HISTORY OF ASTORIA RAILROAD 227
may be added that Columbia River history thus far has vin- dicated his idea that ocean ships will sail as far inland as pos- sible, regardless of seaward railroads paralleling the river channel.
Villard did more than "neglect" the Astoria railroad. His headship of the Oregon & California (Portland^-Roseburg and Portland-McMinnville lines) which Holladay relinquished to him, required him to resist a Huntington project for con- nections with the Central Pacific at Reno or Winnemucca via Pengra Pass, Eugene, the "narrow gauge" "Scotch" road of William Reid's to Astoria this in 1881. Villard throttled this project in May, 1881, by leasing the narrow gauge road from its owners in Dundee, Scotland, through secret negotiations carried on by J. B. Montgomery, at the very time that William Reid was trying to effect a lease with Collis P. Huntington, head of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific. At this time, Huntington had no road in Oregon, and was evidently looking for an entrance into this state. Villard held the Oregon and California Railroad East Side and West Side lines in alliance with the O. R. & N. and Northern Pacific. Hunting- ton was understood to be projecting a narrow gauge road north from Reno, on the Central Pacific, to Goose Lake, in Oregon, with probable further extension, via Pengra Pass to Eugene, Portland and Astoria. Naturally, this project would unite with the narrow gauge lines which Reid was building, Port- land- Airlie (West Side) and Portland-Coburg (East Side), and which were giving Villard anxiety. This narrow gauge in Oregon had been started in 1878 by Joseph Gaston, who built it between Dayton and Sheridan, with a branch to Dallas. The Astorians had in mind to connect with this Gaston road and push it forward to connect with the Central Pacific at Winnemucca, for which they incorporated, May 8, 1879, the Astoria and Winnemucca Railroad, pursuing their earlier pro- ject of 1870. The Oregon Legislature offered in 1874, for the Winnemucca-Columbia river line (via Goose Lake, Sprague River, Middle Fork of Willamette River, Springfield and Portland) free right of way through all State lands (Act of
