicious.
Avoiding competition
The subtext here seemed
pretty obvious to Marshfield and
North Bend business leaders:
Business interests in Portland
were eager to prevent Coos Bay
from coming on line as a direct
competitor. And since Portland
and Salem were where most of
the state’s political power was
concentrated, what they wanted
they generally got.
That suspicion would grow
even stronger after William J.
Wilsey started promoting his
planned railroad line, circa 1909.
But, that one would not turn out
to be a bluff; and despite the best
efforts of Harriman & Co., it
would turn out to be a rare case
in which the tiny upstart wins.
William Wilsey was an inter-
esting man; Oregonian writer
Dewey Ray called him “a pint-
size promoting dynamo,” and,
well, he definitely fit the de-
scription. Just four and a half
feet tall, but handsome, clever,
and good-natured, he had a
particular persuasive charm
and he seems to have never
stopped hustling.
Wilsey wasn’t from Coos Bay.
Most likely he lived in Portland
at the time. But he was thrilled
by the possibilities a railroad line
down the coast would present,
both for real estate development
(he had a particular resort-de-
velopment project in Yachats in
mind) and, of course, for linking
the outside world up with inter-
national shipping at Coos Bay.
The residents of Coos Bay’s
two principal towns were, of
course, elated by this prospect.
And by this time, those resi-
dents included some big-money
players in the coastwise ship-
ping and lumber businesses.
Although they weren’t prepared
to go toe-to-toe with E.H. Har-
riman, they were willing to put
up enough seed capital to get
Wilsey started — to prime the
pump, as it were.
Wilsey, after determin-
ing that the line would repay
the investment handsomely,
headed back east to pitch the
project at some of the big fi-
nanciers on the East Coast.
Nothing doing. Nobody
would touch it. Southern Pa-
cific and its financial backers
made sure Wilsey found a cold
shoulder behind every door he
knocked on.
Now, one of Wilsey’s real se-
crets of success was, he did not
waste time. This characteristic
would play a crucial role several
times in this project, starting
right here. The instant Wilsey
learned which way the wind was
blowing, he canceled any further
appointments and got on an
ocean liner, headed for Europe.
If he couldn’t interest any back-
ers stateside, he’d try his luck in
the Old Country.
British connection
In Paris, he met with a much
warmer reception; however, of
the potential backers he met
with, none had sufficient liquid
capital free to make a move. So
he moved on to London, where
he finally struck success in the
form of a consortium headed by
Sir Robert Perks, the builder of
the Manchester Canal.
It took some time — Sir Rob-
ert was not one to rush things,
and he was probably stalling for
time while he called in some
other investments to free up
enough capital to say yes. For a
while, Wilsey was afraid his own
working capital would actually
run out before he could bring
the English group aboard.
Finally, several months later,
the deal was made — and Wil-
liam Wilsey’s railroad project,
which was already being made
fun of in Oregon newspapers
as a “shoe-string railroad,” had
committed backing from Sir
Robert as well as a group of
other English financiers includ-
ing the Duke of Portland and
the Duke of Norfolk.
There were some more hoops
that had to be jumped through.
The investors wanted a railroad
engineer they knew and trusted
to verify the details. They picked
a man named H.A. Sumner,
known in railroad circles as
“The Old Fox,” for the job, and
this personnel decision would
also prove critical to the project’s
eventual success.
“The Old Fox” got on a liner
and headed across the sea for
a three-month cruise of Ore-
gon to scope things out. While
he was doing this, Wilsey —
who had run completely out of
money by now — supported
himself in London by taking a
job as a busboy in a restaurant.
It was a lower-class eatery in
which he knew he ran very little
risk of meeting and being recog-
nized by a member of Sir Rob-
ert’s syndicate; but the prospect
still must have made for some
nervous moments.
Finally, Sumner made it back
to London. He was very ex-
cited about the project’s pros-
pects, but he reported that the
group would have to move fast.
During the time Wilsey had
been out of town, the Oregon
Electric railroad line had been
started, connecting Portland
with Eugene. The Oregon Elec-
tric was backed by James J. Hill
of the Great Northern. So the
two great railroad magnates
would soon both have major
operations in Eugene.
Sumner urged the syndicate
to abandon its plans for the
Portland-to-the-coast line and
focus all its energies on getting
from Eugene to Florence, know-
ing that if they didn’t, the instant
Hill or Harriman learned what
they were up to, that’s where
they’d start construction.
Stroke of luck
Wilsey didn’t have to be told
twice. He was on the very next
ship he could secure a berth on,
headed back to Oregon.
Almost immediately, he met
with a tremendous stroke of
luck. It turned out that another
consortium of small-dollar
players had already been work-
ing on surveying a line from
Eugene to Florence, hoping to
secure investors for it. They, af-
ter meeting with the same cold
shoulders Wilsey had in New
York, had not had the resources
to continue chasing dollars (and
francs and pounds) across the
Atlantic, so they’d returned to
Portland and tried to sell their
work to Harriman’s Southern
Pacific. The SP representatives
had seemed very interested at
first, but it quickly became clear
that they were only interested in
learning how far along the com-
pany had gotten.
When Wilsey arrived on the
scene, these men — Isaac Bing-
ham and Ralph Hunt — were
still waiting for SP to make a
decision. They quickly realized
their good fortune that SP had
delayed so long. On behalf of
the syndicate, Wilsey promptly
bought Bingham and Hunt’s
company and adopted its
name, the Pacific Great West-
ern Railway Company.
Then they got to work.
They had a huge first-mover
advantage, in that although
the big railroads knew they
existed, no one had any idea
about the English syndicate.
The newspapers were already
having a great time making fun
of their grandiose name for
what they openly referred to as
a “shoe-string railroad.” Mostly
they considered it to be a hus-
tle, a big show of activity in-
tended to bamboozle someone
into thinking a railroad was
going in, perhaps to sell land or
something like that.
Shrewd business moves
So while that cloak of ano-
nymity and disreputability was
still on them, they made a few
very shrewd moves.
First, Sumner identified and
purchased a 40-acre parcel of
land that covered what they
knew would be the only logi-
cal entrance to the tunnel that
would need to be built at Noti.
Meanwhile, Hunt was on a
whirlwind tour through the
Siuslaw Valley, making ar-
rangements for the right-of-
way. This was a bit of a chal-
lenge, because some of the
farmers, when they learned a
railway was to be built, tried to
shake the syndicate down for
huge windfalls. Time was pre-
cious — as Hunt and his part-
ners well knew, the minute all
these purchases started being
publicized, their under-the-ra-
dar “shoe-string railway” status
would change fast. No “shoe-
string” operation could afford
to throw money around as they
were now doing.
So as he moved along, Hunt
would make each landowner
an offer. If they accepted it, or
even asked for slightly more,
Hunt would accept it and ink
the deal on the spot. But if the
landowner demanded an un-
reasonable price, Hunt would
demur, head for the nearest
telephone, and call up Pacific
Great Western’s lawyer, Fred-
erick DeNeffe. DeNeffe would
write out a condemnation
order on the spot — he actu-
ally had a stack of form letters
printed up so that all he’d have
to do was fill in a few blanks
— and file it with the Lane
County clerk the same day.
Soon the Siuslaw River canyon
was covered with condemna-
tion actions.
This was the point at which
the newspapers stopped refer-
ring to the Pacific Great Western
as “the shoe-string railway” and
started calling it “the mysterious
railway.” Obviously, there was
money behind it. But whose?
for Eugene at about the same
time. Hunt arrived at 3 a.m. the
following morning, on horse-
back in a driving rain; and by
the time he’d gotten his oilskins
off, a company meeting was in
session, and the company offi-
cially adopted its right of way.
Two days later, Willamette
Pacific’s engineer arrived at
the Southern Pacific offices in
Portland, and a similar scene
was enacted.
Mystery revealed
For a little while, the syndi-
cate managed to ride the “mys-
tery” tiger very successfully.
Harriman’s Southern Pacific
assumed they were backed by
Hill’s Great Northern, and vice-
versa, and although both com-
panies issued vigorous denials,
nobody believed either one of
them.
But then the cat was let out
of the bag by none other than
Sir Robert Perks himself. Sir
Robert, at supper with a New
York banker friend, got a little
carried away and, after swear-
ing his soon-to-be ex-friend to
secrecy, took him into his con-
fidence. The banker betrayed
him almost the first instant
he was alone in a room with a
telephone. And suddenly the
Harriman group was wise.
Promptly Harriman’s South-
ern Pacific bought out a local
logging railroad with opera-
tions in the Siuslaw River area,
the Willamette Pacific Railway
Company, which immediately
announced plans to build a line
from Eugene to Coos Bay.
What followed was more
or less the railroad equivalent
of a race to the patent office.
Whichever company filed its
line adoption first would have
precedence. Willamette Pacif-
ic’s survey crews platted a route
that zigzagged back and forth
across the canyon, such that if
they filed their line adoption
first, there would literally be no
corridor for a competing line. If
they made it first, it was game-
over for Pacific Great Western.
And if Pacific Great Western
made it first, it was game-over
for Willamette Pacific. With-
out access to the tunnel site
at Noti, they wouldn’t be able
to reach Florence either. And
since Sumner had bought the
land around the tunnel site,
the only way they’d get that ac-
cess would be a condemnation
proceeding, which they would
only win if their line adoption
was recorded first.
Hunt’s final survey was fin-
ished at nearly the exact same
time as Willamette Pacific’s,
and both engineers headed
Race to the finish
The Twohy Brothers took
one look at these preparations
and went back to Eugene to
consult with SP. SP promptly
filed a condemnation com-
plaint against its rival, seeking
to force PGW to provide them
access for their railroad line.
And that is how the whole
affair ended up in court, rela-
tively early in the game.
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It wasn’t in court for long.
Hunt, it turned out, had not
frozen half to death racing
back to Eugene for nothing.
Pacific Great Western had won
the race; its line adoption had
come two days before South-
ern Pacific’s.
(Sources: “The Mysterious
Shoe-String Railroad,” an article
by Frederick M. DeNeffe pub-
lished in the September 1956
issue of Oregon Historical Quar-
terly; “Eugene-Coos Bay Rails
Pushed in 1911-1916 Battle with
S.P.,” an article by Dewey Ray
published in the Aug. 25, 1957,
issue of The Portland Oregonian)
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