The independent., August 01, 2002, Page 3, Image 3

The INDEPENDENT, August 1, 2002
Page 3
Letters to the Editor
Former resident tells
right-of-way history
To the Editor:
I lived in Vernonia during the
depression years from 1932
until 1937 and I look forward to
receiving each issue of The In­
dependent.
I was attracted to your piece
entitled “Bike Trip Saturday on
Proposed
Linear T rail.” I
thought there might be some
interest in the history of the rail­
road featured in that article.
Fred and Simcoe Chapman
envisioned a railroad extending
from Scappoose into the Ne­
halem Valley. In 1906, they be­
gan construction of such a line
from the Scappoose end. By
1910, they had laid tracks for
13.5 miles. Here, they encoun­
tered a ridge separating the
Columbia River drainage from
the Nehalem River Valley. Un­
able to finance the required
tunnel, they sold their railroad
and right-of-way to Henry Tur-
rish, a Minnesota lumberman,
who began tunnel construction.
However, in 1911, there was an
economic downturn and con­
struction was stopped. In 1913,
excavation resumed. Porter
Brothers were given a contract
to complete the tunnel. The
bore was lined with a million
feet of fine grained Douglas Fir
1 2 x 1 2 timbers constructed in
a Roman arch configuration. In
1920, the railroad from Scap­
poose to Nehalem Timber and
Logging Company’s camp, lo­
cated five miles east of Vernon­
ia, was completed.
In 1926, Clark and Wilson
Lumber Company entered into
negotiations with A.W. Keith
from W ashington State and
Henry Turrish to merge their
ownerships. To connect Clark
and Wilson operations head­
quartered at Wilark, near Tren-
holm, with the Vernonia camp,
required construction of nine­
teen miles of railroad. Moving
of their headquarters for the
joint operations to the Vernonia
camp, which was re-named
“Camp 8", was completed in
1930. (Many old timers referred
to those facilities as “ New
Wilark”)
During the height of Clark
and W ilson’s operation from
Camp 8, they produced a mil­
lion board feet of logs daily.
This operation was serviced
with 200 miles of railroad using
four gear type locomotives,
similar to the Shay on display in
Vernonia. The woods fleet also
included one saddle tank and
one side tank locomotive. Two
rod engines operating under
the banner of the Portland and
Southwestern Railroad Compa­
ny were charged with pulling
five twenty-car trains to the
Scappoose log dump daily. Be­
cause the line used disconnect­
ed log trucks, pulling more than
ten loads up hill posed the
problem of jerking logs from the
bunks. During tunnel excava­
tion, a grade break developed
in the middle of the tunnel
which could cause load separa­
tion. To accom m odate this
Between the Bookends
By Ann Krutsinger, Library Assistant
Banks Public Library
Cure the mid-summer doldrums with a good
book!
The library will begin accepting completed
reading records for the summer reading pro­
gram, “ Don’t Bug Me I’m Reading," starting Au­
gust 1. Also on the first, at 2:00 p.m., Omar Var­
gas will perform a program in pantomime. The
following week, on August 8th, OMSI is bringing
a program titled “Six-Legged Science” to the
Banks Library. The library has scheduled two
separate sessions of thirty participants each.
“Bug Me” will be held from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. and
is geared for children from kindergarten through
third grade. “ Inside Insects,” to be held from 2:00
to 3:00 p.m., is a program for children in 4th-6th
grades. Please call the library to pre-register!
Each week, readers also have the opportunity to
enter a drawing for a gift certificate to one of our
local booksellers. Ask us how you can join the
fun.
The Friends of the Banks Public Library keep
our library stocked with "hot” new titles monthly.
One of the newest arrivals is Courting Trouble,
by Lisa Scottoline. This is a fast-paced thriller
about a young female attorney trying to find out
who is trying to kill her after she sees a photo of
herself in a Philadelphia newspaper under a
headline reading “Lawyer Murdered.” The main
character, Anne Murphy, sets out to find her killer
by playing dead in order to stay alive.
Recycle Saturday, sponsored by the Friends
of the Banks Library, is held from 9:00 a m. to
3:00 p.m. on the second Saturday of each month
at the solid waste transfer station on Sellers
Road.
Library patrons with Internet access can
browse the library’s resources by clicking on
www.WILInet.wccls.lib.or.us. Materials may also
be reserved electronically.
Banks Public Library: 111 Market Street.
Hours: Tues., Wed., Thurs., 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.;
Fri. and Sat. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Preschool Story Time: Wednesdays, 10:15
a.m., when school is in session.
Phone: (503 ) 324-1382
Internet: www.WILInet.wccls.lib.or.us.
Bn Says^.._ _ _ _ _ _ _
From page 2
parking lot and boat launch. Montana, in its great
wisdom, declared all of its streams that are nav­
igable, and secured them for the public to use
forever. The second thing was that access points
to the National Forests were also pointed out by
signs. It was evident that many of these access
points crossed over private land. This is an area
where Oregon is very remiss. In fact, in Oregon,
there are many National Forest access roads
that are either hidden away or blocked by private
landowners. We need to follow Montana’s lead
on both of these issues.
Back here at home, the last time I looked at
the stream levels, they were near the historic
mean for this time of year. This is good news, an
indication that ground water output, in the form
of springs, is back to normal. Maybe the wet win­
ter last year really did some good.
Izaak Walton League
Nehalem Valley Chapter meetings are on
the third Thursday of each month at 7:00
p.m. The public is welcome.
For meeting location, call (503) 429-7193.
problem, sidings were built at
each end of the tunnel and
loads were transferred from the
Camp 8 assembly yard to these
sidings using the saddle and
side tank locomotives. Each of
the two mainline locomotives
would leave Camp 8 with ten
loads of their first trip to the
dump, then switch ten more
from the siding at the tunnel
and proceed to Scappoose. On
subsequent trips during the
day, all twenty loads were col­
lected at the tunnel sidings.
One of these engines would
make three round trips and the
other made two each day.
Much of the success of this
operation can be credited to
Frank Baker, the Logging Su­
perintendent, and Charles O.
Marston, the Logging Engineer.
Baker worked for Clark and
Wilson until 1947, when they
went out of business and sold
their properties to Crown
Zellerbach. Marston quit the
company and went to work for
Weyerhaeuser.
Crown Zellerbach converted
the railroad mainline to a haul
road. They also rehabilitated
many old woods railroad
grades into a road system to
service the properties which
Crown renam ed the Stamm
Tree Farm. Glen Hawkins fol­
lowed Marston as engineer and
stayed on with Crown as tree
farm manager until his retire­
ment.
Sincerely,
Larry M. Christiansen
Corvalli
Initiative could have
devastating results
To the Editor:
Think twice before support­
ing “Parental Consent for Pub­
lic Services” Initiative.
In last Sunday’s Oregonian,
a UN official called AIDS the
most devastating epidemic the
world has ever known, sur­
passing the plague of the me­
dieval world.
This disease is decimating
the population of many nations,
primarily because their young,
sexually active, citizens are un­
informed about the cause of the
disease and ways to protect
themselves from contracting it.
Reading this, I thought about
the Constitution Party here in
C olum bia County, and the
Parental C onsent initiative
they’re asking us to vote for in
November.
The
C onstitution
Party
claims that a vote for this initia­
tive is a vote for protection of
our children. I believe this initia­
tive, and others like it, spon­
sored by the Constitution Party
in rural counties around Ore­
gon, could have just the oppo­
site effect. This initiative could
be responsible for denying in­
formation and guidance to our
children at the very time in their
lives when they are most in
need of that kind of protec­
tio n — and most reluctant to
seek it from their parents. It
could result in exposing our
children not only to the dangers
associated with youthful preg­
nancies and the dislocated
lives that result from unwanted
births-but also to the horror of
incurable disease.
The UN official quoted in the
O regonian said that “some
strategies do seem to h e lp -
strategies aimed at young peo­
ple, at providing some basic
health care infrastructure...”
Given what we know about
the behavior of young people, I
can’t imagine a more foolish or
destructive action than dis­
abling the very program that
could keep the nightmare of
this pandemic from the gates of
our cities and the precious lives
of our children.
Madelynne Sheehan
Scappoose
Opposition to ballot
measure is wrong
To the Editor:
In recent weeks, we have
seen an increase in misinfor­
mation by those opposed to our
right of choice, the right of Co­
lumbia County Citizens to Vote.
The intent of the family in­
tegrity initiative is not to shut
down free medical services like
public health, which are so im­
portant to all of Colum bia
County, or to stop adults from
receiving services of any kind.
It w on’t. And it certainly won't
stop a child from receiving
emergency services. The initia­
tive itself says so.
It will give parents back the
right to parent, and isn't that
what we all want? The anti­
drug, drug is parental involve­
ment, according to the Partner­
ship for a Drug Free America.
Every American President has
endorsed parental consent, to
date.
Most north Columbia County
citizens don’t even know about
Columbia County public health’s
Please see page 12